Stanford Executive Briefings: Marketing & Sales

Strategies for Selling

Selling is not an event but an ever-changing process that requires a solid strategy to achieve positive results. James Healy explains how to manage the four dynamic and interactive functions of selling and describes the skills that good salespeople need to learn in order to develop an effective selling strategy.

Don't Just Set Prices: Manage Them Strategically

When customers reject your price, it is often thought that the price is too high. But according to Tom Nagle, this may not be true. Price levels are only the visible "tip of the iceberg" of pricing strategy. Nagle explains that in order to get customers to pay for value, you have to do more than just set a value-based price.

The Best Service Is No Service

With the ever-present need to reduce costs and boost customer loyalty, Bill Price argues that companies should challenge the need for customer service in the first place. This game-changing approach treats service as a data point of dysfunction since it is almost always needed either to fix mistakes or to resolve customer confusion.

Organizing Your Business Around the Customer

Customer relationship management is all about keeping customers happy. But not all customers are created equal. Roger Siboni explains that the secret is in differentiating your best customers, giving them personalized service, and rewarding them for their loyalty.

The Power of Persuasion

Increase your power and influence with simple, guaranteed methods you'll start using right away. In this dynamic presentation, Robert Cialdini provides fascinating insights on how to be successful in your attempts to persuade all manner of other people. This program is a "must" for managers, marketers, and manipulators of all kinds!

How to Build a Brand

A successful brand builds customer trust and loyalty by being easily identifiable and consistent in quality and presentation. John Kilcullen describes the strategies and tactics that have taken his For Dummies® brand from one obscure computer manual to a publishing empire that touches on an incredible array of lifelong learning topics.

Building the Market-Focused Culture

Truly market-focused organizations must pursue more than a sound market strategy. Professor Hayagreeva Rao details the six levers of culture building, and explains how aligning these factors reduces employee stress and turnover, creating a self-selected, productive workforce that is in touch with the demands of potential customers.

How to Make Your Ideas Stick

Urban legends survive and spread on their own, without the intervention of advertising budgets or public relations pros. By analyzing why these bits of modern culture have so much success in the social marketplace of ideas, Chip Heath explains how to create effective marketing campaigns, and craft messages that take on a life of their own.

Sales as a Strategic Tool in Your Organization

As Mike Bosworth explains, everyone wants to buy, but nobody wants to be sold. He emphasizes the importance of diagnosing before you prescribe, and offers a decidedly un-gimmicky approach to selling that allows customers to sell themselves on your solutions.

Building Retail Brands to Drive Value

Successful brands adapt to the changing needs of their customers. They grow from their base of brand-loyal return buyers who support price premiums and healthy profit margins. Jeanne Jackson explains that a strong brand guides overall strategy and acts as an ambassador for entering new markets.

How to Drive Your Competition Crazy

Guy Kawasaki presents strategies to help your organization get and keep the upper hand in sales, marketing, production, and human resources.

Rules for Revolutionaries

Guy Kawasaki explains the rules that make new products and services successful. This presentation is a guide to the creation and marketing of revolutionary products for people who want to change the world.

The Idea of Marketing

Many traditional marketing functions have now been taken over by computers, which gather data in addition to providing customer care. In order to make the most of this valuable feedback, Regis McKenna explains, you need to create an inf