Senior leaders have great confidence in their ability to develop innovations, say the authors, but not in their ability to commercialize them. This may result from a lack of formal processes and effective talent-management strategies. Steenburgh and Ahearne suggest a new approach: Assess the skills of your salespeople systematically. Train them for knowledge and resilience rather than focusing on a product's bells and whistles. Create a psychological profile of the ideal buyer. And assign strategic account managers to your most important customers. When new products are launched, the authors write, the best companies are strategically aligned, from the sales force to the C-suite. HR creates competency maps and works with sales managers to establish training and coaching programs. Frontline sales managers support the learning process that their reps go through in the field. And top leaders make sure that pressure to meet earnings targets doesn't stand in the way of future growth.

HubSpot, an inbound marketing, sales, and customer relationship management (CRM) software provider, announced that it had acquired Motion AI, a software platform that enabled companies to easily build and deploy chatbots, fueled by artificial intelligence, to interact with their customers. Before unleashing bot-building technology to its B2B customers, HubSpot first needed to develop some best practices for the use of chatbots for CRM. First, the team had to clearly assess the trade-offs between effectiveness and efficiency associated with the use of bots versus humans to create, nurture, and manage customer relationships. Second, they had to decide to what extent to anthropomorphize the chatbots. How human-like should they be? Was a conversational user interface (UI) the desired solution for B2B CRM or would a stripped down, more functional UI produce more efficiency for the customers who interacted with the bot? Historically, HubSpot had "practiced what it preached," using its own products to build its business. The team had to consider whether to use chatbots to nurture and service its own customer relationships and manage the effectiveness and efficiency of its sales funnel. Currently, a team of chat representatives worked with marketing to qualify and prime prospects for HubSpot's sales team. Could they and should they be replaced with chatbots? Was HubSpot ready for bots to become the face of its brand to its prospective customers?

Nonprofits are facing a growing challenge to retain donors. At a time when acquiring a new donor is three times as expensive as retaining an existing donor and donor attrition stands at an all-time high, nonprofits are looking to increase the lifetime value of their donors. This case presents a new means by which nonprofits can induce donors to give today and commit to giving in the future. The positive results of a low-cost, high-yield experiment conducted at GlobalGiving, one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the United States, demonstrate how seemingly small increases in the numbers of recurring donors can have a significant impact on revenue, allowing nonprofits to have an even greater philanthropic impact. This case allows for discussions on how field experimentation on crowdfunding platforms can help with the development of new business approaches and how those novel approaches can be implemented in a way that would satisfy multiple stakeholders, ranging from donors to large and small charity partners.

This case examines the public controversy that erupted over the increasingly high price of EpiPens. Mylan Inc., (Mylan), a generic drug maker, bought the EpiPen product line from Merck in 2007. Since that time, the company both invested in marketing to raise awareness for the drug and dramatically increased the price, lifting it from $100 to $600 per two pack in the U.S. In 2016, simmering consumer anger about the high prices of pharmaceutical drugs finally reached a boiling point and a media firestorm ensued. The case challenges students to think about the role of fairness in pricing. How can Mylan justify the dramatic price increases? How can it justify the variation in prices across countries, as an EpiPen is priced at an equivalent of $85 in France? The case challenges students to think about how they would handle a public controversy. The EpiPen case is well suited for students in MBA, MBA for Executives, and executive education programs. For MBA students, it can be placed in first-year marketing, pricing, or marketing communications courses. For executives, it can serve as a vehicle to discuss both ethical issues of pricing and how to handle a public controversy.

Heather Day, a marketing director and brand manager, must evaluate her options for Progressive Insurance's next Snapshot product advertising campaign. Working on a limited budget, Day must select between employing television ads featuring the popular character known as Flo and continuing with the launch of advertising campaigns already in use, such as "Rate Sucker." The case places Progressive's proposed advertising campaign into a broader historical context and asks how the Snapshot product both fits into the company's current business model and affects its channel strategy. Students are presented with a myriad of exhibits that help make this authentic marketing scenario come to life.

SparkPlace is a two-year-old business with a hot new product: software that manages and measures the effectiveness of permission-based marketing campaigns for social media. The company is in the process of deciding on which of two customer segments to focus its strategy. Each segment has demonstrable advantages, but developing the product for and marketing to both segments simultaneously could pose big challenges. Is the argument against being "all things to all people" a valid one? If so, which customer segment should SparkPlace target? Or is there a single strategy that can capture the potential value of both types of customers without draining the company's resources? These questions are at the heart of this fictionalized case by Jill Avery, of the Simmons School of Management, and Thomas Steenburgh, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Expert commentary comes from regular HBR contributor Roger Martin, of the University of Toronto, and from Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, the company on which SparkPlace is based.

SparkPlace is a two-year-old business with a hot new product: software that manages and measures the effectiveness of permission-based marketing campaigns for social media. The company is in the process of deciding on which of two customer segments to focus its strategy. Each segment has demonstrable advantages, but developing the product for and marketing to both segments simultaneously could pose big challenges. Is the argument against being "all things to all people" a valid one? If so, which customer segment should SparkPlace target? Or is there a single strategy that can capture the potential value of both types of customers without draining the company's resources? These questions are at the heart of this fictionalized case by Jill Avery, of the Simmons School of Management, and Thomas Steenburgh, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Expert commentary comes from regular HBR contributor Roger Martin, of the University of Toronto, and from Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, the company on which SparkPlace is based.

SparkPlace is a two-year-old business with a hot new product: software that manages and measures the effectiveness of permission-based marketing campaigns for social media. The company is in the process of deciding on which of two customer segments to focus its strategy. Each segment has demonstrable advantages, but developing the product for and marketing to both segments simultaneously could pose big challenges. Is the argument against being "all things to all people" a valid one? If so, which customer segment should SparkPlace target? Or is there a single strategy that can capture the potential value of both types of customers without draining the company's resources? These questions are at the heart of this fictionalized case by Jill Avery, of the Simmons School of Management, and Thomas Steenburgh, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Expert commentary comes from regular HBR contributor Roger Martin, of the University of Toronto, and from Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, the company on which SparkPlace is based.

No sales force consists entirely of stars; sales staffs are usually made up mainly of solid performers, with smaller groups of laggards and rainmakers. Though most compensation plans approach these three groups as if they were the same, research shows that each is motivated by something different. By accounting for those differences in their incentive programs, companies can coax better performance from all their salespeople. As the largest cadre, core performers typically represent the greatest opportunity, but they're often ignored by incentive plans. Contests with prizes that vary in nature and value (and don't all go to stars) will inspire them to ramp up their efforts, and tiered targets will guide them up the performance curve. Laggards need quarterly bonuses to stay on track; when they have only annual bonuses, their revenues will drop 10%, studies show. This group is also motivated by social pressure--especially from new talent on the sales bench. Stars tend to get the most attention in comp plans, but companies often go astray by capping their commissions to control costs. If firms instead remove commission ceilings and pay extra for overachievement, they'll see the sales needle really jump. The key is to treat sales compensation not as an expense to rein in but as a portfolio of investments to manage. Companies that do this will be rewarded with much higher returns.

The key account manager of an engineering company has to convince a department to give up important contracts. The German engineering company Siemens had set up a global key account management program since 2010. The key account manager of an emerging account had been asked from his customer to cut the costs of two long-term contracts worth about €300 million that his customer had signed with Siemens. Although legally Siemens could refuse the revision, such an act could jeopardize Siemens' relationship with the customer. At the same time, a change in the contracts would bring about losses for Siemens. How should the key account manager handle this problem? He knew that he would have to be resourceful, given that he had no direct authority in the situation, but this was the nature of his job.

This case introduces the concept of customer centricity and traces its development at EMC, the world's leading data storage hardware and information management software company. EMC's customers had historically relied on EMC salespeople to guide them through the complex, consultative buying process. However, with the rise of social media, prospective customers are getting more of the information they require earlier in the purchase process online. As they do so, their physical interactions with EMC salespeople are decreasing, while their digital interactions are increasing. Given the changing business environment, BJ Jenkins, senior vice president of Global Marketing, faces significant challenges as he tries to maintain EMC's culture of customer centricity. These include 1) translating EMC's platinum service levels, designed to appeal to the world's largest companies, to small businesses and B2C customers, 2) understanding how the replacement of physical interaction with digital interaction in the consultative selling process affects EMC's business, and 3) managing a VAR sales model that distances EMC from its customers.

The wind turbine manufacturer Vestas launched the industry's first highly localized and customized new product launch campaigns which used also new tools such as web 2.0 platforms. Used to operate in a market where demand exceeded supply, Vestas had lost contact with its customer base and had a limited marketing budget, mainly used to finance global media advertisement campaigns. The world economic downturn which followed the U.S. credit crunch crisis of 2008 and the increased competition in the wind turbine market had brought about a sudden drop in Vestas orders of new turbines. Vestas thus decided to focus more on marketing and developed a new department, Global Marketing and Customer Insights. Morten Albaek was hired to manage and develop the department and to transform Vestas into the undisputed most customer focused company in the industry by 2012 and among the most customer centric B2B brand by 2015. He tested his new approach for the first time with the launch of their new V112 turbine for which he developed 72 customized campaigns targeting its main existing and potential customers and major stakeholders. Yet, had the campaign been effective in bringing Vestas closer to its customer base? Were they using the right tools?

No matter what you do later in your career, you are going to have to learn how to pitch ideas. Perhaps you will want to convince a venture capitalist to invest in your new business idea. Perhaps you will want to convince your company to develop an innovative product. Perhaps you will want to convince your board of directors that it is worth developing a new market segment. This exercise helps students practice the skill of getting other people interested in their ideas.

Serious Materials is a start up who is moving into clean tech markets. The company's first product, QuietRock, originated the sound proofing drywall category and created a steady stream of revenue. It was now considering how to expand its product line to compete in the rapidly developing green building markets. How should Serious Materials go to market when they launch their highly anticipated Serious Windows and EcoRock product lines? What do they need to do to develop their brand?

Better World Books, a young start-up, provides a socially-conscious alternative to Amazon, collecting and selling used books to keep them out of the wastestream, while providing a portion of their profits to support global literacy efforts. The case presents an emerging new business model: the for profit "B corporation" designed to combine profits and mission. Founder Xavier Helgesen struggles with how to price his products to capture the value of their social good, how to manage multiple channels of distribution, including selling direct to consumers, and managing negative public perceptions of the social impact of the business once the company turns profitable.

Customers are increasingly being viewed as assets that bring value to the firm. Customer lifetime value is a metric which allows managers to understand the overall value of their customer base and relate it to three customer strategies firms employ: asset acquisition - attracting new customers to the firm, asset maximization - maximizing the value the firm extracts from each customer, and asset retention - retaining existing customers for the long term. The note gives students a foundation for analyzing marketing cases, as well as providing an analytical structure and process for completing a marketing plan. The note is accompanied by a free Excel worksheet which contains sample problems, prebuilt Excel models to calculate customer lifetime value, and charts and graphs which help visualize the results.

Customers are increasingly being viewed as assets that bring value to the firm. Customer lifetime value is a metric which allows managers to understand the overall value of their customer base and relate it to three customer strategies firms employ: asset acquisition - attracting new customers to the firm, asset maximization - maximizing the value the firm extracts from each customer, and asset retention - retaining existing customers for the long term. The note gives students a foundation for analyzing marketing cases, as well as providing an analytical structure and process for completing a marketing plan. The note is accompanied by a free Excel worksheet which contains sample problems, prebuilt Excel models to calculate customer lifetime value, and charts and graphs which help visualize the results.

Pricing is one of the most difficult decisions marketers make and the one with the most direct and immediate impact on the firm's financial position. This toolkit will introduce the fundamental terminology and calculations associated with pricing and profitability analysis. Users will learn how to produce and interpret demand curves and calculate the price elasticity of demand. The concepts of revenue, costs, and contribution margin, gross margin, and net income will be introduced to inform profitability analyses. Finally, retailer profitability metrics including retailer margin and penny profit are discussed. The note gives students a foundation for analyzing marketing cases, as well as providing an analytical structure and process for completing a marketing plan. The note is accompanied by a free Excel worksheet which contains sample problems, prebuilt Excel models to calculate demand curves, price elasticity, and profitability metrics for firms and their channel partners, and charts and graphs which help visualize the results.

Pricing is one of the most difficult decisions marketers make and the one with the most direct and immediate impact on the firm's financial position. This toolkit will introduce the fundamental terminology and calculations associated with pricing and profitability analysis. Users will learn how to produce and interpret demand curves and calculate the price elasticity of demand. The concepts of revenue, costs, and contribution margin, gross margin, and net income will be introduced to inform profitability analyses. Finally, retailer profitability metrics including retailer margin and penny profit are discussed. The note gives students a foundation for analyzing marketing cases, as well as providing an analytical structure and process for completing a marketing plan. The note is accompanied by a free Excel worksheet which contains sample problems, prebuilt Excel models to calculate demand curves, price elasticity, and profitability metrics for firms and their channel partners, and charts and graphs which help visualize the results.

This Excel worksheet contains sample problems, prebuilt Excel models to run breakeven analyses, and charts and graphs which help visualize the results. It is designed to accompany "Marketing Analysis Toolkit: Breakeven Analysis."