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    • Faculty Publications  (301)

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    • All HBS Web  (104,632)
      • Faculty Publications  (301)

      Cespedes, Frank V. Remove Cespedes, Frank V. →

      Page 1 of 301 Results →
      • February 15, 2022
      • Article

      How Managers Can Build a Culture of Experimentation

      By: Frank V. Cespedes and Neil Hoyne
      Testing in business presents qualitatively different challenges than those in clinical trials and most scientific research. There are very few opportunities for randomized control experiments in a changing, competitive market. Yet, change and competition make testing a...  View Details
      Keywords: Experimentation; Management; Decision Making
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      Cespedes, Frank V., and Neil Hoyne. "How Managers Can Build a Culture of Experimentation." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (February 15, 2022).
      • December 16, 2021
      • Article

      Avoid a One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Sales Coaching

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      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...  View Details
      Keywords: Salesforce Management; Training; Competency and Skills; Motivation and Incentives
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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).
      • August 2021
      • Article

      Improving Sales Hiring

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      Sales hiring presents inherent challenges not found to the same extent in talent management in other functional areas. Moreover, common hiring practices make a tough job needlessly harder. This article suggests practical ways to improve sales hiring: Hire for the Task,...  View Details
      Keywords: Sales; Selection and Staffing
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      Cespedes, Frank V. "Improving Sales Hiring." Top Sales Magazine (August 2021), 20–21.
      • May–June 2021
      • Article

      Getting Up to Speed in Your Sales Efforts

      By: Frank V. Cespedes and Zoran Latinovic
      In a study before the pandemic, Pricewaterhouse Coopers found that companies had made little progress in the previous decade in speeding up their cash-conversion cycle, as the cash crunch generated by the pandemic painfully demonstrated. In most firms, sales velocity...  View Details
      Keywords: Sales Velocity; Opportunity Selection; Deal Size; Win Rate; Sales; Management; Cash Flow
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      Cespedes, Frank V., and Zoran Latinovic. "Getting Up to Speed in Your Sales Efforts." European Business Review (May–June 2021): 68–71.
      • 2021
      • Chapter

      Digital Transformation and the Salesforce: Observations, Warnings, and Recommendations

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      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...  View Details
      Keywords: Digital Transformation; Sales; Salesforce Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation
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      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.
      • April 5, 2021
      • Article

      Defining a Post-Pandemic Channel Strategy

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      Companies have experienced a surge of online orders during the pandemic. As the crisis eases, leaders need to decide whether the shift to e-commerce is a permanent “new normal” or a temporary increase. Across sectors, forecasts aimed at answering this question form the...  View Details
      Keywords: E-commerce; Health Pandemics; Marketing Channels; Strategy; Resource Allocation
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      Cespedes, Frank V. "Defining a Post-Pandemic Channel Strategy." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (April 5, 2021).
      • March 2021
      • Teaching Note

      Performance Improvement Consulting and Hi-R-Me: Making Sales Calls

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 819-043. This case study focuses on concepts, tools, and behaviors relevant to making sales calls along a typical progression with a prospect: from an initial phone call thru more in-depth discovery to a go/no-go meeting. The teaching...  View Details
      Keywords: Sales Calls; Sales; Competency and Skills
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      Cespedes, Frank V. "Performance Improvement Consulting and Hi-R-Me: Making Sales Calls." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 821-079, March 2021.
      • Article

      Selling After the Crisis

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      Like perishable goods in grocery stores, sales models have a sell-by date. As product standards evolve and new entrants emerge, buyers have more choices and demand more in terms of quality and performance across vendors. Firms that fail to adjust to changing customer...  View Details
      Keywords: Sales Model; Sales; Management; Customer Relationship Management; Health Pandemics
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      Cespedes, Frank V. "Selling After the Crisis." Harvard Business Review 99, no. 2 (March–April 2021): 52–57.
      • Article

      New Sales Realities

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      Business leaders need to understand that it’s the fit of People, Process, Pricing, and Partners that drives sales effectiveness. As firms confront new buying processes, required sales competencies affect hiring, training, and development (People). Without a coherent...  View Details
      Keywords: Sales; Performance Effectiveness
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      Cespedes, Frank V. "New Sales Realities." International Journal of Sales Transformation 7.1 (April 2021): 26–27.
      • Article

      How Real Sales Learning Happens: In the Flow of Work

      By: Yuchun Lee, Mark Magnacca and Frank V. Cespedes
      Most learning in sales is through peer learning in task-specific contexts, and the effects are cumulative because modeling behavior is a big driver of how salespeople develop. This is very different from the experience in most training seminars, especially if the...  View Details
      Keywords: Sales; Learning; Training; Performance
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      Lee, Yuchun, Mark Magnacca, and Frank V. Cespedes. "How Real Sales Learning Happens: In the Flow of Work." Learning Solutions (February 15, 2021).
      • 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...  View Details
      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
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      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

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      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...  View Details
      Keywords: Sales; Strategy; Salesforce Management; Change; Adaptation
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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)

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      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...  View Details
      Keywords: Salesforce Management; Selection and Staffing; Human Resources
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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

      Get Ready to Sell

      By: Frank V. Cespedes and Bud Hyler
      Time-to-market measures the time to have a product ready to ship. But that’s not revenue and cash. Many firms with superb R&D functions lack an understanding of what’s needed to be ready-to-sell. Meanwhile, relevant tools are increasing in scope and decreasing in cost....  View Details
      Keywords: Ready-to-sell; Sales; Health Pandemics; Performance Effectiveness
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      Cespedes, Frank V., and Bud Hyler. "Get Ready to Sell." Top Sales Magazine (September 2020), 32–33.
      • July 2020
      • Teaching Note

      Shindigz

      By: Frank Cespedes
      Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 819-010. Shindigz sells party and celebratory items through its branded direct online channel, third-party retail and wholesale channels, and online marketplaces. Shindigz has for decades successfully executed a premium-priced branded...  View Details
      Keywords: Ecommerce; E-commerce; Pricing; Price; Strategy; Decision Making; Distribution Channels; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry
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      Cespedes, Frank. "Shindigz." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 821-024, July 2020.
      • July 2020
      • Article

      Reframing Value in a Crisis

      By: Frank V. Cespedes and David Hoffeld
      Reframing is the process of moving buyers from their current perspective(s) to one that motivates a different response. The current crisis makes this capability more important than ever.  View Details
      Keywords: Sales; Customers; Perspective; Value; Change; Health Pandemics
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      Cespedes, Frank V., and David Hoffeld. "Reframing Value in a Crisis." Top Sales Magazine (July 2020).
      • May 18, 2020
      • Article

      Media Bias? But Not What You Think It Is

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      The media are often accused of political bias. But news outlets reflect many political beliefs in a fragmented media environment. However, an almost across-the-board bias is how news media talk about digital business, and the pandemic has exacerbated that bias, which...  View Details
      Keywords: Bias; Digital Business; Media; Disruption; Health Pandemics
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      Cespedes, Frank V. "Media Bias? But Not What You Think It Is." Medium (May 18, 2020).
      • Article

      Predictions, Prophets, and Restarting Your Business

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      The first task of crisis management is a reasonably accurate view of the current situation and how it might evolve. There are many predictions about so-called “new normal” as a result of the semi-enforced social distancing necessitated by the coronavirus. But most are...  View Details
      Keywords: Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Strategic Planning
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      Cespedes, Frank V. "Predictions, Prophets, and Restarting Your Business." Harvard Business School Working Knowledge (May 4, 2020).
      • May 2020
      • Article

      Sales Leadership During and After the Crisis

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      Because customer acquisition and retention are the lifeblood of a for-profit enterprise, sales activities establish foundational conditions for a business. In turn, sales managers’ responsibilities in a crisis extend beyond keeping the lights on. Their leadership makes...  View Details
      Keywords: Sales; Leadership; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management
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      Cespedes, Frank V. "Sales Leadership During and After the Crisis." Top Sales Magazine (May 2020), 28–29.
      • Article

      Sales Methodologies and Selling

      By: Frank V. Cespedes
      Sales methodologies play an important role. A common approach in a sales force allows for consistency, dissemination of best practices, acceleration of learning, and it helps the firm to scale because management then has common metrics to monitor and evaluate. However,...  View Details
      Keywords: Methodology; Sales; Analysis
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      Cespedes, Frank V. "Sales Methodologies and Selling." Top Sales Magazine (November 2019), 26–27.
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