Enhancing the Professional Mindset of Future Sales Professionals

Abstract

Sales education has grown in importance, particularly throughout the last decade, with an increasing number of university sales centers offering programs to prepare new generations of sales professionals. In this article, we describe how work-based learning, action research, and reflective practice used in a sales master program can be used in undergraduate sales education to facilitate the emergence of a new mindset of professional selling in future practitioners. This mindset is characterized by enhanced awareness and personal transformation that lead to improved relationships through the discovery of new ways of identifying and creating customer value. We argue this mindset is required to respond to the unprecedented level of change and increased complexity in professional selling. Sales education is vital to ensure that future and practicing sales professionals continuously develop the competences required to perform in demanding contexts. Universities and business schools alike now play a pivotal role in developing sales talent by combining in unique ways academic research in sales, advances in pedagogy, and practitioner experience. The findings of our study reveal the significance of student-centered pedagogies in sales curricula. We discuss how the experience gathered from educating practicing sales professionals can be applied to educating novice sales students adopting work-based pedagogies.

Keywords

learning approaches and issues marketing education issues experiential learning techniques innovative teaching methods client-based projects critical thinking skills and traits development in marketing education

“There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.” (Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Education, 1974)

Sales Education for a Profession in Constant Change

Sales education has significantly grown in importance because selling skills are highly demanded in the marketplace, thus providing higher levels of employability to new graduates. In 2010, there were more than 8.2 million jobs directly employed in sales in the United States. If we take into account top executives, who are often engaged in business development activities, this number would reach 10 million (U.S. Bureau of Statistics, 2010). Higher education institutions have responded to the need for a qualified sales labor force by growing the number of sales-related courses offered. For instance, sales education courses in the United States were delivered by 44 universities in 2007, and this number grew to 101 in 2011 (Cummins, Peltier, Erffmeyer, & Whalen, 2013). Universities with a track record in sales education such, as Baylor University (Center for Professional Selling), Ohio University (Ralph and Luci Schey Sales Centre), the University of Akron (Institute for Professional Selling), and five others, played a critical role in creating the University Sales Center Alliance (2013), founded in 2002 in the United States. Other examples of the growth of the field are the Sales Education Foundation (2014) established in 2007, also in the United States. In Europe, the Global Sales Science Institute (2013) was founded in 2007 to bring together the study and practice of sales and sales management internationally to further advance global collaboration in sales research, practice, and education.

The increase in the importance of sales education is also driven by the dramatic transformation of the profession recently. Fogel, Hoffmeister, Rocco, and Strunk (2012) argued that “as selling becomes more sophisticated and solutions-oriented, and good sales jobs go unfilled for lack of qualified applicants, the value of university-based education rises” (p. 97). Academics and practitioners have engaged in rich debate about the changing role of the sales function, acknowledging the constant changes occurring in the marketplace. Markets have become more global (Honeycutt, 2002), and technologies are facilitating new ways of working and establishing relationships (Marshall, Moncrief, Rudd, & Lee, 2012). Business relations are transcending relational approaches, adopting new ways to co-create value, in which sales forces have a key role to play (Blocker, Cannon, Panagopoulos, & Sager, 2012). Sales is recognized as a key function at the company board level (Shapiro, Slywotsky, & Doyle, 1998), and sales education is therefore vital to ensure that individuals seeking employment in the field are equipped with the capabilities to succeed in this increasingly professionalized function (Hawes, Rich, & Widmier, 2004). Future sales professionals will need to develop a wider range of competences before entering the job market and throughout the lifetime of their careers, given the continuous evolution of personal selling and sales management.

In a challenging environment, sales forces will need to develop more complex competences and abilities to sustain performance. In a major review of the precursors of sales performance, Verbeke, Dietz, and Verwaal (2011) showed that selling-related knowledge is the highest predictor of performance in sales. Such knowledge includes understanding of products and customers, and what is required to co-create solutions for customers. In addition, selling-related knowledge involves individual categorization systems (i.e., how salespeople decide who to approach, as well as when, what, and how).

Today, the broadening of the professional selling role, characterized by multifunctional abilities (Storbacka, Ryals, Davies, Nenonen, & Davies, 2009), calls for higher levels of financial expertise and commercial acumen. The conventional view of selling as a linear and phased approach has given way to multifaceted and dynamic processes that require broader sets of competences (Moncrief & Marshall, 2005). Professional selling is being redefined as a “phenomenon of human-driven interaction between and within individuals / organizations in order to bring about economic exchange within a value-creation context” (Dixon & Tanner, 2012, p. 9). In complex sales, however, the contexts in which value creation emerges are no longer predictable or contained within organizational boundaries. These contexts are intricate networks of cross-functional, cross-firm interactions (Lambert & Enz, 2012) that the sales professional needs to fully understand and lead. Value creation and complex solution selling need professionals with a unique blend of cognitive, relational, commercial, and managerial skills (Marcos & Ryals, 2011). The complexity of the context in which sales professionals operate has to be matched by achieving equivalent levels of complexity, a phenomenon known as requisite complexity (Lord, Hannah, & Jennings, 2011). So much have the requirements for new salespeople increased that companies are now looking to MBAs as potential sources of talent to occupy sales positions (Pettijohn & Pettijohn, 2009).

Skill areas that go beyond functional knowledge may need to be included in the undergraduate sales curriculum to equip future professionals with the repertoire of competences to succeed in modern professional selling. Traditional sales education approaches, whereby content is predefined and delivered via classroom and technology-enabled platforms, have been instrumental in providing the basic functional level and understanding of selling. This education is, however, deficient in educating sales forces to operate in fast-paced, constantly changing contexts characterized by multiple channels, complex solutions, and relationships with strategic customers. In this article, we present the case of the master in sales transformation (MST) and its underpinning pedagogical strategy, which addresses the need to develop higher levels of requisite variety in sales professionals. This tried and tested program provides a novel exemplar of how to blend functional knowledge with personal development in sales education. Its approach and the elements of its learning design can be introduced to complete and broaden undergraduate sales education programs.

We argue that, unlike the sales training provision from industry, it is the unique combination of academic research-led education, consulting thought leadership, and business expertise that can create a powerful pedagogical approach to develop the aforementioned selling skills. Sales training, despite being a sizable industry in mature markets ($15 billion per year in the United States), has been found ineffective or less than useful (Salopek, 2009). Corporate sales education in the past has often been prescriptive, linear, and content centered rather than learner centered. Cron, Marshall, Singh, Spiro, and Sujan (2005) described traditional sales training programs as “standardized (common to all salespeople), top-down (management decides), mandated (nonvoluntary), structured (formal and centralized), and offered in classroom” (p. 124), thus potentially out of sync with the evolution of the modern sales function.

In a recent review of sales training, Lassk, Ingram, Kraus, and Di Mascio (2012) advocated for salespeople to have more input into their training programs, being engaged both in content development and in its delivery. Self-directed learning approaches help address the challenge of individual idiosyncrasies in learning by providing an individualized approach that is learner-centric and takes into account personal and contextual circumstances in the sales organization. This approach has been found to enhance sales performance by helping salespeople develop their own competence (Artis & Harris, 2007). Self-directed learning can be realized by adopting work-based approaches that involve reflective practice and learning from meaningful experiences that can lead to personal transformation and a mindset change (Gear, Scott, & Liendo, 1993).

In this article, we present the case of a sales education program in which the professionals’ full engagement in their learning journey created meaningful positive impact for the person, enhanced relationships within and among organizations, and enabled the achievement of demonstrable sales growth. We propose that the strategies to enhance professionals’ level of engagement in a professional sales education program can be translated to also enhance students’ involvement and learning effectiveness. Thus, we seek to contribute to the ongoing discussion of the challenges in attracting and retaining high-quality students in marketing education and how engaging the early-year students in the practice of their chosen discipline can enhance their thinking and self-regulating learning skills (Young, 2010).

In the remainder of the article, we first describe the underpinning pedagogical strategies of work-based learning and present how they have informed the creation of a research-based MST. The findings of the study provide evidence of how the process emanating from this sales education program has been used to facilitate a transformation in the way that groups of sales professionals perceive their roles, shape their practice, and develop new mindsets for selling. We discuss how the insights from the MST can be applied to the design of sales education programs at the undergraduate level, and we outline six areas in which university sales programs can further develop.

Work-Based and Individual-Centered Learning Approaches

Work-based learning, an individual-centered approach, is

a learning process which focuses critical thinking upon work in order to facilitate the recognition, acquisition and application of individual and collective knowledge, skills and abilities, to achieve specific outcomes of significance to the learner, their work context and in the learning environment such as the University. (Garnett, Costley, & Workman, 2009, p. 4)

Work-based learning rests on two fundamental pillars, experiential learning and reflective practice.

Experiential and Self-Directed Learning

Cummins et al. (2013) revealed that experiential learning is a core approach in sales education, widely adopted by sales educators, to develop students’ skills, attitudes, and expertise (Mantel, Pullins, Reid, & Buehrer, 2002). David Kolb (1984) coined the term experiential learning, suggesting that individuals learn according to a cycle starting with a stimulus (concrete experience), which triggers off reflections (reflective observation), which we then examine in the context of wider associations (abstract conceptualization), and this leads to us trying out something in practice (active experimentation). Experiential learning has been widely adopted in sales education to enhance the effectiveness of learning interventions (Inks & Avila, 2008). We argue that the process of work-based learning not only is a transformative experience for the learner but also can lead to an outcome, a theory in use, which becomes embedded in a culture and, as our case will illustrate, the basis for the emergence of a new mindset of professional selling.

Reflective Practice

Dewey (1938) referred to “reflection” as the key process that enables individuals to stand back from a situation and engage in “purposeful inquiry” to solve a problem. Schön (1987) further developed reflection, distinguishing between “reflection-in-action” and “reflecting-on action,” both of which involve what he called “a reflective conversation with the situation” either as we are engaged in the activity or afterward. The dialectic notion of engagement between what is going on inside us and the situation outside is a central characteristic of reflection (Boud, Keogh, & Walker, 1985).

The notion of the reflective practitioner is fundamental to all work-based learning because it is the process whereby the learner begins to separate him or herself from what Kolb called “the concrete situation” to identify and pay attention to key issues, which moves on to critical reflection. This is increasingly recognized as relevant to sales force management and development (Chonko, Dubinsky, Jones, & Roberts, 2003).

We argued in our introduction that professional selling has evolved to become complex and dynamic, relationship oriented, and long term focused (Weitz & Bradford, 1999). Recent studies (Shannahan, Bush, Moncrief, & Shannahan, 2013) are drawing on organizational sense making to describe selling as the phenomenon whereby actors gather information and insights, which they aim to interpret and understand to identify and exploit opportunities. Weick (1995) described sense making as “structuring the unknown,” which involves placing stimuli into frameworks of reference. In this article, we present how these sales professionals engaged in the MST developed these frames of reference through reflective practice from prescriptive guidelines to evolving cues in the context of customer management, and we show how reflective practice could be used to develop undergraduate sales programs.

Action Research

Action research involves extensive discussions of problems followed by group decisions on how to proceed. It must include the active participation of those who have to carry out the work in the exploration of problems that they identify and anticipate. After investigation of these problems, the group makes decisions, monitoring and keeping note of them. Regular reviews of progress follow. The group decides on when a particular plan or strategy has been exhausted and fulfilled, and brings to these discussions newly perceived problems (Adelman, 1993). Action research as a systematic method of inquiry is underpinned by a cycle of reflection and problem solving that comprises the following: (a) Identify an area of practice to be investigated, (b) imagine a solution or way forward, (c) review and evaluate what happens, and (d) change practice in light of the evaluation.

Moncrief and Marshall (2005) referred to “problem solving” as a key phase in selling processes and how, in consultative or solution selling, the salesperson focuses on identifying problems, determining needs, and proposing and implementing solutions, thus becoming a “valued partner for his/her customers.”

In their critical review of the literature for sales educators, Cummings et al. (2013) argued that critical thinking is “an important and challenging learning goal for sales educators” and that “integrated experience” is relevant to critical thinking (p. 75). A key feature of action research is to encourage participants to develop critical thinking or, as Whitehead and McNiff (2006) called it, a “living theory” of their own:

We make sense of what we are doing through researching it. We gather data and generate evidence to support our claims that we know what we are doing and why we are doing it (our theories of practice) and we test these knowledge claims for their validity through the critical feedback of others. These theories are our living theories. (Whitehead & McNiff, 2006, p. 32)

This research approach helps to integrate experiences with new insights into a coherent framework. Dewey’s (1938) view is that for experience to be “educative,” it must lead out into an expanding world of subject matter, of facts or information, and of ideas.

The Master Program in Sales (MST) Transformation

The MST is an innovative program designed and delivered in partnership by Middlesex University (London), Consalia (Hampton Hill, UK), and corporate clients, most of them Fortune 500 or FTSE100 firms in sectors such as technology, banking, telecommunications, electronics, and professional services. The partnership provides a unique platform to link research in sales with business practice in a mutually reinforcing way (Boehm & Hogan, 2013). Middlesex is the home of the Institute for Work Based Learning, internationally recognized for innovation and expertise in professional and work-based learning.

The idea of launching a professional MST can be traced back to Consalia’s CEO interest in both research-informed strategies in professional selling and work-based approaches to learning. An initial project focused on exploring the question “How do C-level executives want to be sold to?” This evolved to become a formal 6-year research project that generated a good number of outputs, including the award of a doctorate (Squire, 2009). The research design and its execution were underpinned by work-based learning and critical thinking (Garnett et al., 2009). Research findings revealed a set of values and mindsets that underpin the sales strategies and interaction approaches that senior executives seek in salespeople. Initially, insights from this research led to the design of a short program, Winning Value Propositions, which was delivered to 406 participants. Subsequently, accredited sales transformation courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels were delivered to 849 people between 2008 and 2013. These programs evolved into the MST, which has seen 32 students enrolled through the end of 2013, with a cohort of 55 students starting in 2014. Participants in the MST are in most cases sales professionals who are involved in selling complex solutions with both product and service components, and in most cases they are sponsored by their current employer.

Overall, the program focuses on applying world-class, leading-edge thinking and research in sales to participants’ own goals within their organizations. A series of modules is run throughout a period of 2 years. Each module consists of a 3-day facilitated workshop, followed by a work-based assignment and the final submission, a master’s thesis project (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Master in Sales Transformation: Outline of the Modules.

Master in Sales Transformation—Outline of Modules
1. Thinking innovatively about sales Being an agent for change Reflective practice Action research Appreciative inquiry Core values for selling Creating a vision Planning your professional development in sales	4. Developing the commercial strategy: Negotiating and closing Negotiation: Individual and in teams Contracting and negotiating in the global marketplace
2. Mobilizing resources: Identifying and qualifying opportunities Opportunity identification and definition Competitive and business trend analysis Understanding the customer Development of business strategy and tactics Financial and business planning	5. Project Management Matrix management Problem solving (root cause analysis) Organizational change methodologies Project management Contract management
3. Winning Value Propositions (WVP) program: Developing and proposing solutions Development of sales strategy and tactics Process re-engineering: Design and measurement Consulting methodology and engagement Communication	6. Planning your professional development Personal journey: Where have you come from? Personal journey: The way forward Action plan for the future

The modular structure and its foci are designed to provide an opportunity to develop deeper insights into the participants’ professional practice. Moreover, the program fosters a continuous critical questioning of what does and does not work, blending insights from research in sales with personal experience. To help this process of discovery, participants first submit a work-based project proposal for which they receive one-to-one feedback. This is then followed by two action learning sets, typically including a group of five peers and facilitated by a tutor. Learning sets are designed to encourage idea sharing and peer feedback, and to enrich work-based projects. One-to-one feedback is also offered to delegates after completion of their work-based projects. Examples of the topics included in work-based projects are summarized in Table 2. Using networked learning technologies, the learning sets provide the opportunity to reflect on where individuals are in their “journey,” how they are transforming as individuals, and how they are driving transformation back in their sales organizations. Learning sets are instrumental to further develop certain capabilities such as critical evaluation of issues (Wheeler, 2008) and evidence-based practice (Rousseau & McCarthy, 2007).

Table 2.

Examples of Work-Based Projects.

Close rate improvement of marketing-generated leads.	Creating one systematic and repeatable process in generating demand, and developing and nurturing opportunities
Evaluation of sales transformation in the context of performance management	Leading sales transformation in a matrix organization
Transformation in myself, my team, and the Middle East and North Africa region	Unlock customer potential among five market pillars.
Coaching the challenger: how to improve potential and results in a challenger team through focused coaching	How sales transformation could be implemented in my team
Using design thinking to transform the way we do account planning	Reinforce cross-lab collaboration and team spirit.
Reduce the propensity to sell shelfware, and grow market share.

A core underpinning principle of the MST is that reflection can enable a transformative process to emerge. Faculty and tutors encourage the delegates to take calculated risks in changing their practice, ensuring it is informed by both existing quality research in sales and an understanding of people and organizational phenomena. Teaching and administrative staff work with students to help them use techniques to enhance their ability to pay continual attention to what is happening in the course, what is happening in their organizations, and how they frame their responses to these (Moon, 2013). Central to the MST are the principles of action research understood as “the means of systematic enquiry for all participants in the quest for greater effectiveness through democratic participation” (Adelman, 1993, p. 7). The learning interventions and tools used in the program are informed by pedagogical strategies that are consistent with established educational approaches. These are outlined in Table 3.

Table 3.

Tools, Practices, and Pedagogy Adopted in the Master Program.

Learning Interventions and Tools	Pedagogical Strategies	Educational Approach
Work-based assignments	Action research	Problems are not separated out from the social context within which they occur; thus, the interplay between research in sales and delegates’ expertise underpins the program.
		Organizational change and improving delegates’ practice in their sales organizations are encouraged for increased sales effectiveness.
Action learning sets	Experiential learning	Individual and collective reflective practice is empowered. Reconstruction of experience and paradigm shifts are fostered to envision new possibilities in managing the sales organization and create new opportunities with customers.
Personal development plans	Reflective practice	Enhanced self-awareness and evaluation of outcomes, both organizational (e.g., sales growth) and personal (e.g., mindsets), are promoted to help make a difference in one’s own and others’ careers.

The distinctive characteristic of the program is the partnership, which is characterized by a unique combination of academic legitimacy, consulting thought leadership, and business relevance. The involvement of the corporate partners is very significant at the program design stage. Faculty review the company’s internal sales processes and prior sales training. As a result, the delivery mode and the emphases of the modules are revisited. When required, new learning pathways are created that allow students new choices while maintaining the overall academic standards required to be awarded a master’s degree. For instance, in the case of a global technology company, some planned sessions were reformulated, and on occasions the mode of delivery was changed. Models that the company used, such as Kotter’s (1996) change management or Blanchard’s (1994) situational leadership, were referred to for consistency with the tools and methods the company uses. Prior to delivering each module, an “alignment” session takes place to connect the content of the module with the strategic goals of the company. In all of the above steps, the faculty and delivery teams ensure that the learning objectives set for each of the program modules meet the required university standards.

Findings: Sales Education With Impacts at Multiple Levels

Throughout the development of the Sales Transformation Program, data were collected on an ongoing basis for program evaluation, learning strategy development, and delegate assessment purposes. Participant observation of class interactions, presentations, action learning sets, and customer workshops allowed the authors to study firsthand the behavior of individuals and to understand their experiences (Taylor & Bogdan, 1984). Participant observation helped grasp insights about “the experience of people, the way they think, feel and act,” because “the most truthful, reliable, complete and simple way of getting that information is to share their experience” (Douglas, 1974, p. 112). Archival data, such as reports, learning contracts, work-based assignments, presentations, and other written outputs, provided valuable insights about individuals and their organizations (Hill, 1993). Participants were also interviewed to study “people’s understanding of the meanings in their lived world, describing their experiences and self-understanding, and clarifying and elaborating their own perspective on their lived world” (Kvale, 1996, p. 105).

In this section, we summarize three key themes emerging from the analysis of the data collected during a 6-year period (2007–2013). The evidence gathered showed positive effects in at least three areas: (a) a long-lasting impact on individuals’ careers, (b) the development of relationships within the sales teams and among key customers, and (c) sales growth driven by new ways of creating customer value.

Long-Lasting Impact on Individuals’ Careers

The Sales Transformation Program is described by individuals as an intensive and highly engaging development initiative. Participants acknowledged how the program helped start a journey of critical evaluation of their practice in sales organizations. Delegates to the MST recognize that the approach and the design of the program were instrumental in helping them challenge assumptions they had about the drivers of sales performance, in allowing enhanced mindfulness of who they are as sales executives, and in eliciting values they were not fully aware they stood for. Delegates acknowledge that they became immersed in the very process of being changed themselves as a result of being involved in championing change in their sales organizations.

Those engaged in the program admit that it had an impact in terms of personal transformation, career development, and personal growth. As one of the participants declared,

The richness of the Master program comes from the world-class quality of the content, and the platform it provides for reflective practice. For me it was both inspiring and personally transformational: it changed my career. (Senior sales executive, global technology company)

The work that delegates undertake within the MST informed the development of innovative proposals, new projects, and new sales strategies back in their companies. This, in turn, helped individuals gain status and visibility within their organizations as a result of the new and valuable ideas they proposed. The formal recognition associated with the award of a postgraduate degree further contributed to their career advancement. As the vice president of strategic sales from a technology and management consulting firm claimed, “Achieving the Master with a distinction was a major event in my life and indeed has had a huge impact on my career in sales leadership and in selling very complex solutions.”

Participants claimed that they conceived changes in sales processes and practices in their organizations as a result of engaging in deep reflection and coursework. In addition, insights from the MST also help them identify tactics to enlist the involvement and advocacy of some senior executives. One of the key supporters of the MST in a global technology company explained that the company’s vision for the program and the transformation he expected was through the “role model effect delegates who completed the program could have” in their business. For this executive, the outcome of the program goes beyond management and even leadership: The expectation was that those completing the MST would personify and embody personal change as part of the change required in their organizations and teams: “Becoming a role model for change oneself is not enough. One has to ensure the whole team also shares and practices the same values.”

Participants recognized enhanced awareness in leading sales operations and sales teams, and the adoption of management approaches that they recognized would not have been used if they had not been in the program. One of the students referred to how he changed his approach from “leading the process to get the expected [predefined] outcome” to “engaging in an honest dialogue to explore all possibilities.” The learning strategy of the MST resonates in delegates who declare that the program:

Provides an opportunity to reflect in a fast-paced environment, and then act with a refreshed approach to managing the team. (Sales manager, corporate accounts)

Appreciative dialogues are encouraged in the MST, motivating individuals to recognize possibilities and to pursue different ways of addressing business challenges:

[The program] led to a “different conversation,” particularly with reference to resolving issues; more mature business conversations and improved approach and outlook. (Director of sales, telecommunications and service industries)

Throughout the MST, the interplay among ideas drawn from research in organizational development, from academic research in sales, and from participants’ own sales expertise creates a continuous and mutually reinforcing loop, further generating research outputs as well as new professional insights and practices.

Development of Relationships Within and Across Organizations

The second key outcome of the Sales Transformation Program was the enhancement of relationships within the participants’ businesses and with relevant individuals in their key customers. From an internal perspective, delegates overwhelmingly expressed their willingness to share with others what they had learned in the program. One participant ran appreciative inquiry workshops for two of his managers, resulting in a process that he recognized “has totally changed the way we conduct problem solving at work and also with customers.”

In the MST, the engaged nature of the modules, the participative action learning sets, and the emphasis on applying learning to real-life contexts resulted in better leverage and more collaborative work. One of the delegates declared that the program stimulated in him a “genuine willingness to transform perceptions and attitudes around team members.”

Participants also described how attending the program benefited their relationships with customers. A financial services organization, after training a group of account managers on the values underpinning the program, decided to measure changes in customer-centricity. A sample of its clients were interviewed and asked to rate on a scale of 1–7 the values (both positive and negative) that the sales team displayed when selling to them. Data taken at two different points (3 years apart) as shown in table 4 revealed improvements among all dimensions.

Table 4.

Changes in Customer-Centricity Before and After Attending the Program.

Dimensions	2008	2010
Positive
Authenticity	5.5	6.1
Client-centricity	5	5.3
Proactive creativity	3.5	4.7
Tactful audacity	4	4.4
Negative
Supplier-centric	2	1.3
Manipulative	2	1.3
Complacency	2.5	1.5
Short-term focus	3	1.5

Participants recognized the program was instrumental in helping many of them reconsider their customer relations, with significant improvements in the perceived quality of these relationships.

Sales Growth Driven by the Creation of Customer Value

Firms that committed to the Sales Transformation Program had high expectations about tangible deliverables for the organization. We have presented some less tangible deliverables, but cases of measurable business outputs were also observed.

Following the completion of the Winning Value Proposition (WVP) program, a global technology and information systems conglomerate tracked the performance of their sales organization, examining the number of deals in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for the remainder of that year. Their analysis revealed a significant difference in the number of deals agreed, the conversion rate, and the overall value when comparing the sales teams that participated in the WVP program with those that did not (see Table 5). Executives from the company recognized that although it is difficult to attribute an increase in successful deals solely to the effect of a sales development program, the positive impact of WVP was widely acknowledged.

Table 5.

Effect of the Winning Value Proposition (WVP) Program on Sales Growth.

	WVP	Non-WVP
Total deals	11	12
Deals won	8	2
% conversion	73%	33%
Value (in millions)	4,728 USD	471 USD

A wider range of measureable impacts was revealed, such as staff retention and performance.

Our objective was to sustain sales transformation through an accredited work-based learning program linked to a well-defined sales process, and in doing so ensure effective & consistent delivery across the entire branch network. Over a four-year period, employee engagement went up 20% while unforced turnover reduced by 12% below the industry average. (Director, financial services authority)

Overall, the analysis of the data gathered showed that improvements in individuals’ understanding of themselves were often associated with the development of meaningful relations with their teams and their customers. These, in turn, resulted in better sales opportunity management and increased likelihood of winning deals. It is not just improved sales processes and tools that made the difference, but also the new mindsets for selling that delegates developed as part of engaging in the MST. As a sales director from a global technology company recognized, “The Master is changing my mindset and approach.”

Discussion: Enhancing the Professional Mindset of Selling

In this article, we have outlined how the profound transformation of professional selling and sales management requires a set of complex professional qualities that go beyond mere functional selling skills. Thus, sales education programs need to engage students entering the profession, as well as practicing sales professionals, in deeper levels of reflection and critical thinking. The MST program described in the article enabled participants to transform from method to mindset the way in which they approach their sales jobs. We now discuss this transformation and how it emerged in those enrolled in the MST. We consider how the pedagogical strategies underpinning the MST might also be adopted in the growing number of university sales education programs to foster a meaningful mindset for professional selling in their students.

Our study confirms the importance of experiential learning and its relevance and appropriateness in sales education (Cummins et al., 2013). Our work reveals that experiential learning, when combined with reflective practice and action research, not only has the potential to catalyze personal transformation but also enhances the perception of program quality in sales education (Peltier, Hay, & Drago, 2005).

The analysis of the MST, from the participants’ point of view, shows that experiential and reflective approaches to educating sales students produce meaningful learning outcomes when the programs are linked to the social context in which participants work.

The work-based learning and action research approaches adopted enable the development of higher order insights when some of its elements, such as experiential learning and reflective practice, are practiced in a group situation, showing that these operate in a mutually reinforcing way. Carr and Kemmis (2003) described action research as a form of self-reflective practice that participants undertake in social situations to improve their own practices and their understanding of these practices. In the MST, emphasis is placed on embedding the characteristics of well-founded action research programs: first, linking problems to the social and organizational contexts within which they arose; second, encouraging individual and collective engagement in reflective practice; and, third, fostering evaluation of outcomes and making change happen. These approaches enable individuals to make sense of complex sales phenomena, developing new frameworks for understanding their selling practices and themselves.

The creation of the MST was (and still is) inspired by a willingness to contribute to the development of the sales profession. Some elements of the program go further than developing competence in complex selling by creating a space in which personal values and deeply held assumptions are fundamentally challenged. By adopting an action research approach, participants and faculty alike discovered that one has to be clear about his or her values when selling, managing, and organizing. This characteristic is implicit in the work of Lewin (1946) insofar as he was driven by a set of values that profoundly influenced the conception of action research as a method of inquiry. Whitehead and McNiff (2006) claimed that action researchers need to be clear about their values, that action research is value laden and morally committed, and that it forces the individual to self-reflect about what I or we are doing, and not only what they are doing.

The environment of the MST is highly engaging and demonstrates the effect that a class environment has on intrinsic motivation and on learning outcomes (Young, 2005). The program is also perceived to be challenging. Individuals are asked difficult questions about their selling practice to enable critical thinking and reflection, such as those proposed by McNiff (2010): “What is my concern?” and “Why am I concerned?”

Our study revealed that the MST helps develop a long-lasting, new mindset. The analysis of the data enables the authors to see that this process started from enhanced self-awareness, an important trait when working in complex or multicultural sales settings (Lassk et al., 2012). Awareness of one’s drivers and leadership behaviors facilitates the development of more meaningful relations between sales leaders and sales team members (Deeter-Schmelz, Goebel, & Kennedy, 2008). Reflective practice proves instrumental in challenging assumptions, which in turn leads to developing momentum for change and learning (Chonko, Jones, Roberts, & Dubinsky, 2002). Through appreciative dialogues and inquiry, individuals are assured of the “positive core” (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2005) and are supported by senior leaders who legitimized wanting to drive change forward and adopting new values to redefine customer relations. These interrelated elements developed into the creation of new mindsets for sales (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

The process of the development of new mindsets for professional selling (circles denote the interventions and pedagogical strategies of the MST).

We argue that addressing the profound transformations in the role of the sales professional requires an approach markedly different from just developing knowledge, skills, and abilities (Artis & Harris, 2007; Ricks, Williams, & Weeks, 2008). The accomplishment of the MST is the development of an integrated approach in which research, models, tools, and interventions enable behaviors and mindsets to be permanently changed. This enabled learners to engage with their customers in different ways and to provide novel insights to complex problems, confirming Fogel et al.’s (2012) claim that “customers no longer need a salesperson to learn about a company’s offering, much less to place an order … sales has become more about helping customers define the problem they are trying to solve and assemble a complete solution” (p. 96). The approach and outcomes seen in the MST are immediately relevant to practicing salespeople. They are also pertinent to develop in undergraduate students in university and college degrees before they begin their professional careers in sales.

For undergraduate degrees, the learning strategies described in this article will produce the professionals with the requisite complexity that the market demands. We propose considering a new generation of sales education that emphasizes evolving the sales curricula in six dimensions:

From teaching (sales) techniques to enabling mindful reflection of sales processes: recognizing that the complexity of modern sales and the variety of sales contexts require education that goes beyond tactics

From designing normative courses to facilitating exploratory work: allowing students to try and test theories, frameworks, and concepts, rather than just absorbing them

From presenting deterministic sales processes to open-ended ones: to reflect the multifaceted nature of enterprise and solution selling, and the fact that customer interactions are cyclical phenomena

From driven by the salesperson to situated within specific buyer–seller interactions: thus suggesting the need to acknowledge and incorporate advances in buying and procurement knowledge as well as an understanding of oneself in context

From teacher-driven to student-led sales education, as a result of ongoing dialogue and reflection

From outcome-based to process-based learning of professional selling, to reflect the insight and value that reside in the process of learning and discovery

These evolutions in sales curricula can result in long-lasting outcomes and also may become a way of differentiation for business schools, setting them apart from providers of sales training from industry. The MST also provides an insightful case in which academic research and professional practice are seemingly intertwined, showing new ways for business schools to address issues of legitimacy (Thomas & Cornuel, 2012) and for academics issues of relevance for practice (Lee & Greenley, 2010).

Conclusion

Cummings et al. (2013) noted that “as sales education continues to grow and innovate, articles reporting successful pedagogy, including exercises, projects, role-playing scenarios, and simulations will be needed” (p. 72). We have presented the case of the MST, showing how the work of the students themselves becomes the subject discipline, rather than the traditional marketing disciplines delivered exclusively by faculty. We claim that what should be further privileged is the theory that emerges from the students’ exploration of their collective practices, which extends, beyond the programs in which they participate, into their current or future businesses and the customers with whom they interact or will interact. At the end of his paper on “Kurt Lewin and the Origins of Action Research,” Adelman (1993) commented that “it remains to be seen whether participatory research can influence social and educational policy in technocratic bureaucracies” (pp. 21–22), and he lamented that in some countries, the national curriculum and assessment have not been informed by participatory research. Two decades on, we are confident that the program described in this article will lead to a living theory that will influence educational policy in the field of selling and sales management.

The Sales Transformation Program addresses a fundamental phenomenon for business and organizations: the extent to which sales education can become a source of advantage. Chonko et al. (2003) claimed that learning is fundamental to create a sustainable competitive advantage. We argue that sales strategies, processes, and individual capabilities, all enhanced by a sales education program such as the one described here, create a unique opportunity for differentiation in the marketplace for both recent graduates and practicing sales professionals. Two of the firms that engaged in the program wanted to create a differentiated approach to selling, and both approached it in different ways. We reflected ourselves, “Why would a company want to share a standardized approach with other competitors?” Arguably, if every company adopted the same selling practices, they would lose an opportunity to differentiate. Equally, we propose that the future of sales education needs to emphasize uniqueness and differentiation while maintaining standards and commonality. Standards and commonality are still needed in transactional and repetitive sales. Uniqueness is critical in complex and relationship selling contexts. This program also provides an exemplar to translate sales research into actionable approaches (Bartunek & Egri, 2012) and inspiring education.

As a community of sales educators, we may need to rethink sales education, just as sales executives had to rethink their sales forces (Rackham & DeVincentis, 1998) more than a decade ago. We believe the transformation process of sales education will take time, but we are confident in our suggested approach, which is endorsed by the growing interest of companies, those that precisely employ graduates of sales programs. We envisage a promising future for sales educators, particularly those who demonstrate an ability to exploit work-based learning approaches to educate future sales professionals. McNiff (2010) claimed that

the most popular profession for action research remain education and nursing and health care.… However, action research has now branched into the general public services sectors and it is now entering business and industry, and even financial services and selling. (p. 41)

We believe that sales education programs adopting a learner-centered approach will not just improve selling techniques but also create sales mindsets with the potential to profoundly transform professional selling at all levels.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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