"The best sales book of the year" — strategy+business magazine That gap between your company’s sales efforts and strategy? It’s real—and a huge vulnerability. Addressing that gap, actionably and with attention to relevant research, is the focus of this book. In Aligning Strategy and Sales, Harvard Business School professor Frank Cespedes equips you to link your go-to-market initiatives with strategic goals. Cespedes offers a road map to articulate strategy in ways that people in the field can understand and that will fuel the behaviors required for profitable growth. Without that alignment, leaders will press for better execution when they need a better strategy, or change strategic direction with great cost and turmoil when they should focus on the basics of sales execution. With thoughtful, clear, and engaging examples, Aligning Strategy and Sales provides a framework for diagnosing and managing the core levers available for effective selling in any organization. It will give you the know-how and tools to move from ideas to action and build a sales effort linked to your firm’s unique goals, not a generic selling formula. Cespedes shows how sales efforts affect all elements of value creation in a business, whether you’re a start-up seeking to scale or an established firm looking to jump-start new growth. The book provides key insights to optimize your firm’s customer management activities and so improve selling and strategy.

"Most firms face a wide gap between their strategic goals and their sales and other go-to-market efforts. Aligning these activities is - or should be - an important component of competitive advantage for entrepreneurs and established companies. Yet for most, it isn't ... This book is about aligning strategy and go-to-market efforts. It starts by explaining why many sales problems in companies are really strategic alignment issues. It helps managers understand and diagnose both the overt and hidden costs of not aligning strategic goals with sales initiatives, and why getting better at selling typically requires more than a motivational speech, sales force reorganization, new incentives, or a good training seminar. It outlines a process for articulating strategy in ways that people in the field can understand and in ways that help strategy formulators understand the required sales tasks inherent in strategic plans for the enterprise. Given a coherent strategy, the book provides a framework for analyzing and managing the core levers available to firms when they seek to align selling behaviors with sales tasks, and examines each lever. Readers will learn how to synchronize strategy and sales activities across the organization, and get value from improving their firm's performance in the following areas: - How to move from a strategic vision to an integrated selling plan- How to build a sales organization to match strategy- How to create and maintain the optimal infrastructure and processes"--Publisher's description.

Named to the longlist for the 2021 Outstanding Works of Literature (OWL) Award in the Sales & Marketing category In this smart, practical, and research-based guide, Harvard Business School professor Frank Cespedes offers essential sales strategies for a world that never stops changing. The rise of e-commerce. Big data. AI. Given these trends (and many others), there's no doubt that sales is changing. But much of the current conventional wisdom is misleading and not supported by empirical data. If you as a manager fail to separate fact from hype, you will make decisions based on faulty assumptions and, in a competitive market, eventually fall behind those with a keener grasp of the current selling environment. In this no-nonsense book, sales expert and Harvard Business School professor Frank Cespedes provides sales managers and executives with the tools they need to separate the signal from the noise. These include how to: Hire and deploy the right talent Pay and incentivize your sales force Improve ROI from your training programs Create a comprehensive sales model Set and test the right prices Build and manage a multichannel approach Brimming with fascinating examples, insightful research, and helpful diagnostics, Sales Management That Works will help sales managers build a great sales team, create an optimal strategy, and steer clear of hype and fads. Salespeople will be better equipped to respond to changes, executives will be able to track and accelerate ROI, and readers will understand why improving selling is a social as well as an economic responsibility of business.

A smart, practical guide to rocket-powered business growth Aligned to Achieve puts sales and marketing on the same page, creating a revenue 'dream team' that will drive your organization to new heights. Smart, practical explanations, case studies, and tips guide you toward action over theory, and dozens of examples illustrate the tangible effects of these changes in action at business-to-business companies. Written by sales and marketing executives who have made alignment work, this book is directed toward practitioners and leaders seeking to crack the code of sales and marketing alignment. Contributions by industry thought leaders and B2B executives provide fresh perspective and nuanced direction, while thoughtful, strategic, and well-supported guidance throughout helps you remove the obstacles standing in the way of your organization's financial and strategic goals. Misalignment between sales and marketing is an age-old problem—frequently lamented, but seldom addressed. As this schism grows amidst the evolving marketplace, its effects on top and bottom line performance are being felt more than ever before. This book shows you how to bring sales and marketing together effectively once and for all, leveraging their strengths to build an unstoppable force for growth. Understand the cost of misalignment and the driving forces behind it Learn strategies for improving your culture, process, leadership, and technology to initiate and support alignment Identify the best places to modify your sales and marketing programs to kickstart collaboration and cooperation between your teams Discover how other companies are uniting their sales and marketing teams into a single force for growth Walk away with practical advice on how to apply recommendation in the real world Misalignment is frustrating for everyone in sales, marketing, and leadership. It's also detrimental to your organization's performance—but the problem is not insurmountable. In fact, most of the obstacles it creates are self-inflicted, and entirely within control of leadership. Aligned to Achieve helps you identify and remove those obstacles, and build a culture of sustainable growth.

This book offers both marketing and sales professionals a rare combined insight into both worlds to continuously capture customer intelligence and create value, by blending detailed research with academic rigor and commercial experience of the authors in both Europe and North America. It has never been easier to produce great marketing content and sales collateral. And yet, 90% of the content that marketing produces is NEVER used by sales. Why not? Because it’s not relevant to the audience or the prospect doesn’t even know the content exists. Furthermore 58% of deals end up in “no decision” because Sales has not presented value effectively. Companies are creating lots of noise but failing to resonate with the customers. So what? The danger, aside from marketing wasting tens of millions of dollars on ineffective content and tools, is that customers will disengage. 94% of prospects say they have completely disengaged with vendors because of irrelevant content. In order to grow fast, the authors argue, Sales and Marketing teams need to slow down. They need to work together to truly understand their customers’ needs, wants, motivations and pain points so that they can offer customized “value”. The book sets out how to establish a formal program to continuously capture customer intelligence and insights – the shiny gems of understanding that help prospects to connect the dots – so that value can be consistently articulated in marketing and sales conversations. By integrating the best ideas and practice from commercial experience and academic research the authors show how to create value across the entire marketing and sales value chain – not only get a new customer, but to continue to create value for future purchases by creating “post-sales” value.

The Revolutionary Sales Approach Scientifically Proven to Dramatically Improve Your Sales and Business Success Blending cutting-edge research in social psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics, The Science of Selling shows you how to align the way you sell with how our brains naturally form buying decisions, dramatically increasing your ability to earn more sales. Unlike other sales books, which primarily rely on anecdotal evidence and unproven advice, Hoffeld’s evidence-based approach connects the dots between science and situations salespeople and business leaders face every day to help you consistently succeed, including proven ways to: - Engage buyers’ emotions to increase their receptiveness to you and your ideas - Ask questions that line up with how the brain discloses information - Lock in the incremental commitments that lead to a sale - Create positive influence and reduce the sway of competitors - Discover the underlying causes of objections and neutralize them - Guide buyers through the necessary mental steps to make purchasing decisions Packed with advice and anecdotes, The Science of Selling is an essential resource for anyone looking to succeed in today's cutthroat selling environment, advance their business goals, or boost their ability to influence others. **Named one of The 20 Most Highly-Rated Sales Books of All Time by HubSpot

Effective talent management is about aligning the business's approach to talent with the strategic aims and purpose of the organisation. The core rationale of any talent strategy should be to have a direct positive impact on the organisation's goals but in many cases this is not so. The ideas, principles and approaches outlined here will enable the reader to understand the strategic nature of talent and design a response that meets the needs of their own organisation. Case studies are used to illustrate the concepts and proven methodologies guide the day-to-day practice of the reader. The content will link the strategic intent of HR with the practical actions it takes to make a positive impact on the business's results. The author begins by examining the disconnected nature of talent management in many organisations; how at times it has been a response to trends and seen by many as a bolt on to HR and he proposes a different model, one that links clearly the development of a talent strategy with the achievement of a business strategy. Mark Wilcox summarises succinctly the case for a more strategic approach to talent management, one directly linked to business performance. He concludes that the time is now right for talent management, and therefore many HR managers, to move from a functional support role to one with a direct strategic impact on the business.

Adopt a sales-orientated approach to your business and facilitate the same attitude throughout your company's culture, by ensuring the objective of generating business profit is embraced by the entire organization - not just the sales team - to achieve long term growth. Business Development Culture defines how to facilitate a sales-oriented perspective throughout a company culture, enabling it to sell more on an ongoing and consistent basis. Highly practical in its approach, this book empowers readers to break away from the frustrations of missed opportunities and lost leads, and to escape the repetitive 'feast and famine' sales patterns. Providing direct guidance on the implementation of an immersive business development culture, this book will ensure that the wider objective of generating business profit is embraced by the entire organization, not just the sales team. Easily tailored to maximize current processes, this book features numerous tools and market-tested insights to support leaders in adapting their approach at both team and strategy levels. This invaluable guidance is supporting by impactful interviews from across the industry. Insightful, practical and directly relevant, it is an essential read to achieve stable, consistent growth, and ultimately, long-term profits.

Research clearly indicates that there is a strong need for the Human Resources (HR) function, and the people in it, to adopt a more strategic and business-linked approach. In one study business executives ranked the HR function as third, after sales and customer service, as a function that makes a very significant contribution to a company's bottom line. Unfortunately research also indicates that few HR functions have become strategic. Most still operate in a primarily administrative and tactical manner—the very work that is increasingly being outsourced. Clearly there is a gap between what business leaders and employees need from their HR departments and what HR is providing. HR functions must become more integrated into the business, with some people on the HR team assuming the role of Strategic Business Partner (SBP). Here, Dana and Jim Robinson offer guidance for HR, Organization Development and Learning professionals who aspire to transform themselves into effective Strategic Business Partners. They explain how SBPs build partnerships, based upon credibility and trust, with key organization leaders. These partnerships provide SBPs with opportunities to identify and support projects directly aligned with business goals. The success of these projects deepens the SBPs' credibility, enabling them to be viewed as strategic partners. At this higher level of accountability, SBPs work with business leaders to form long-range business strategies and plans, creating and implementing people initiatives that link into and support the business strategies and plans. This practical guide offers case studies, exercises, tips, and tools you can use to become a Strategic Business Partner in your organization.

Most businesses rely on talent to succeed, but none so much as professional service firms. Within this rapidly expanding, trillion-dollar industry, professionals--and how they're managed--are the primary source of competitive advantage. In fact, success in this sector is determined more by the people you pay than the people who pay you. This path-breaking book provides readers with a practical and integrated perspective on how to win in the unique and tumultuous world of professional services. From strategy to organization to culture, it offers customized insights for businesses in which professionals drive bottom-line results and long-term company success. Respected academic Jay W. Lorsch and accomplished practitioner Thomas J. Tierney apply their broad experience to the realities of "Monday morning" decision making. Their work reflects decades of personal experience, combined with a rigorous study of outstanding professional service firms in industries that include law, information technology, accounting, advertising, investment banking, executive search, and consulting. Aligning the Stars explains what differentiates the "best of the best" within professional services. By describing how to attract, retain, motivate, organize, and lead the stars that shape a company's destiny, this book provides valuable lessons for the current and future leaders of every talent-driven business.