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Publications
  • 2021
  • Book

Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing

By: Frank V. Cespedes
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

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 market, fall victim to those who do understand cause-and-effect links between buying and selling. This book helps managers and investors distinguish signal from noise in five key areas: People (hiring, training, and performance management), Process (constructing and reconstructing a coherent sales model), Pricing (and price testing in information-rich markets), Partners (crafting a multi-channel response to omni-channel buying behavior), and Productivity (why, in services-oriented economies, sales productivity is about social impact as well as enterprise value).

Keywords

Sales; Strategy; Salesforce Management; Change; Adaptation

Citation

Cespedes, Frank V. Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2021.
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More from the Author

    • June 2025
    • Faculty Research

    TagHive: Edtech Pricing and Distributor Decisions

    By: Isamar Troncoso, Frank V. Cespedes and Stacy Straaberg
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    Getting Value from Digital Technologies

    By: Frank Cespedes and Georg Krentzel
    • March 27, 2025
    • Harvard Business Review (website)

    How One Company Used AI to Broaden Its Customer Base

    By: Sunil Gupta and Frank V. Cespedes
More from the Author
  • TagHive: Edtech Pricing and Distributor Decisions By: Isamar Troncoso, Frank V. Cespedes and Stacy Straaberg
  • Getting Value from Digital Technologies By: Frank Cespedes and Georg Krentzel
  • How One Company Used AI to Broaden Its Customer Base By: Sunil Gupta and Frank V. Cespedes
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