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

Getting Beyond “Show Me the Money”

An interview with Andris Zoltners by Daniel McGinn

AS A YOUNG BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR, Andris Zoltners became fascinated by two questions: How many salespeople does a company need, and how should it divide up their territories to balance workload and market potential—so as to maximize profits? To unearth the answers, he developed and applied complex math models, and in 1983 Zoltners, by then a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School, had enough companies clamoring for his insights that he and a colleague, Prabha Sinha, founded ZS Associates. Today the firm is one of the world’s largest sales consultancies, with 3,500 employees, and Zoltners, now emeritus after 35 years on Northwestern’s faculty, ...