Zach Selch reviews Riveting Reports by Bruce Ross Larsen, arguing that a strong SOP for sales reports preserves institutional memory and saves time. He used one SOP for a decade before adopting Larsen's principles to improve his team's structure.
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Hi, I'm in DMK Airport. It's the smaller of the 2 airports in Bangkok. I usually end up here when I'm going to places like Myanmar, Cambodia, and I want to talk today about a book called Riveting Reports by Bruce Ross Larsen. I think the name is probably the silliest part of the book, but I'm guessing you have to come up with a reasonably interesting name to sell a book on writing reports, 'cause who the hell wants to think about writing reports, right? But we all have to write reports, and we all have to read reports. As a sales manager, I'm constantly writing reports, I'm constantly reading reports, and I want those reports to be well-written, but to me, more importantly, I want them to have a standard structure, because I want the institutional memory inside my team to be easy— easily accessible. I don't want to waste time looking for information inside a report, and I don't want anybody else wasting time looking for information. Inside a report. So I want to come out with a standard system. I was lucky enough in my first job, I had a boss who had a really good standard operating procedure for reporting. I learned how to write reports the way he wanted. I wrote them that way for maybe 10 years, and then later on I went looking for a different way because I thought, well, maybe I should look into finding a better way. And I looked at 4 or 5 different books on reports. Riveting Reports by Bruce Ross Larsen was the best book that I found on writing reports for business. And I've taken that and I've sort of utilized that to come up with an SOP for my team, which has shifted over the years. I've changed it. Things change. But I think it's very important to have an SOP, a standard operating procedure for your team for writing reports. And Riveting Reports by Bruce Scott Larsen is a good way to start. You can get it on Amazon. Reporting shouldn't take up too much of your time. too much of your interest, it shouldn't be so important to you, but you need it, right? Think about your board needs to read your reports. People in the future are going to read your reports. You need to know what's going on with your sales staff and with other people. So as long as reporting is interesting— as long as reporting is important, you're going to need to be able to write reports. You're going to need to have good reports, and having a good standard operating procedure for a report is a good way to go. And This is a pretty good book to figure out how you want to structure that SOP. Remember, when you're ready to grow your international sales, reach out to us. We can help. When you decide it's time to grow your international sales, call us.
