Sales Force Retention - Publications - Faculty & Research

Samuel M. Walton

1987, Wal-Marts numbered over 1,000 and had sales of $14 billion. Gaining momentum from the success of Wal-Mart, Walton created the highly successful bulk food store chain, Sam’s Wholesale Club, which also earned revenues in the billions.... View Details

Keywords: Retail

14 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

5 Lessons I Hope Marketers Don’t Learn from Donald Trump

dreams of consumers, because a brand that’s built on such appeals will find it hard to grow to be a source of pride. Apparently misogyny, xenophobia, and contempt for the disabled have worked as customer acquisition tools for soon-to-be President Trump. But will they... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Deighton

01 Dec 2003
News

Flex Time

sophisticated communication systems that include detailed weekly reports from UCC’s sales force and senior managers. As long as her days may be — talking on the phone with customers, following up on issues... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing

01 Apr 2000
News

Award-Winning Article Urges Companies to Loosen Ties that Bind

expenses associated with everyday activities such as management meetings, conferences, phone conversations, sales calls, reports, and memos. Hagel and Singer maintain that by dramatically reducing interaction costs, the Internet and other... View Details

02 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Stories 2007

retention in this Q&A. Making the Move to General Manager Managers face a critical transition when they rise from functional expert to general manager. It's an exciting shift but it's also fraught with pitfalls. A new executive... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

25 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 25

historically important and increasingly popular mechanism for encouraging innovation. A central concern in designing innovation contests is how many competitors to admit. Using a unique data set of 9,661 software contests, we provide evidence of two coexisting and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Bernard Marcus

employees that would revolutionize the home improvement market. As Home Depot grew, it surpassed competitors like Hechinger's and Lowe's, as well as forced the closing of Marcus and Blank's former employer. By the end of Marcus' tenure,... View Details

Keywords: Retail

22 Oct 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

Motivate Me, Please

governments to get citizens to do the right thing. Hiding From Managers Can Increase Your Productivity Forget management by walking around. Decreasing workplace transparency can increase worker productivity. Money and Quotas Motivate the View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

08 May 2014
News

The Sky's the Limit

to how sheltered I was," Eaton says. After completing the PMD program, Eaton returned to the business world as international program manager for the Blackhawk helicopter at Sikorsky Aircraft, then as commercial sales manager. She also... View Details

Keywords: Jill Radsken; women's issues; avaition; Air Transportation; Transportation

01 Jun 1998
News

HBS Forum: Business Leadership in the Social Sector

academics, and business leaders, including former Goldman Sachs cochairman and Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead (MBA 11/'47), the driving force behind the Initiative on Social Enterprise at HBS. Also taking part were more than... View Details

01 Dec 2022
News

Case Study: Your Call Is Important to Us

appealing, then boosting the company’s sales and marketing capacity and acquisition tactics to suit each industry. The biggest challenge with this approach, Sambvani explains, is having enough resources for the View Details

Keywords: Computer Systems Design and Related Services; Professional Services

25 Aug 2022
News

Case Study: Sound Check

Hoffman-Senn. The founders have questions about a leap like this: How would they adapt to the sales cycles? How or when would larger clients affect their staffing structure and self-service platform? Are these worries even warranted?... View Details

Keywords: Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

01 Sep 2003
News

Sharon Patrick

a magazine and was looking to expand her reach. The two joined forces as partners to build MSO, the well-known “omnimedia” empire for the home that reported revenues of $296 million last year — on $1.5 billion in retail sales, including... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young; Finance; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

22 Jul 2014
Blog Post

From FIELD to Field, Putting What I’ve Learned at HBS into Practice

case protagonist’s shoes, trying to understand the motivations, pressures, and stakeholders influencing his/her decision making, I found myself standing in the shoes of our sales captains, sellers, and buyers. I View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Technology

04 Jan 2021
What Do You Think?

How Do We Sustain Organization Diversity?

successes, the distraction of a later effort to improve gender diversity, the disproportionate number of Black employees laid off in a major downsizing, a drop in the number of Black candidates in the pipeline, and weak retention of those... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

30 Nov 2018
What Do You Think?

What’s the Best Administrative Approach to Climate Change?

Summing Up: Should a 'Montreal Protocol' for Administering Global Warming Be Pursued? Climate change and how to manage it is a daunting subject. Nevertheless, several readers of this month’s column were willing to venture a model or two for administering a system... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Energy

03 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Marketing Your Way Through a Recession

your weaker distributors and upgrade your sales force by recruiting those sacked by other companies. 6. Adjust pricing tactics. Customers will be shopping around for the best deals. You do not necessarily... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

12 Apr 2016
First Look

April 12, 2016

or a combination—can catalyze leaders' listening skills, reveal what does or doesn't work inside the organization, highlight hidden challenges and opportunities, and generate essential competitive intelligence. It can promote engagement and enhance View Details