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The Sales Acceleration Formula - A Book about Using Systems to Grow Sales

Sales Acceleration Formula Book Review

Book Description:

The Sales Acceleration Formula provides a scalable, predictable approach to growing revenue and building a winning sales team. Everyone wants to build the next $100 million business and author Mark Roberge has actually done it using a unique methodology that he shares with his readers. As an MIT alum with an engineering background, Roberge challenged the conventional methods of scaling sales utilizing the metrics-driven, process-oriented lens through which he was trained to see the world. In this book, he reveals his formulas for success. Readers will learn how to apply data, technology, and inbound selling to every aspect of accelerating sales, including hiring, training, managing, and generating demand.

As SVP of Worldwide Sales and Services for software company HubSpot, Mark led hundreds of his employees to the acquisition and retention of the company's first 10,000 customers across more than 60 countries. This book outlines his approach and provides an action plan for others to replicate his success, including the following key elements:

Hire the same successful salesperson every time — The Sales Hiring Formula

Train every salesperson in the same manner — The Sales Training Formula

Hold salespeople accountable to the same sales process — The Sales Management Formula

Provide salespeople with the same quality and quantity of leads every month — The Demand Generation Formula

Leverage technology to enable better buying for customers and faster selling for salespeople

Business owners, sales executives, and investors are all looking to turn their brilliant ideas into the next $100 million revenue business. Often, the biggest challenge they face is the task of scaling sales. They crave a blueprint for success, but fail to find it because sales has traditionally been referred to as an art form, rather than a science. You can't major in sales in college. Many people question whether sales can even be taught. Executives and entrepreneurs are often left feeling helpless and hopeless.

The Sales Acceleration Formula completely alters this paradigm. In today's digital world, in which every action is logged and masses of data sit at our fingertips, building a sales team no longer needs to be an art form. There is a process. Sales can be predictable.

A formula does exist.

My Top Takeaways:

  • It's possible to make sales hiring and training reliable and consistent. Here's how:
    • Define characteristics of what it takes to be successful in this particular sales role.
    • Develop a matrix to measure candidates against those characteristics. Here's an example of the matrix we created for our own company (Kennected).


      • Design a final test at the end of training that includes both a written and roleplay section. The roleplay assessment needs to be conducted by a high performer in sales and not the person leading the training. If the test does not accurately forecast which reps will be successful then the test needs to change.
      • Continually update the Characteristic Matrix to reflect real-world performance.
    • Good salespeople aren't typically on job boards because they're busy being successful somewhere else. Using LinkedIn to find your next hire is far more reliable, especially if you look through connections of existing employees who can make direct introductions.
      • Search - Connect - Message - Email - Call
      • During the interview process, you can test coachability by running a roleplay, providing feedback, and then running the roleplay again to see if they make the suggested changes.
    • Sales training should not start with company history, product knowledge, or sales techniques. It needs to start with the most important segment: The Buyer Journey.
    • Sales coaching is the #1 driver of sales performance. Coaching must be metric-driven and should only focus on one topic at a time. Sales managers should have a coaching plan for each of their people that they update on a monthly basis.
    • Compensation plans are the #1 driver of sales results. They need to be simple, aligned with company goals, and should provide salespeople with immediate pleasure or pain on their paychecks reflecting their performance.
    • Sales managers should NOT carry a personal sales quota.
    • Consistent quality content leads to consistent quality leads which will result in consistent sales. Content marketing is far more important than advertising in today's market.
    • Sales and marketing departments should not be competing against each other. One of the best ways to ensure a good relationship between sales and marketing is a shared SLA (Service-Level Agreement) that includes how many leads will be provided by the marketing department along with how the leads will be handled by the sales team.
      • An example - 120 sales qualified leads will be provided each week from marketing and sales will contact each lead within an hour. If contact is not made the salesperson will attempt at least eight more times within 30 days.

    'The 52 Book' Review Rating:



    Final Thoughts:

    The Sales Acceleration Formula was a game-changer for our company (Kennected). Immediately after I finished the first chapter I ordered two additional copies for our COO and CEO to read along with me. After the three of us finished and compared notes we ordered even more copies and assigned specific chapters to our entire marketing team, the VP of Sales, Sales Managers, and several members of our operations team.

    Because of this book, we have made changes to our sales recruitment, sales hiring and training, marketing strategy, management style, CRM dashboards and reports, and even some of our goals. These are significant changes for a company our size, around 100 employees, and one that has already been featured on the Inc 5000 as the 583rd fastest-growing company in America. We're confident that these changes, along with product upgrades and other process improvements, will help us continue leading from the front and accelerate our growth even more (pun intended).

    If you lead a company, sales team, or marketing team I strongly recommend picking this book up and quickly sharing it with other levels of leadership. It's packed with actionable steps to grow sales through improved systems and technology.

    Do you love learning and want to hear about future books?

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    Have you read The Sales Acceleration Formula, and if so, what are your thoughts? 

    Also, I am always on the prowl for my next great book. What life-changing books have you read recently? I'm excited to see your comments below.


    You can reach out to David Inman at: david@kennected.io 
    You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at: 
    Location: Indianapolis, IN, USA

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