HBR's 10 Must Reads on Sales (with bonus interview of Andris Zoltners) (HBR's 10 Must Reads)

Selling into Micromarkets

by Manish Goyal, Maryanne Q. Hancock, and Homayoun Hatami

FOR YEARS, SALES REPS at a leading chemicals and services company had successfully worked their territories, but in recent months sales volume had plateaued, because of encroaching competitors and shifting demand. Using its emerging analytics capability, the global firm took a more granular look at its business. It diced its seven U.S. regions into 70 “micromarkets” and zeroed in on those with the greatest potential. It then pulled reps away from overserved territories, created sales “plays” for the newly identified hot spots, and redeployed the sales force. Within a year the sales growth rate doubled—without an increase in marketing or sales costs.

The key to ...