Why It’s So Hard to Sell New Products

Thomas Steenburgh, a marketing professor at the University of
Virginia Darden School of Business, was inspired by his early
career at Xerox to discover why firms with stellar sales and
R&D departments still struggle to sell new innovations. The
answer, he finds, is that too many companies expect shiny new
products to sell themselves. Steenburgh explains how crafting new
sales processes, incentives, and training can overcome the
obstacles inherent in selling new products. He's the coauthor,
along with Michael Ahearne of the University of Houston's Sales
Excellence Institute, of the HBR article "How to Sell New
Products."