More from these Authors

• Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2019

  Rand Fishkin at Moz (B)

  Thomas R. Eisenmann

  In 2016, senior management at Moz, a venture capital-backed startup providing software tools for digital marketing professionals, must decide how to address a looming cash flow crisis precipitated by failed efforts to broaden its product line. Seattle-based Moz had originally focused only on search engine optimization (SEO) software. Aiming to accelerate growth, over the past three years the startup had launched products targeted at content marketers, social media marketers, and small local businesses. Adoption of these new products had been disappointing, and the resource drain and distraction of launching them had reduced the growth of Moz's core SEO product. Management was wrestling with whether to either: 1) shut down or sell the new products; or 2) double down on the new products, funding further investment in them by selling the core SEO business or milking it as a "cash cow."

  Keywords: Startups; scaling; Entrepreneurship; Failure; Business Startups; Diversification; Growth Management;

  Citation:

  Eisenmann, Thomas R. "Rand Fishkin at Moz (B)." Harvard Business School Case 820-003, August 2019.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2019

  Rand Fishkin at Moz (C)

  Thomas R. Eisenmann

  In 2016, senior management at Moz, a venture capital-backed startup providing software tools for digital marketing professionals, must decide how to address a looming cash flow crisis precipitated by failed efforts to broaden its product line. Seattle-based Moz had originally focused only on search engine optimization (SEO) software. Aiming to accelerate growth, over the past three years the startup had launched products targeted at content marketers, social media marketers, and small local businesses. Adoption of these new products had been disappointing, and the resource drain and distraction of launching them had reduced the growth of Moz's core SEO product. Management was wrestling with whether to either: 1) shut down or sell the new products; or 2) double down on the new products, funding further investment in them by selling the core SEO business or milking it as a "cash cow."

  Keywords: Startups; scaling; Entrepreneurship; Failure; Business Startups; Diversification; Growth Management;

  Citation:

  Eisenmann, Thomas R. "Rand Fishkin at Moz (C)." Harvard Business School Case 820-004, August 2019.  View Details

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• Article | Harvard Business Review (website)

  Why ‘Tell Them Something They Don't Know’ Is Bad Advice in B2B Sales

  Frank V. Cespedes and Tracy DeCicco

  Common advice in sales is to provide insights to customers during sales calls. But this advice generally stays at the level of “tell people something they don’t already know” and results in sales conversations littered with many irrelevant factoids. This article provides examples of how salespeople develop and deliver resonant insights in customer conversations and why the framing of insights depends upon to whom they are talking and when in the sales cycle.

  Keywords: Sales; Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy;

  Citation:

  Cespedes, Frank V., and Tracy DeCicco. "Why ‘Tell Them Something They Don't Know’ Is Bad Advice in B2B Sales." Harvard Business Review (website) (August 19, 2019).  View Details

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