Frank Cespedes: The Role of the Sales Force in Pricing Strategy Implementation

Interview, “Frank Cespedes: The Role of the Sales Force in Pricing
Strategy Implementation” [Chapter 4 of Pricing Strategy Implementation:
Translating Pricing Strategy into Results, ed. Andreas Hinterhuber and Stephan
M. Liozu; Routledge, 2020]
What
are key capabilities for the sales manager/SAM in the future vs today?
Selling, sales
management, and account management requirements are changing—quickly and with
implications for other functions and activities in companies—but not in ways typically discussed in the
business press and many popular sales books.
For example, it is
not true that salespeople are being “disintermediated” or replaced by online
interactions. In the United States, the internet has been a fact for nearly 30
years. Yet, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of
salespeople in the U.S. has increased in
the 21st century to more than 10% of the labor force.[1]
Further, the BLS data almost certainly undercounts the reality because, in
increasingly service economies like those in the U.S., Europe, and other
places, business developersare often
called Associates, Managing