Showpad

Frank  Cespedes

Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2017

Showpad

Abstract

Showpad is a startup that provides a sales enablement platform and tools. The venture has grown 100% annually since its founding four years ago, and the founders are evaluating growth options and decisions in three areas: adding product features, possible pricing changes, and changes in sales processes. Teaching objectives include a) to examine the interactions of product, price, and sales in an early-stage venture; b) to analyze a sales conversion funnel and the implications; and c) to illustrate some representative examples of the impact of new technologies on sales activities and the interactions between Sales and other functions such as Marketing. Teaching Note for HBS No. 817-006.

Keywords: Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Sales;

Language: English

Format: Print

14 pages

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Citation:

Cespedes, Frank. "Showpad." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 817-121, March 2017.

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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.

Most research and training in sales focus on acquiring new customers. But winning back previous customers is increasingly important: mergers, choice in supply chains, and uncertainty about trade wars mean that B2B customers are constantly re-evaluating relationships with suppliers and making changes. Meanwhile, large buyers account, on average, for over 25% of revenues at publicly traded firms, up from 10% in the 1980s. This article discusses how and why the process for reacquiring lost customers requires a different approach than acquiring new ones and illustrates the process and its implications via a case example.

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