The unfortunate disconnect between marketing and sales in many instances has been noted over the years. That disconnect also has occurred in colleges and universities. Fogel, Hoffmeister, et al (2012) noted that sales curriculum were rare among AACSB schools and if any sales related courses were offered it would most likely be sales management.

This paper presents a project that builds labor market skills employers are seeking through experiential classroom learning.  One of a sales manager’s primary functions is to train his/her sales force.  This sales management training exercise provides students with an opportunity to think and act like sales managers by working together in teams to collaborate on a training exercise and determine how to best train their salesforce on a particular topic.  The project engages students to research a sales topic, develop a training module and evaluation tool, and deliver the module to other students.  Included in the project is a list of relevant sales training topics, an outline for the written training plan, and grading rubrics for both the training exercise and evaluation tool; and the written training plan. It also introduces an innovative approach for handling the free-riding student problem in group projects.  Assessment results show that students enjoy the project, actively participate and retain the information.

This innovative project enriches the sales management course which is particularly important if it is the only sales related course in the marketing curriculum.

 

Fogel, S., Hoffmeister, D., Rocco, R., & Strunk, D. P. (2012). Teaching Sales. Harvard Business Review, 90(7/8), 94-99.