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- December 16, 2021
- Article
Avoid a One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Sales Coaching
Coaching sales reps is about clarifying relevant behaviors and whether the issue is motivation or ability. Some reps may work hard, but lack certain capabilities while others demonstrate capability but seemingly lack motivation or effort. Good coaching helps to clarify...
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Cespedes, Frank V. "Avoid a One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Sales Coaching." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (December 16, 2021).
- November 2021
- Article
The Comprehensive Effects of Sales Force Management: A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Selection, Compensation, and Training
By: Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim and Byoung G. Park
This study provides a comprehensive model of an agent’s behavior in response to multiple sales management instruments, including compensation, recruiting/termination, and training. The model on agents’ behavior takes into account many of the key elements that...
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Keywords:
Salesforce Management;
Recruitment;
Selection and Staffing;
Compensation and Benefits;
Resignation and Termination;
Training;
Behavior;
Analysis
Chung, Doug J., Byungyeon Kim, and Byoung G. Park. "The Comprehensive Effects of Sales Force Management: A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Selection, Compensation, and Training." Management Science 67, no. 11 (November 2021): 7046–7074.
- July 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Mary Kay Inc.: Enriching Women's Lives while Embracing Change
By: Elie Ofek, K. Shelette Stewart and Julia Kelley
In December 2020, Mary Kay Inc. Chief Marketing Officer Sheryl Adkins-Green considered several strategic dilemmas. Founded in 1963 by Mary Kay Ash, Mary Kay was a direct sales company whose Independent Beauty Consultants purchased its beauty and cosmetics products at...
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Keywords:
Advertising Campaigns;
Demographics;
Marketing;
Brands and Branding;
Marketing Channels;
Marketing Communications;
Marketing Strategy;
Product Marketing;
Product Positioning;
Social Marketing;
Salesforce Management;
Organizations;
Mission and Purpose;
Organizational Change and Adaptation;
Innovation and Invention;
Innovation Strategy;
Competition;
Competitive Strategy;
Competitive Advantage;
Beauty and Cosmetics Industry;
North and Central America;
United States;
Europe;
Asia;
Texas
Ofek, Elie, K. Shelette Stewart, and Julia Kelley. "Mary Kay Inc.: Enriching Women's Lives while Embracing Change." Harvard Business School Case 522-004, July 2021. (Revised February 2022.)
- 2021
- Chapter
Digital Transformation and the Salesforce: Observations, Warnings, and Recommendations
Sales is a crucial test for organizational change, including productive use (or not) of new technologies. Changes in selling always have wider organizational implications, because so many other decisions and resource commitments in firms depend upon demand forecasts...
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Keywords:
Sales;
Salesforce Management;
Organizational Change and Adaptation;
Digital Transformation
Cespedes, Frank V. "Digital Transformation and the Salesforce: Observations, Warnings, and Recommendations." In Managing Digital Transformation: Understanding the Strategic Process, edited by Andreas Hinterhuber, Tiziano Vescovi, and Francesca Checchinato. Routledge, 2021.
- Article
How to Shift from Selling Products to Selling Services
By: Doug J. Chung
Only a few years ago, most software companies sold seat licenses for their products, charging customers on the basis of head count. But today, software is typically provided using cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) models that charge customers fees for...
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Keywords:
SaaS Business Models;
Sales;
Management;
Business Model;
Salesforce Management;
Applications and Software;
Customer Relationship Management
Chung, Doug J. "How to Shift from Selling Products to Selling Services." Harvard Business Review 99, no. 2 (March–April 2021): 48–52.
- April 2021
- Article
The Effects of Quota Frequency: Sales Performance and Product Focus
By: Doug J. Chung, Das Narayandas and Dongkyu Chang
This study investigates the comprehensive and multidimensional effects of quota (goal) frequency on sales force performance. We develop a theory of salespeople’s behavior—aggregate effort and the product type focus—in response to the temporal length of a sales-quota...
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Keywords:
Sales Force Compensation;
Field Experiment;
Quotas;
Quota Frequency;
Commissions;
Bonuses;
Goals;
Salesforce Management;
Compensation and Benefits;
Goals and Objectives;
Behavior;
Performance
Chung, Doug J., Das Narayandas, and Dongkyu Chang. "The Effects of Quota Frequency: Sales Performance and Product Focus." Management Science 67, no. 4 (April 2021): 2151–2170.
- February 2021
- Case
Yellow Digital Retailers: Providing Solar Electricity to Transform Rural Africa
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Frank V. Cespedes and Michael Norris
In 2020, Mike Heyink and Maya Stewart, co-founders of the Pay-as-you-Go Solar company Yellow were considering how to grow their startup. They had achieved some success in their first market, Malawi, and had recently entered Uganda, where business was slower. What did...
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Keywords:
Solar Energy;
Business Model;
Business Startups;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Alternative Energy;
Renewable Energy;
Social Entrepreneurship;
Green Technology;
Salesforce Management;
Diversification;
Expansion;
Energy Industry;
Africa;
South Africa;
Malawi;
Uganda
Applegate, Lynda M., Frank V. Cespedes, and Michael Norris. "Yellow Digital Retailers: Providing Solar Electricity to Transform Rural Africa." Harvard Business School Case 821-041, February 2021.
- 2021
- Book
Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing
Selling is changing, but the impact on sales of megatrends like ecommerce, big data, and AI is often misunderstood and not supported by empirical data. Managers who fail to separate fact from hype will make decisions based on bad assumptions and, in a competitive...
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Cespedes, Frank V. Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2021.
- January 2021
- Article
Sales Hiring Is Hard to Do (Don't Make It Harder)
In the aggregate, hiring in sales is more expensive than many companies’ cap-ex decisions. But it rarely gets the same attention and companies fail to deal with challenges inherent in sales hiring. Unlike many other business functions, there is no easily identified...
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Cespedes, Frank V. "Sales Hiring Is Hard to Do (Don't Make It Harder)." Top Sales Magazine (January 2021), 38–39.
- Article
How Long Can a Company Thrive Doing Just One Thing?
By: Andy Wu and Scott Duke Kominers
The news that the chat app Slack was being sold to veteran customer relationship management company Salesforce for $27.7 billion raised a lot of eyebrows. Why sell after a year of explosive growth? The deal, however, epitomizes a question facing so-called best-of-breed...
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Wu, Andy, and Scott Duke Kominers. "How Long Can a Company Thrive Doing Just One Thing?" Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (December 10, 2020).
- 2020
- Article
A Practical Approach to Sales Compensation: What Do We Know Now? What Should We Know in the Future?
By: Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim and Niladri B. Syam
Personal selling represents one of the most important elements in the marketing mix, and appropriate management of the sales force is vital to achieving the organization’s objectives. Among the various instruments of sales management, compensation plays a pivotal role...
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Keywords:
Sales Compensation;
Sales Management;
Sales Strategy;
Principal-agent Theory;
Structural Econometrics;
Field Experiments;
Machine Learning;
Artificial Intelligence;
Salesforce Management;
Compensation and Benefits;
Motivation and Incentives;
AI and Machine Learning
Chung, Doug J., Byungyeon Kim, and Niladri B. Syam. "A Practical Approach to Sales Compensation: What Do We Know Now? What Should We Know in the Future?" Foundations and Trends® in Marketing 14, no. 1 (2020): 1–52.
- May 2020
- Teaching Note
Chem-Ecol
By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld
Dahra Allen acquired Chem-Ecol, a machine oil recycling business, for C$13.3 million in December of 2012. Allen decided to hire a sales director and the case discussion largely focuses on selecting the sales director from her short-list of five candidates. During the...
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- March 2020 (Revised October 2020)
- Module Note
Sales Force Compensation
By: Doug J. Chung
The author developed this note for scholars, educators, and practitioners that are interested in sales force compensation. It is based on the author’s investigations across a variety of organizations in multiple industries and provides a conceptual framework for the...
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Keywords:
Sales Strategy;
Sales Force Management;
Sales Compensation;
Salary;
Commissions;
Bonuses;
Quota Setting/updating;
Quota Frequency;
Extrinsic Vs Intrinsic Motivation;
Salesforce Management;
Compensation and Benefits;
Strategy
Chung, Doug J. "Sales Force Compensation." Harvard Business School Module Note 520-084, March 2020. (Revised October 2020.)
- February 2020
- Case
Drift: The First Sales Hire
By: Mark Roberge
David Cancel and Elias Torres, the co-founders of Drift, scaled their business to thousands of users and hundreds of thousands in revenue. However, they were falling short of the annual revenue target they communicated to the board of directors. Having scaled the...
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Roberge, Mark. "Drift: The First Sales Hire." Harvard Business School Case 820-103, February 2020.
- July 2019 (Revised March 2020)
- Case
At-Bay Cyber Insurance
By: Marco Di Maggio and David Lane
At-Bay was a cyber insurance startup that offered companies coverage against a wide array of cyber risks—exposure to which the firm was able to quickly assess and price on the basis of technical expertise that traditional insurance carriers lacked. In mid-2019, At-Bay...
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Keywords:
Business Startups;
Insurance;
Disruptive Innovation;
Risk Management;
Product Marketing;
Distribution Channels;
Information Technology;
Salesforce Management;
Insurance Industry
Di Maggio, Marco, and David Lane. "At-Bay Cyber Insurance." Harvard Business School Case 220-005, July 2019. (Revised March 2020.)
- July 9, 2019
- Article
Setting Better Sales Goals with Analytics
By: Doug J. Chung, Isabel Huber, Vinay Murthy, Varun Sunku and Marije Weber
Sales compensation is a critical lever in motivating a salesforce and driving growth in the business-to-business sector: Studies show that revising compensation in line with market trends can have a 50% greater impact on sales than advertisements have, for instance. A...
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Keywords:
Analytics;
Salesforce Management;
Compensation and Benefits;
Motivation and Incentives;
Goals and Objectives
Chung, Doug J., Isabel Huber, Vinay Murthy, Varun Sunku, and Marije Weber. "Setting Better Sales Goals with Analytics." Harvard Business Review (website) (July 9, 2019).
- May 2019
- Supplement
Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (C)
By: Doug J. Chung
Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company’s products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair “one-for-all” HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated...
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Keywords:
Salesforce Management;
Compensation and Benefits;
Change Management;
Behavior;
Electronics Industry;
Sweden
Chung, Doug J. "Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (C)." Harvard Business School Supplement 519-095, May 2019.
- May 2019
- Supplement
Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (D)
By: Doug J. Chung
Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company’s products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair “one-for-all” HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated...
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Keywords:
Salesforce Management;
Compensation and Benefits;
Motivation and Incentives;
Change Management;
Behavior;
Electronics Industry;
Sweden
Chung, Doug J. "Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (D)." Harvard Business School Supplement 519-096, May 2019.
- April 2019 (Revised January 2022)
- Case
Clear Link Technologies, LLC: Driving Sales with Peer Effects
By: Christopher Stanton, Richard Saouma and Olivia Hull
The importance of a good peer or coworker is widely discussed, but understanding the glue that makes coworkers valuable is less understood. This case sheds light on the importance of peers and the practices and environments that make a group greater than the sum of its...
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Keywords:
Talent and Talent Management;
Interactive Communication;
Experience and Expertise;
Decision Making;
Training;
Design;
Compensation and Benefits;
Knowledge Acquisition;
Knowledge Sharing;
Human Capital;
Working Conditions;
Measurement and Metrics;
Outcome or Result;
Performance;
Performance Improvement;
Research;
Sales;
Salesforce Management;
Motivation and Incentives;
Telecommunications Industry;
Utah;
United States
Stanton, Christopher, Richard Saouma, and Olivia Hull. "Clear Link Technologies, LLC: Driving Sales with Peer Effects." Harvard Business School Case 819-072, April 2019. (Revised January 2022.)
- February 2019 (Revised July 2019)
- Case
Sales Force Management at Nobel Ilac
By: Doug J. Chung and Gamze Yucaoglu
Nobel Ilac was a Turkish generic pharmaceutical company marketing more than 100 drugs in 20 countries and, as of 2017, had over 2,500 employees worldwide. Nobel had implemented a transformation strategy—more specifically, a customer segmentation plan—whereby the sales...
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Keywords:
Sales Strategy;
Compensation;
Employee Retention;
Recruiting;
Pharmaceuticals;
Salesforce Management;
Strategy;
Organizational Design;
Human Resources;
Compensation and Benefits;
Employees;
Retention;
Recruitment;
Pharmaceutical Industry;
Turkey
Chung, Doug J., and Gamze Yucaoglu. "Sales Force Management at Nobel Ilac." Harvard Business School Case 519-067, February 2019. (Revised July 2019.)