Sales Student Preconceptions and a Novel Approach to Sales Curriculum Mapping: Insights,Implications,and Application for Sales Educators

Abstract

It is widely known that students have preconceptions regarding salespeople and that these preconceptions are modified by participation in sales classes. It is also known that experiential sales class activities are more effective at increasing student interest in pursuing a sales career than traditional lecture style lessons. Less explored is the source of student preconceptions regarding sales and an associated model to explain the observed classroom pedagogy phenomena. Moreover, despite the focus on measuring student attitudes toward sales, there is limited research that presents practical methods for sales educators to introduce sales concepts to students. To address this knowledge gap, this article presents the findings from a quantitative analysis of student experiences regarding sales, a model for interpreting these experiences as it relates to sales career interest, and a novel process for developing the introductory and advanced sales classes at a large metropolitan university.

Keywords

sales sales skills sales preconceptions curriculum development curriculum map informing science

The extant research demonstrates students have preconceptions regarding sales careers, and that participatory sales courses are effective at changing student interest in sales careers. Still lacking in the research is a collection of research-based methods and theory to support the development of a sales curriculum. Specifically, literature has not provided insights on the source of student preconceptions, a model that explains the change in student perception following a sales course, a method for generating a list of localized sales skills to be delivered in the sales curriculum, nor an approach to map the identified sales skills to courses. Taken together, these assets would produce practical guidance for sales educators in creating a localized comprehensive sales curriculum.

This article provides results from a year-long quantitative research project that explored the source of student preconceptions about a career in sales. At the time of the study, students were in enrolled in introductory and advanced sales classes at a large southeastern metropolitan university. In addition, a conceptual scheme from Informing Science is offered as a framework to explain the success of experiential learning in improving student interest in pursuing a career in sales. Specifically, it is posited that some student preconceptions are the result of student experiences from largely transactional/simple sales experiences and that these experiences are incongruent with instruction related to complex solution sale careers. Building on the offered conceptual scheme, a new method for curriculum mapping, the TRIP Protocol, is provided along with the application of the protocol. The TRIP Protocol is a novel approach to mapping sales skills to sales curriculum and cocurriculum using “TRIP,” Teach, Reinforce, Introduce, and Practice, actions. The final component in developing a sales education program is selecting the sales skills to be taught. The literature is somewhat dated and limited in industry vertical coverage and regional geography to provide the requisite direction for sales educators. To address this gap, the article provides an exemplar of applying a collaboration technique called thinklets to ground sales skills selection with local business needs.

Sales Education Literature Review

In 2013, Cummins et al. (2013) provided the sales research community a great service when the team conducted at critical review of 117 sales articles published across 12 journals. The researchers categorized most articles (74.8%) into three categories: Experiential Learning (29.9%), Assessment (24.3%), and Career Development (20.6%). In this section, the researcher considers each of the three areas, then describes a previously identified gap in the literature, and concludes with two research questions.

Experiential Learning

Within experiential learning the authors (Cummins et al., 2013, p. 71) noted, “Today’s Generation Y students respond positively to experiential learning and the opportunity to garner business experience while still in school.” Within the Experiential Learning category, there were numerous articles that detailed interactive lessons. The subcategory items from the categorization were as follows: Experiential Pedagogy, Case Studies, Simulations, Projects, and Role Plays. More recently, Cummins et al. (2015, p. 30) evaluated six interactive lessons (Expert Panel, Sales Team Student Role Play and Brief Lecture, Sales Career Lecture, Lecture on Sales Management and Sales Process, Mini Sales Competition, and New Sales Alumni Presentation) and found “expert panel of sales professionals to deliver course content and share personal experiences from their sales careers had the most significant impact on student intent to pursue sales of the interventions tested.” Spiller et al. (2019) conducted a comprehensive review of sales programs and curriculum. Taken together, these sales researchers have conducted a thorough study of existing sales courses and produced impactful insights that improve sales education.

In addition to these studies which examined existing sales curriculum, another article examined the impact of a composite variable, feelings toward selling and five control variables (age, gender, experience in sales, family or friends in sales roles, and prior high school coursework) with regard to intention to pursue a sales career. The study found that feelings toward selling was statistically significant with regard to intention to pursue a sales career and none of the five control variables were significant (Ballestra et al., 2017). Also, immensely helpful was the article by Peltier et al. (2014) that produced a parsimonious instrument for predicting student’s intent to pursue a sales career.

While these articles illustrate the impact of experiential learning, they do not provide direction on why such pedagogy is effective.

Assessment

Also, in the 2013 Critical Review of Sales Literature, the authors noted two subcategories in the Assessment category of papers: Program Assessment and Profession. In the Profession subcategory, one article by Swan and Adkins explored sales career prestige and how education may modify standing. The article illustrates that sales prestige has been a long-standing challenge by finding in 1981,

the professional sales occupations of sales engineer, sales supervisor, life insurance agent, and sales representative were less prestigious than either the engineer or physician. A similar pattern was found for education, interesting work, importance to society, truthfulness, competence and altruism with the physician and engineer ahead of all sales professionals. (Swan & Adkins, 1981, p. 53)

Career Development

The Career Development category of the 2013 Critical Review of Sales Literature included two sections: Preparation and Perception. In the first subsection, Preparation, there were several studies that noted skills required for sales careers. Tomkovick et al. (1996) identified 15 unique attributes from 20 recruiters of entry-level sales personnel. In another study, Kimball (1998) leveraged literature to develop a survey for regional sales managers to assess 16 skills needed by field salespersons. Next, Moore et al. (1986) conducted a two-stage study. Stage 1 was a convenience sample of 20 practicing industrial products personnel in Chicago and St. Louis. This sample identified a list of 82 individual competencies. Second, a questionnaire was developed that probed the relative value of the 82 competences. The questionnaire was delivered to industrial sales personnel in an area bounded by connecting Chicago, St. Louis and Evansville, Indiana (Moore et al., 1986). In the final article from the 2013 Critical Review of Sales Literature, the authors identified the 2006 article by Raymond et al. on hiring criteria between sales managers and sales representatives. The research was conducted in two phases. In Phase 1, a convenience sample of 11 sales managers and 9 sales representatives (20 total) conducting recruiting at a large southeastern university were interviewed, individually. Through these interviews, 21 hiring criteria were identified, with 16 of the items representing skills or capabilities. In Phase 2, a larger convenience sample of 200 (111 returned completed) sales managers and sales representatives conducting recruiting at a large southeastern university were contacted. Initiative, Teamwork, Interpersonal Skills, Oral Communication, and Motivation are ranked above the sixth item, Personal Selling Skills (Raymond et al., 2006).

More recently, Newberry and Collins (2015) published the results of a study on “Aligning sales curriculum content and pedagogy with practitioner’s needs.” The researchers noted as follows:

Hence, there appears to be a need for aligning current curriculum with practitioner needs while enhancing student’s key communication and sales skills. Logic suggests that connecting with practitioners by involving them in the development and delivery of curriculum content might best accomplish both goals. (p. 2)

Supporting this perspective, the researcher’s conducted a five-step process. Step 1 established a base line curriculum. Step 2 utilized two focus groups to refine items. Step 3 conducted a study of practitioners based on 37 in-depth personal interviews. The firms involved in the interviews were mostly located in the upper Midwest and with many of the participants being alumni of the university. Step 4 identified a framework for curriculum implementation. Step 5 fit the content topics/pedagogy into a program framework. Newberry and Collins (2015, 27, p. 4) explain that the skills were assigned to courses by saying, “the placement as recommended by practitioners within the inherent limitations of a three credit per course model.”

This research provides a foundation for understanding critical sales skills that need to be a focus of sales instruction and curriculum design. However, although the previous studies are directionally helpful, the literature lacks a method, currency, and localization for identifying the sales skills that a sales program should include in its curriculum and cocurriculum.

The second subsection within Career Development in the 2013 Critical Review of Sales Literature is Perception. The authors explored various aspects of perception. Swan and Adkins looked at prestige, DelVecchio and Honeycutt examined race perspectives, Lagace and Longfellow analyzed the impact of classroom style on student attitude toward sales career, and Bristow et al. explored perspectives of sales class and nonsales class students. In each case, the researchers added valuable richness to the body of knowledge. Swan and Adkins (1981) found that sales had lower prestige compared with engineers and physicians. DelVecchio and Honeycutt reported no difference in racial group membership as it relates to the importance of salary, autonomy, or education in evaluating sales careers. DelVecchio and Honeycutt (2000, p. 48) noted as follows:

Racial differences are negligible (overall MANOVA significant at the p-level of .0170) and exist for only one of six sales careers: real estate sales.

The appeal of real estate sales was rated significantly higher by African-American students in this study.

No differences were found in the appeal of consumer product sales, industrial product sales, insurance sales or securities/financial series sales. International Sales were appealing to all students.

Lagace and Longfellow examined the impact of classroom style across 14 dimensions for Traditional and Participative Groups (TG and PG). The authors shared, “the two groups differed in their opinions on personal selling across all the items except two: much traveling and salespeople are money hungry. The PG was more positive on all other items” (Lagace & Longfellow, 1989, p. 74). In the final article, Bristow et al. examined the impact of sales-related courses on perceptions. The authors noted, “SC <sales course> students tended to view a sales career as more rewarding, satisfying, and exciting; offering more numerous career opportunities; and saw the challenges of a sales career as more enjoyable than did NSC <nonsales course> students” (Bristow et al., 2006, p. 247).

The literature is most helpful in providing clear evidence that students have preconceptions regarding a career in sales. Missing from the literature is research that explores the source of these preconceptions and a conceptual scheme for addressing the preconceptions with pedagogical devices, Course Objectives, and Learning Outcomes.

Research Need

Cummins et al. (2013, p. 73) eloquently noted two gaps in the Research Needs of the Career Development category within the 2013 Critical Review of Sales Literature. The first is that, “there is a focus within the literature on measuring student attitudes toward sales rather than practical approaches to introducing students to selling earlier in marketing curriculum.” And the second is that, “Despite research showing that educational exposure to sales improves perceptions of sales careers and intent to peruse sales professions, it is unknown if students are first encountering sales early or late in their education careers.” The subsequent sections of this article seek to advance understanding in these gaps by presenting the results of a quantitative study on the source of student perceptions, the application of an existing model for informing, and a novel process for developing a curriculum map.

Research Questions

The remainder of the article details exploratory research on these issues with the intent of addressing two research questions and describing a novel method for aligning curriculum.

Research Question 1: What sales skills do business leaders in this metropolitan market believe students require to be successful in sales today?

Research Question 2: What is the source of student preconception regarding a career in sales?

Background

In the fall of 2017, the researcher joined a large metropolitan university in the southeast United States to develop the sales program. Prior to the researcher’s arrival, the university had approved a sales concentration and sales certificate. While the sales courses were approved, there was no agreement across the college of business or marketing department related to the content that would be taught in the sales courses. The researcher was new to higher education and would matriculate with a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree at the end of the semester. The researcher leveraged prior experience in product portfolio management to develop a novel approach for curriculum mapping. The novel protocol is noted as the TRIP Protocol as an abbreviation for the four actions associated with each capability: Teach, Reinforce, Introduce, or Practice. The outcome of this work was a curriculum map for the sales program.

Critical to the development of this map were three elements: (1) the single client resonance model introduced in the transdisciplinary informing science field, (2) a protocol referred to as thinklets used for collaborative information gathering and sharing, and (3) the application of a portfolio map, a technique widely used in marketing practice, to curriculum. In this section, these three elements are described.

Single Client Resonance Model

The single client resonance model from T. Grandon Gill’s (2010) Informing Business is employed in subsequent sections to harmonize student preconceptions, enhance curriculum design, and posit a reason for the effectiveness of experiential pedagogy in sales courses.

The impetus for examining student preconceptions is rooted in the researcher’s experience with Informing Science and the single client resonance model noted in Figure 1. Gill (2010) notes, in Informing Business,

Informing science is a transdiscipline that has emerged mainly over the past decade. It was established as a result of the observation that many disciplines, including MIS, education, library science, computer science, and others, were studying the movement of information between senders and receivers in ways that were far more similar than they were different. (p. 28)

Informing Science provides insight into how information passes from one person to another and describes a model whereby a sender sends data through a channel and a receiver acts on the data in a series of filters in working memory. These filters can alter, augment, embellish, or delete the data before reaching long-term memory. Different filters are applied to the data depending on the effort required by the receiver to retain the data. Gill (2010) notes the following definitions for the filters (p. 199):

Information filters: These distort the information as it is being held in working memory.

Cognitive filters: These cause the message to be interpreted according the client’s existing mental models.

Risk and time preference filters: These weigh the consequences of the message in terms of uncertainty.

Motivation filters: These examine the utility consequences of the message, perhaps rejecting it or modifying it if these consequences are unsatisfactory.

Visceral filters: Modify or reject the message based on other factors, such as emotions, arousal, or social pressures.

Figure 1.

Single client resonance model (Gill, 2010, p. 200).

The single client resonance model has vast implications for sales pedagogy. First, many of the filters shown in working memory may be the result of or supported by student preconceptions. The literature is clear that there are student preconceptions but lacks insights about the source of these preconceptions. Without understanding the source of student preconceptions, educators lack insights on how to address student filters that may disrupt message delivery. The second important implication to the single client resonance model is recognition that long-term storage includes three different levels. As educators, it is critical to recognize curriculum topics that require New Structures as opposed to being Discrete Concepts or Compiled information. Pedagogical devices, Course Topics, and Learning Outcomes can be informed with understanding student filters. Additionally, it could be crucial to understand these filters and how they affect information retention when developing instruction strategies for curriculum topics that require substantial support for storage in long-term memory.

To illustrate the application of the Single Client Resonance conceptual scheme, imagine an educator whose goal is to have students recall who is the likely winner of the most valuable player (MVP) in an upcoming sporting event. To the extent, the students in the class follow the sport, the process is simple due to the abundance of compiled data in long-term memory (what is an MVP, teams in the sport, who is playing, requirements for MVP, etc.). In contrast, consider the effort in having this conversation with a room of students from diverse countries or who lack interest in the sport. Having knowledge of the student experiences, preconceptions, and application of the Single Client Resonance conceptual scheme would provide an educator important insight for pedagogy.

Thinklets

One of the core activities for the researcher in building the sales program was to determine which sales skills to include in the curriculum. The literature provides some guidance in this regard but is also dated, geographically narrow, and represents limited industries. An obvious approach to address this gap was to work with community business leaders to develop a current and localized list of target sales skills. While the source of information seemed clear an optimal method for collecting the sales skills was needed.

As illustrated in this article, sales skill inventories have been historically collected through qualitative research (focus groups and one-on-one interviews) and literature reviews. Collecting skills with these methods requires significant skill and time. Another approach would be to have collaboration sessions with business partners where the business partners could work together to brainstorm skills, sort the skills into categories, and select the most important skills. Facilitating such a process is challenging given the breadth of topics and abundance of opinions represented by business leaders. The researcher was fortunate to have been exposed to a collaboration tool kit during the DBA program that made such a collaboration session accessible for a novice collaboration meeting facilitator.

In their 2006 article, “ThinkLets: A collaboration engineering pattern language,” De Vreede et al. (2006) note that employing Group Support Systems and professional facilitators can improve collaboration session outcomes because costly facilitators are not available to many teams. To address this challenge, De Vreede et al. propose the use of thinklets. De Vreede et al. (2006, p. 140) describe thinklets as follows:

A thinkLet is a named, packaged facilitation technique, captured as a pattern that collaboration engineers can incorporate into process designs. These patterns can be instantiated at design time in such a way that a practitioner can use them to recreate a predictable pattern of collaboration.

De Vreede et al. (2006) continue to explain as follows:

The emerging field of Collaboration Engineering aims to formulate an approach for designing high-value recurring collaboration processes that capture the best practices of master facilitators and packaging the processes in a fashion that can be transferred to practitioners to execute for themselves without the ongoing intervention of professional facilitators. Towards that end, Collaboration Engineering researchers have developed thinklets, an Alexandrian design pattern language.

The thinklet authors have developed “bite sized” collaboration experiences that produce subtask facilitation outcomes like ideation, sorting, prioritization, and selection in repeatable processes. The thinklet techniques and processes have simplified the role of a facilitator such that novice facilitation practitioners can select the appropriate thinklet for a collaboration group task and effectively produce outcomes without the cost of a professional facilitator or complex enterprise software. Additionally, thinklets can be connected to address complex collaboration projects that require multiple steps. In this article, the researcher employed five thinklets in a single collaboration session to develop a list of sales skills that business partners in the sales program felt were important for students. The five thinklets used by the researcher were as follows: Freebrainstorm, Fastfocus, Popcorn Sort, Bucket Walk, and Strawpoll.

Curriculum Map

A common task in managing product portfolios is assessing product market coverage by mapping the features of a product offering against customer needs and wants. Most consumers are familiar with the experience of exploring product packaged offerings and noting a significant “step up” to the next feature package to obtain a sought-after feature: basic, to advanced, and to professional. In a similar pattern, educators implicitly recognize students need to experience new concepts multiple times before the students master the material. In the first step, a concept is introduced to students. Next, educators teach students by providing experiences and connecting concepts to known structures (experiences). Once taught, concepts are reinforced to support understanding and retention. Finally, educators have students practice ensuring continued command of material. One can imagine each of the four steps as a product package and the sales skills as features. The resulting table of skills as rows and pedagogy actions as columns creates a visual representation of a curriculum map.

The single client resonance model shown in Figure 1 provides support for the different levels of instruction noted in the TRIP Protocol. In Introducing and Teaching, educators build New Structures in long-term memory. Similarly, when educators use examples consistent with student experiences messages can flow directly into long-term memory and be retained. Also, by assessing content, educators are building justification for students to alter or overcome working memory filters that can disrupt message delivery. The single client resonance model provides a useful conceptual scheme for educators to consider in selecting pedagogical devices and in establishing Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes.

Methodology

The methodology employed in this study involved three separate stages. First, student preconceptions were gathered, beginning with a literature search and then through a student survey. Second, a list of sales skills tailored to the local area was compiled through application of the thinklets process. Finally, a curriculum map was developed by applying an analytical process analogous to that used in the creation of product portfolios. Each stage is now described.

Student Preconceptions

Consistent with research, a crucial insight offered by experienced faculty during course preparation was that students have preconceived ideas about a career in sales. The researcher recognized the alignment of the experienced faculty guidance and the single client resonance model (Figure 1). With these inputs, the researcher developed the initial course syllabi for the introductory to sales and advanced sales courses based on the premise that students had biases about careers in sales. A central tenant in the syllabi was that student preconceptions must be recognized and addressed to facilitate messages being stored in long-term memory. Some of the actions guided by the model and experienced faculty were to begin the introductory to sales class as a marketing class using marketing centric examples to illustrate sales concepts. By using marketing as a base for the sales concepts, examples could be leveraged from student experiences working in hospitality and retail to facilitate and reinforce the instruction of sales concepts. Examples of leveraging the faculty input and the model can be found in the major projects and course structure. In the introductory sales course, the first major project is storytelling and the second is developing a value proposition for a student’s selected job description noting the student as the product. In addition, personal reflections are used in both classes to guide students to finding personal applications for the class content. Both pedagogical approaches are meant to limit student filter actions by decreasing the cognitive load in long-term memory (leverage existing compiled structures) and minimizing the effects of filters.

Though accepting the presence of preconceptions and acting on the guidance, the researcher lacked information about the source of the preconceptions and thus what student experiences, or background may interfere with message delivery. Moreover, the researcher lacked knowledge of less obvious sources of bias and preconceptions and student experiences that could be employed for instilling messages in long-term memory.

To this end, the researcher sought to validate the experienced faculty guidance. In reviewing the literature, the researcher noted that there was a lack of insights related to the source of the preconceptions. To address this gap, the researcher created an exploratory survey for the introductory to sales and advanced sales classes that asked students to identify their major, any experiences with sales, and what informed their opinions. The questions were developed from casual interactions with students. The survey was anonymous, provided no credit, and was delivered through the university learning management system, Canvas, using Qualtrics. The results of the surveys were analyzed using descriptive and predictive statistics in the statistics package JASP version .8 Beta 5.

The survey on student sales experiences and influence was conducted at the conclusion of seven (7) sales courses during the 2018-2019 school year. The same survey was offered to students in the introductory sales and advanced sales courses during the fall, spring, and summer terms. In total, four (4) sections of the introductory sales course were offered the survey and three (3) sections of the advanced sales course.

Business Collaboration: Generating a List of Current Local Sales Skills

While there is significant research on sales skills, the research largely occurred before significant changes in the marketplace in technology, demographics, and distribution. The research is also limited in diversity of industry verticals and geography. To provide generalization to current technology in a southeast metropolitan geography, confirmatory research exploring the sales skills was needed. Fortuitously, the researcher was part of a DBA program where a group of senior business leaders attend classes in residence one weekend per month for 3 years. In the final year of the DBA program, the cohort selects issues courses that are proposed by faculty. In the fall of 2017, the issues course in the DBA program provided instruction in facilitating collaboration sessions. The course instructed the cohort in the application of collaboration snippets that the course instructor described as thinklets. Given the researcher’s new role, the researcher’s group chose to use the new sales program as the topic for a collaboration practicum in the course. The material employed in the collaboration session is provided in Appendix A.

In the delivery of the collaboration workshop, the researcher’s team leveraged five thinklets. The five thinklets were as follows: Freebrainstorm, Fastfocus, Popcorn Sort, Bucket Walk, and Strawpoll.

Following is a summary of the five thinklets:

Freebrainstorm: Provide each member of the group with a stack of 15 note cards (Post Its). Each member writes a single idea on each card.

Fastfocus: Remove duplicates and consolidate similar items.

Popcorn Sort: Sort the note cards into three to five groups determined by how valuable you think the capability is to a business. Consolidation and duplicate removal are allowed during this activity

Bucket Walk: Review the groups to determine if any items should move between the groups.

Strawpoll: Determine the commercial value of the sorted groups.

The DBA cohort provided a convenience sample of local business leaders. The sample participants were well known to each other and the researcher, as the cohort was in its third year of residency and in the final semester before graduation. The average age of the cohort was 53 years, primarily male, and largely from Florida. Significant diversity was represented in participant work experiences (owner, information technology, attorney, finance, engineer, and sales), industry (defense, telecom, banking, financial services, and hospitality), and company size (founder to global Fortune 50).

Curriculum Map: Learning Outcomes and Course Topics

With a current set of localized sales skills identified, the next step in developing the introductory to sales and advanced sales courses was to map the sales capabilities that were identified by the business executives against the courses that are part of the sales concentration. Although Newberry and Collins (2015) presented a process where practitioners mapped the sales skills to sales courses, the researcher did not follow this approach as the researcher believed practitioners generally lacked understanding of pedagogy and the task complexity arising from multiple sections and multiple instructors for the different courses.

To facilitate the mapping process, the researcher leveraged experience in determining feature packages in products to create a novel process for course capability rationalization to create a curriculum map. To begin, the researcher placed the curriculum and cocurriculum items as columns in a table and the newly identified capabilities grouped by category as rows in the same table. Next, the researcher met with the lead instructor for each of the courses that were represented in the curriculum and cocurriculum items. The output of these meetings was to identify on the table if the sales capability was presently being taught. No judgment or debate was taken in the stakeholder meetings as the goal of the individual sessions was simply to obtain input from the resource. Once the researcher had collaborated with each stakeholder, the researcher reviewed the output with the department chair and together the department chair and researcher called a meeting of interested parties who would have insights regarding what should be taught in the introductory and advanced sales courses. In this final meeting, the stakeholder group reviewed the input from the individual stakeholders and agreed on final changes.

During the stakeholder meetings, it became apparent that capabilities were being addressed with varying rigor. To provide visibility of these gradations, the researcher divided capability treatment into four levels. Rather than using a numeric abstract nomenclature (Levels I, II, III, and IV) the researcher landed on verbs associated with varied levels of instruction and selected Teach, Reinforce, Introduce, and Practice (abbreviated TRIP) to differentiate the depth of coverage for capabilities in the various courses. To be identified as Teach, material associated with each capability was part of the syllabi and was assessed in the course. Similarly, material designated as Reinforce was part of the syllabi and assessed. The difference between Teach and Reinforce is that for Reinforce the material had been taught in a prior course. In Introduce capabilities were discussed but not assessed and in Practice the capability was incorporated into assignments and demonstrated.

The TRIP Protocol is also consistent with the Single Client Resonance conceptual scheme noted in Figure 1. Specifically, both Teaching and Introduction are often part of the process of creating New Structures in long-term memory and the use of pedagogical devices like assessing student performance to address some of the filters in working memory. In addition, Reinforcing and Practicing work to keep messages accessible in working memory. The single client resonance model is also helpful in developing Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes as educators may apply the model to consider the scale of concepts and effort required based on the scale of long-term memory Structures or existence of compiled data.

The matrix resulting from the TRIP Protocol clearly identified capabilities that were not being taught in other courses and therefore were candidates for Learning Outcomes and Course Topics in the introductory and advanced sales courses. The Course Topics and Learning Outcomes derived from the research for the introductory and advanced sales classes are listed in Appendix B (available in the online supplemental material).

Excel was the tool selected for data entry due to its flexibility for formatting, near ubiquitous access, and familiarity to the researcher.

Results

The results presented in the next section are from three related activities and work together to form the basis for creating a sales curriculum based on data and grounded in theory. The first subsection are results from a year-long quantitative study that explored the source of student preconceptions regarding a career in sales. The second subsection describes the output of a collaboration session with business leaders to develop a list of current and localized sales skills the business leaders believed were important in a sales career. The list of sales skills from the business partners is then compared with the literature. In the final subsection, the results of applying a novel process for mapping the sales skills to sales curriculum and cocurriculum activities are presented.

Student Preconceptions

Student preconceptions regarding a career in sales were examined during a year-long quantitative study. The survey on student sales experiences and influence was conducted at the conclusion of seven (7) sales courses during the 2018-2019 school year. The same survey was offered to students in the introductory sales and advanced sales courses during the fall, spring, and summer terms. In total, four (4) sections of the introductory sales course were offered the survey and three (3) sections of the advanced sales course. Students were asked questions regarding their likelihood of pursuing a career is sales after graduation, their own sales experience and the degree to which different experiences and media influenced their opinions about sales.

The course structure was similar in both the introductory to sales and advanced sales courses. Both courses utilized a flipped classroom concept where lectures were delivered online outside of class and the class periods were used for participatory activities. All classes featured three (3) interactive projects. Some of the projects from the classes were: storytelling, interview preparation (applying features vs. benefits), role plays, and a live prospecting assignment. The researcher taught all seven courses.

However, 113 students completed the survey out of 120 survey responses. Two different students failed to respond to one question each (experience renting an apartment and likelihood of pursuing a career in sales). For these two questions, there were 112 responses. Indeed, 260 students were offered the opportunity to complete the survey resulting in roughly a 40% response rate. The distribution of students from the two classes is shown Table 1.

Table 1.

Survey Respondent Course Distribution.

Count	Percentage	Courses
67	59.3	Introductory class
38	33.6	Advanced sales class
5	4.4	Enrolled in both classes
3	2.7	Did not respond

Consistent with the cohort, most students completing the survey were marketing majors. A reason for the dominance of marketing majors is the introductory sales class (MAR 3400) is a requirement for marketing majors who do not have a concentration. Indeed, 81% of the survey respondents had some form of a marketing major and 6% were from outside of the college of business. Table 2 notes the distribution of majors from survey respondents.

Table 2.

Survey Respondent Major Distribution.

Major	Count
Accounting	1
Biomedical science	2
Communication	2
Economics and finance	1
Engineering	2
Finance	2
General business administration	1
Global business	2
HR management and marketing	1
Integrative animal biology	1
International business	2
Management	3
Marketing	86
Marketing and finance	4
Marketing and management	1
Personal finance	2
	113

Students were more likely than not to pursue a career in sales after the course. The average response was 6.1 on a scale of 0 to 10 with 0 being there is no way and 10 being I want a career in sales. The range on the question for all respondents was 10 and standard deviation was 2.9. The data are consistent with prior literature finding that sales class participation increases interest in sales careers.

Averages, ranges, and standard deviations for the individual classes were similar. The greatest difference was in the average for the small group of students that were enrolled in both the introductory to sales and advanced sales courses. This group had an average response of 7.6 to the question, how likely are you to pursue a career in sales after graduation. Table 3 summarizes the likelihood to pursue a career in sales in aggregate and across the classes. The higher response from the group of students taking both classes may be a result of interest in the topic as indicated by taking classes contemporaneously. Table 3 notes the likelihood of pursuing a role in sales by class and total.

Table 3.

Survey Respondent Likelihood of Pursuing a Role in Sales by Class.

Likelihood to pursue a career in sales after graduation (0 = no way; 10 = I want a career in sales)
All respondents			Advanced sales class			Introductory sales class
Average	Range	SD	Average	Range	SD	Average	Range	SD
6.1	10	2.9	5.8	10	3.0	5.7	10	3.0

However, 50 students provided input to the question, If your likelihood of pursuing a career in sales has increased as a result of this course. What is it that has changed your interest? The responses were reviewed and grouped into four categories: Career Insight, Personal Growth, Instructor, and Curriculum. In coding, the researcher allocated comments about understanding the sales role and sales process to Career Insight, comments about self-efficacy were attributed to Personal Growth, references to course assignments like readings and role plays were assigned to Curriculum, and specific references to the instructor were noted as Instructor. The count for each group was as follows: 29—Career Insight, 8—Personal Growth, 10—Curriculum, and 3—Instructor. The preponderance of support for Career Insight is consistent with the increased likelihood of pursuing a career in sales.

On average, students were largely neutral when questioned about sales experience and experience with salespeople. Responses ranged from 1 to 7 for the question I have a lot of sales experience and 1 to 6 for My experiences with salespeople have been generally positive. On both questions, 1 denoted strongly agree and 7 denoted strongly disagree. Similarly, when asked about specific experience in hospitality, retail, or insurance, the students had varying experiences. Responses on all three questions spanned the full range. Based on the averages and standard deviation, insurance had the least experience and hospitality the most. Table 4 lists the average, range and standard deviation for each question by class. Together these data suggest diversity in student sales experience.

Table 4.

Survey Respondent Sales Experience by Class.

Sales experience (1 = strongly agree; 7 = strongly disagree)
All respondents			Advanced sales class			Introductory sales class
Average	Range	SD	Average	Range	SD	Average	Range	SD
3.4	6	1.4	3.4	6	1.5	3.4	6	1.5	I have a lot of sales experience.
2.9	5	1.3	3.1	5	1.2	3.2	5	1.2	My sales experiences have been generally positive.
3.9	6	2.3	4.1	6	2.3	4.1	6	2.3	Primarily in hospitality as a server or host.
4.0	6	2.3	3.8	6	2.2	3.8	6	2.3	Primarily in retail as floor sales person or clerk.
6.3	6	1.4	6.1	6	1.5	6.1	6	1.5	Primarily in selling insurance to individuals.

Students were asked to note industries where they had experience in selling in addition to the specific industry questions described in table three. Table 5 notes the additional industries and frequency. The sheer size of the list is interesting with 54 respondents providing 63 responses, and 23 industries. This again supports the diversity of the student population and variety of experiences. Hospitality and Retail dominated the responses with 13 and 17 responses, respectively. This dominance may in fact be understated given the question asked students to exclude hospitality and retail. This supports the pervasiveness of work experience in simple/transactional sales roles for students.

Table 5.

Survey Respondent Experience in Sales.

Experience in sales	Count
Advertising	1
Automobile	2
Background checks	1
Chemicals	1
Class action lawsuit business	1
Construction	1
Dental	2
Enterprise software	1
Financial planning	1
Health care services	1
Hospitality	13
Insurance	3
Leasing	4
Personal services (baby/pet sitting)	4
Real estate	3
Recruiting	1
Retail	17
Roofing	1
Sales management/sales training	1
School fundraisers	1
Tax preparation	1
Time shares	1
Window tinting: Commercial	1

Next, students were asked about what had informed their perspectives about a career in sales. Students were asked to rank the following categories based on a scale of 1 (a great deal) to 5 (none at all). The item with the highest average was the student’s Own Experiences Selling and the lowest average was Renting an Apartment. Table 6 lists the descriptive statistics for the responses to the questions on perception influence. Repetitive personal and significant experiences were noted as most important by the students. A possible explanation for the lower reporting of Renting an Apartment is that the students may not have this experience. The student sample is from a metropolitan university and such students may have more experience in purchasing cars than renting apartments (live at home, dormitory, and sorority/fraternity).

Table 6.

Survey Respondent Perception Influence by Class.

Source of influence (1 = a great deal; 5 = none at all)
All respondents			Advanced sales class			Introductory sales class
Average	Range	SD	Average	Range	SD	Average	Range	SD
3.0	4	1.1	3.0	4	1.1	2.9	4	1.1	Movies and TV
2.5	4	1.2	2.3	4	1.2	2.2	4	1.1	Purchasing a car
3.3	4	1.2	3.3	4	1.1	3.3	4	1.1	Renting an apartment
2.5	4	1.1	2.5	4	1.1	2.5	4	1.1	Interactions as a retail customer
2.6	4	1.1	2.6	4	1.1	2.6	4	1.2	Interactions as a hospitality customer
3.1	4	1.5	3.3	4	1.4	3.2	4	1.4	Family member who is a sales person
2.2	4	1.2	2.3	4	1.2	2.3	4	1.2	Your own experiences selling

A regression analysis was performed with the Likelihood of Pursuing a Career in Sales as the dependent variable and the respondent experience and influence questions as independent variables. Two variables returned statistically significant values: Generally Positive Opinion <.001 and Family Member in Sales .012. No other value produced a p value of <.05. The p value for the model is <.001. The R and R² for the complete model were .596 and .356, respectively. It is interesting to note that the disconnect between student reported influence and the predictive power of the responses in Table 8. While own experiences are noted as the most influential these same items are not statistically significant predictors of pursuing a career in sales. The output from the model is presented in Table 7.

Table 7.

Analysis of Variance of Student Perceptions.

Model summary
Model	R	R ²		Adjusted R²	RMSE
1	.596	.356		.273	2.489
Analysis of variance
Model		Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	p
1	Regression	321.5	12	26.788	4.325	<.001
	Residual	582.2	94	6.194
	Total	903.7	106
Coefficients
Model			Unstandardized	Standard error	Standardized	T	p
1	(Intercept)		8.883	1.829		4.857	<.001
	Sales experience		−0.045	0.216	−0.021	−0.208	0.836
	Generally positive experiences		−0.969	0.222	−0.415	−4.364	<.001
	Hospitality experience		−0.110	0.124	−0.085	−0.886	0.378
	Retail experience		0.016	0.121	0.012	0.132	0.895
	Insurance experience		0.254	0.187	0.117	1.358	0.178
	Movies and TV influence		−0.106	0.247	−0.041	−0.428	0.670
	Purchasing a car influence		0.072	0.265	0.031	0.273	0.785
	Renting an apartment influence		0.316	0.238	0.133	1.330	0.187
	Retail customer influence		0.066	0.304	0.024	0.216	0.829
	Hospitality customer influence		−0.065	0.282	−0.024	−0.228	0.820
	Family member in sales influence		−0.501	0.197	−0.255	2.551	0.012
	Own experiences selling influence		−0.163	0.246	−0.067	−0.664	0.509

Note. df = degrees of freedom; RMSE = root mean square error.

Business Executive Collaboration Session: Generating a List of Needed Sales Capabilities

The DBA collaboration session provided a rich set of information about what a diverse group of business executives felt was important for sales students to develop in college. The list of capabilities represents what the business leaders desired the sales students to know before joining their organizations. The collaboration session generated 85 capabilities grouped into seven (7) categories. The seven categories were as follows: Individual Skills, Selling Skills, Communicating Value, Relationships, Teaming, Business Processes, and Types of Selling. Of the categories, Selling Skills had the most items with 24. The output of the collaboration session is noted in Table 8.

Table 8.

Business Leader Collaboration Session.

Individual skills	Selling skills	Communicating value	Relationships	Teaming	Business processes	Types of selling
Listening	Uncovering needs	Buyer motivation	Networking	Account-based marketing	Sales process	Small business customers
Writing	Analyzing needs	Personas	Doing someone else’s job	Partners: When and who	Sales tools	Enterprise customers
Public speaking	Know your customer	Buying decision team	Shift from me to you	Technical resources	Buyer journey	Complex sales
Presenting	Communicating value	Purchase journey	Help	Executive events	Map sales process and buyers journey	Procurement led
Greeting	Cold calling	Value propositions	Ask for help	Public relations press releases	Forecasting	Government/legal/tenders/RFPs
Excel	Lead generation	Modeling		Executive sponsor	Call plan	Inside sales
PowerPoint	Attention getting	Business cases		Lead generation	Account plan	Field sales
Phone etiquette	Objection handling	Calculate value		Leveraging experts	Territory plan	Indirect sales
Writing e-mail	Reference selling			Team selling	Meeting planning	Web sales
Leaving a message	Probing			Marketing communication		Solution sales
Innovative and creative thinking	Open-ended questions			Events		Evolving role of marketing and sales
Ethics	Changing a customer’s mind			Distribution options		Chief revenue officer
Interpreting analytics	Competitive analysis			Segment marketing		Products versus services
	Building a presentation
	Writing a proposal
	Finding contacts
	Follow up
	When to leave voice mail
	Lead with value–educate
	Research customer
	Know when to move on
	Size the opportunity
	Prioritizing opportunities
	Leveraging digital tools (mobile, social)

Note. RFPs = request for proposals.

Next, the sales competencies listed in the five papers focused on sales skills from Cummins et al. (2013), Table 9 were added to the Business Leader Collaboration data summarized in Table 10. The process the researcher used for this activity was to select each paper in the order noted in the legend of Table 10 and identify items that were like the Business Leader Collaboration data (shown in Table 8). Letters (a, b, c, d, e) were noted next to items to identify common entries from the five papers. When one of the five papers provided an additional skill, an item was added to the appropriate section and noted in Table 10. Added items are noted with a leading asterisk white lettering and the corresponding paper letter, as referenced in the Table 10 legend. Each of the subsequent papers was then compared with the expanded list in a similar fashion. In total, 55 items were added to the Business Collaboration data identified in Table 8. The expanded list of sales capabilities is shown in Table 10.

Table 9.

Papers Related to Sales Skills.

Legend	Article	Year	Source of information
a	“Evaluating entry-level sales applicants: An application of polity capturing by collegiate recruiters”	1996	Recruiters
b	“Practitioner methodology for entry-level hiring assessment: Issues for academic outcomes assessment”	1998	Regional sales managers
c	“Do perceptions in hiring criteria differ for sales managers and sales representatives? Implications for marketing education”	2006	Recruiting sales managers and sales representatives
d	“A hierarchy of industrial selling competencies”	1986	Practicing sales personnel
e	“Aligning sales curriculum content and pedagogy with practitioners’ needs”	2015	Sales practitioners

Table 10.

Business Leader Collaboration Session Compared With Literature.

Individual skills	Papers	Selling skills	Papers	Communicating value	Papers	Relationships	Papers	Teaming	Papers	Business processes	Papers	Types of selling	Papers
Listening	b, c, d, e	Uncovering needs	d, e	Buyer motivation	d	Networking	b, d, e	Account-based marketing	d	Sales process	d, e	Small business customers	d
Writing	a, c, d	Analyzing needs	d, e	Personas	d	Doing someone else’s job		Partners: when and who	c, d	Sales tools	a, e	Enterprise customers	d
Public speaking	a, c, d, e	Know your customer		Buying decision team	d	Shift from me to you	d	Technical resources	c, d	Buyer journey	d, e	Complex sales	d, e
Presenting	b, c	Communicating value	d, e	Purchase journey	d, e	Help		Executive events		Map sales process and buyers journey	d	Procurement led	d
Greeting		Cold calling	b	Value propositions	d	Ask for help	d	Public relations press releases		Forecasting	d	Government/legal/tenders/RFPs	d
Excel	a, c	Lead generation	e	Modeling		*Building rapport, e	e	Executive sponsor		Call Plan	b	Inside sales
PowerPoint	a, c	Attention getting		Business cases				Lead generation		Account Plan		Field sales
Phone etiquette	d	Objection handling	d, e	Calculate value	d			Leveraging experts	d	Territory Plan	d	Indirect sales
Writing e-mail		Reference selling						Team selling	c, d	Meeting Planning		web sales
Leaving a message		Probing						Marketing communication		*Advertising and promotion, d	d	Solution sales
Innovative and creative thinking	c, d	Open-ended questions						Events		*Understand sales contracts, d	d	Evolving role of marketing and sales
Ethics	b, d, e	Changing a customer’s mind	d					Distribution options		*Assemble and use a sales portfolio, d	d	Chief revenue officer
Interpreting analytics	a, c, d	Competitive analysis	b					Segment marketing				Products versus services
*Dependability, a	b	Building a presentation	e									*Relationship selling, e	e
*Defined career goals, a	a	Writing a proposal										*International selling, e	e
*Energy enthusiasm, a	b, c,	Finding contacts	e
*Entrepreneurship, a	a	Follow up
*Familiarity with firm, a	a	When to leave voice mail
*GPA, a	a, c	Lead with value–educate	e
*Involvement on campus, a	a, c	Research customer
*Professional appearance, a	a, b,d	Know when to move on	b, e
*Professionalism, a	a, d	Size the opportunity	e
*Relevant work experience, a	a, c	Prioritizing opportunities	b, c, d, e
*Self-confidence, a	a, d	Leveraging digital tools (mobile, social)	d
*Sincerity, a	a	*Personal sales skills, c	c
*Willing to relocate, a	a	*Ability to use sales tools, d	d
*Problem solving, b	b, d	*Create, organize, and implement trade show display, d	d
Closing techniques, b	b	*Understand and implement SIC, d	d
*Interview skills, c	c	*Gaining access, e	e
*Other work experience, c	c	*Demonstrating capability, e	e
*Internship, c	c	*Overcoming loyalty to competitor, e	e
*Foreign language, c	c	*Obtaining the right commitment, e	e
*Organization skills, c	c	*Sales management, e	e

Note. RFPs = request for proposals.

Some of the items added to the Business Collaboration data are related to the source, date, or purpose of the papers. For instance, the article “Evaluating entry-level sales applicants: An application of policy capturing by collegiate recruiters” identifies GPA as a skill and in the article “A Hierarchy of Industrial Selling Competences” understanding SIC codes, product specifications, and reading maps are listed (Moore et al., 1986; Tomkovick et al., 1996). The researcher did not attempt to arbitrate appropriateness in the items and instead, biased on inclusion. The researcher’s goal was to provide future educators the opportunity to filter for appropriateness of their situation.

Curriculum Map and Generating Course Objectives

The capability mapping process proved to be a successful activity. The collaboration session output from the business leaders provided the researcher with strong justification for the input to the process. The researcher found the faculty to be supportive of the process and eager to contribute. Support from the Department Chair was important as well. The TRIP Protocol (Teach, Reinforce, Introduce, and Practice) grew organically out of the iterative mapping process. It became apparent during the curriculum mapping process that capabilities were addressed in multiple courses and it was important to note the levels of treatment for each course in developing Course Topics and Learning Outcomes. The derived Course Topics and Learning Outcomes for the introductory sales and advanced sales courses are shown in Appendix B (available in the online supplemental material).

Table 11 is a portion of the output including notations for Teach, Reinforce, Introduce, and Practice across the curriculum and cocurriculum. MAR 3400, Professional Selling, is the introductory sales course at the institution and during the time period of the research the MAR 4403 course, Sale Management, was the advanced sales course.

Table 11.

TRIP Protocol (Curriculum/Cocurriculum Map).

T: Teach, R: Reinforce I: Introduce, P: Practice	Prereq		Marketing core			Marketing concentration				Cocurricular
T: Teach, R: Reinforce I: Introduce, P: Practice	GEB 3033	MAR 3023	MAR 3823	MAR 3613	MAR 4824	MAR 3400	MAR 4333	MAR 4403	MAR 4940	Sales club		Comp
Competencies	Business workplace skills	Basic marketing	Marketing management	Marketing research	Marketing management problems	Professional selling	Promotion management	Sales management	Marketing internship	Speakers	Practicing	University and national
Individual skills
Listening	T					I		P			R	P
Writing		R	P	P	P		P	P
Public speaking	T		P	P	P	R	P	P			P	P
Presenting	T		P	P	P	R	P	P			P	P
Greeting	T					T	T	P			P	P
Excel				R	P	P	P	P
PowerPoint			P	P	P	P	P	P
Phone etiquette	T					T		R		P	P
Writing e-mail						I		R		P	P
Leaving a message	T					R		R		P	P
Innovative and creative thinking			R	T		R	R	P				P
Ethics						T		R		P	P	P
Interpreting analytics			T	T	P		R	R		P	P
Selling skills
Identifying needs		T	T		P	T	T	P			P	P
Analyzing needs		T	T		P	T	T	P			P	P
Know your customer			T		P	R		P				P
Communicating value			T		P	T	T	P			P	P
Cold calling						I		T	P	P
Lead generation						I		T	P	P
Attention getting						T		R	P	P
Objection handling						T		T	P	P	P	P
Reference selling						I		T		P		P
Probing						I		T		P	P	P
Open ended questions						T		R	P	P	P	P
Changing a customer’s mind						I		T	P	P	P	P
Competitive analysis		T	T	R	P		T	P	P
Building a presentation			T	R	P	T	P	P	P
Writing a proposal								I	P
Finding contacts						I		T	P	P	P
Follow up						I		T	P	P	P
When to leave voice mail						I		R	P	P
Lead with value–educate								T		P
Research customer			T		P	R	R	P	P	P
Know when to move on								T		P
Size the opportunity				T	P		R	P		P	P
Time management						T
Prioritizing opportunities						I	R	P		P
Leveraging digital tools (mobile, social)						I		P	P	P	P

Discussion

Grounding sales curriculum development in external business leader input and facilitating the business collaboration session using thinklets proved to be an effective approach for identifying localized and current sales skills which were in turn used in developing Course Topics and Learning Outcomes for an introductory sales and advanced sales course. The collaboration tools or thinklets allowed less experienced collaboration facilitators to deliver a collaboration workshop that resulted in 85 sales capabilities that the 20 business executives felt were important to sales student success. While additional items were found in the literature, there was significant overlap with the literature and many of the differences can be attributed to the time and purpose of the article or source information.

Using these externally based capabilities as input for curriculum development helped establish objective third-party expert support for mapping curriculum. The novel TRIP Protocol (Teach, Reinforce, Introduce, and Practice) for curriculum/cocurriculum mapping enabled gradations to be identified in which course and at what depth content was being communicated to students. Moreover, the mapping clearly identified the skills that needed to be taught in the course which were translated into Course Topics and Learning Outcomes. The TRIP Protocol can be generalized to diverse curriculum, cocurriculum mapping activities across academic levels.

Consistent with anecdotal input, great diversity was found in interest, experiences, and the influences associated with sales careers in the student population. Descriptive statistics paint a picture of diverse students who range from strong to little interest and from great familiarity to limited knowledge on sales. Sample ranges, averages, and standard deviations describe wide variation on all questions.

While student experiences and influences were diverse, the sources of these influences are mostly from transactional sales experiences (hospitality, retail, and buying a car). This is a critical observation for developing Course Topics and Learning Outcomes as sales education in higher education institutions tends to focus on more complex sales engagement using solution sales. As demonstrated in the literature, students have preconceptions about a career in sales. What is added to the discussion from this research is the preconceptions are formed from transactional/simple sales experiences. These preconceptions are incongruent with a career in sales focused on solving customer problems and may help explain why students respond so effectively to participatory sales classes. The participatory courses show the students that their preconceptions about a sales career are incorrect given that the preconceptions were formed on a different basis (transactional sales experiences vs. a career in complex solution sales).

Figure 1 is the single client resonance model shared by Gill (2010) in Informing Business. The model explains that data must pass through multiple working memory filters before entering long-term storage. Specifically, while information is in working memory, the filters bend, alter, amplify and may even delete the data. In long-term storage, there are discrete concepts, structures, and compiled levels. Applying the single client resonance model to the extant sales literature and the new information provided in this article provides a useful conceptual scheme for rationalizing student preconceptions and sales course participatory/experiential learning success while providing direction for pedagogy.

The literature and statistical analysis on student influences provide ample evidence that students have diverse sources of sales career preconceptions. While unremarkable for the institution in this study, data suggests 70% or more of the college students are working approximately 30 hours per week while attending college (Carnevale et al., 2015). As such, educators should expect students to have opinions based on personal experience.

The two independent variables with statistical significance and the 10 independent variables without statistical significance in the regression model provide support to the usefulness of the single client resonance model shown in Figure 1. First, the variables that were not statistically significant (Sales Experience, Hospitality Experience, Retail Experience, Insurance Experience, Movies and TV, Purchasing Car, Renting Apartment, Retail Customer, Hospitality Customer, and Own Experiences Selling) are related to student experience largely based on transactional/simple sales experiences and are inconsistent with a career in sales based on complex solution sales. The success of experiential learning in improving student interest in pursuing a career in sales is potentially explained by these data and the application of the single client resonance model. To elaborate, the experiences delivered in collegiate programs are typically related to complex solution selling and thus the student filters and associated student preconceptions derived from experiences with simple/transactional sales are changed by exposure to experiences that are incongruent with past experiences.

Also illuminated by the single client resonance model, the two variables with statistical significance are transferable to the new paradigm of a career in complex solution sales. The first statistically significant variable is my experiences with salespeople have been generally positive. This is a general concept about salespeople and could be equally applicable to transactional/simple sales and complex solution sales. As such, data passing the Attention Filter may move unfiltered into compiled long-term memory supporting previously held perspectives (positive or negative) on sales.

While significant care is needed in comparing Ballestra et al. (2017) with the research, the prior research found the composite variable feelings toward sales to be statistically significant with regard to intention to pursue a sales career. Feelings toward sales could be interpreted as similar to the variable, my experiences with salespeople have been generally positive from this research. Although some correlations between the two studies may be possible, there are significant differences between the two study samples and methods. In Ballestra et al. (2017), the research sample was Italian students with limited business coursework and was administered in an economics course. In comparison, the sample analyzed in this research was students who attended a large southeastern university in the United States and the survey was administered in introductory to sales and advanced sales classes. In addition to the obvious cultural difference, the two samples varied greatly in exposure to business principles and majors. Moreover, the prior research used a sample sales job description as a stimulus for the survey, whereas this article’s research relied on student unaided perspectives. This is a critical distinction in that the independent variable in the prior research, intention to pursue a sales career, should be interpreted within the context of the presented job description. These differences must be taken into account when comparing the two studies.

The second statistically significant variable in the regression model is having a family member being a salesperson contributed to your impression of salespeople. This question may reflect sales preconceptions based on the new paradigm of a career in complex solution sales. Given the question is focused on a family member in sales, it is possible the reference (family member) may be older and engaged in a sales career. Thus, student preconceptions based on the new paradigm, after passing the Attention Filter, would flow unfiltered to compiled long-term memory. The resulting storage or “memory” of the message would then be in support of the new preconception based on complex solution sales.

The statistically significant finding of having a family member being a salesperson contributed to your impression of salespeople appears to conflict with Ballestra et al. (2017). The prior research notes in its table summary family member in sales job was not statistically significant with regard to intention to pursue a sales career. However, on review of the research narrative, the question asked related to family or friends. The added dimension of friends suggests the same dynamic as noted previously with transactional sales and likely diluted the impact of more senior solution sales influence from family members. Given the substantial differences in study samples and methods, and the difference in the question structure, comparison between the two studies on this dimension is challenging.

In addition to the regression model, the data itself provides additional support for the relevance of the single client resonance model. First, students report that it is their own experiences that influence their opinions about a sales career. This is important insight because it allows educators to release their concerns about unflattering depictions of sales in media and focus on real experiences. Second is the sheer diversity of the student experiences from 23 different industries and the dominance of hospitality and retail. Students in the sample come to the sales classes with substantial diverse work experiences and likely associated preconceptions from varied backgrounds. These diverse experiences provide rich content for sales educators to leverage for examples that can aid moving messages into long-term memory.

The quantitative data and regression had a material impact on the way the researcher approached pedagogy. The initial syllabi for the introductory to sales course included a case on cyber security early in the semester. The lesson objective was to contrast features, advantages, and benefits though the case. Students struggled with both the concept and the material and the researcher modified the lesson in subsequent classes. The assignment was replaced with a project, developed with a focus on the same concepts, which instead used the student interviewing for jobs and viewing themselves as the product. The understanding developed on student preconceptions and diversity of experience provided needed insights for the researcher. The research also informed the case choices in the advanced sales course. The researcher purposefully selected a product-based case for the first assignment to leverage the expansive experiences in the student population and followed with a services case for the second case. The researcher also routinely leverages analogies from hospitality and retail in demonstrating concepts like discounting, promotion, value, and challenging customer perceptions.

In conclusion, the single client resonance model illustrates pedagogy must not only provide information on skills and knowledge to deliver the Course Topics and Learning Outcomes, pedagogy must also address the individual filters and when needed build structures. Furthermore, it is ineffective and insufficient to develop Course Topics and Learning Outcomes for information that will be filtered.

In total, the research makes a strong case for developing curriculum based on external third-party input, mapping the third-party input against courses, and considering student preconceptions in the development of pedagogy, Course Topics, and Learning Outcomes.

Future Research

A logical extension of this research is to explore student perspectives and the impact the Course Topics and Learning Outcomes have on postmatriculation career performance. Student perspectives could be obtained from qualitative or quantitative research. One such approach would be to examine student course evaluations to determine material that is reported as impactful to students. Another approach to obtaining student perspectives would be to conduct interviews and collect information toward phenomenological or grounded theory research. Both approaches to qualitative research could generate improved understanding of the origins and impact of student preconceptions along with the impact from course material. It would be particularly interesting to continue these lines of research longitudinally to illuminate changes over time.

An additional extension of the research would be to apply the TRIP Protocol for curriculum mapping to additional academic domains and education levels. The TRIP Protocol is a robust and easily applied protocol that appears to be generalizable to any discipline or academic level (primary to postgraduate). Further research is needed to identify enhancements and demonstrate effective use.

Conclusion

The extant literature provides evidence that students have preconceptions regarding a career in sales and that experiential learning can modify these perceptions. Absent in the literature is data regarding the source of these preconceptions or explanation for the success of experiential learning in sales education.

The research detailed in this article indicates student experiences are largely from simple/transactional sales interactions and the students report the primary influence of their opinions is from their own experiences with sales as opposed to entertainment media.

The single client resonance model from informing science is suggested as a conceptual scheme to aid the understanding of the mechanisms that make experiential learning effective. It is posited that experiential learning produces encounters which are inconsistent with student preconceptions developed from the student’s own simple/transactional experiences. These inconsistencies allow for the success using experiential learning in sales education despite the student preconceptions. The single client resonance model is also suggested to be important in developing Learning Outcomes and Course Objectives. At times, educators must not only address student filters and bias in delivering information but must also build structures in long-term memory.

In addition to using the single client resonance model in the development of Learning Outcomes, thinklets, the result of a collaborative process, is shown to be an effective method for producing a localized and current set of sales skills that local business partners believed to be important for sales professionals and thus an important part of sales education. Also provided in this research is a comparison of the sales skills produced during the researcher’s thinklets collaboration with the sales skills found in existing literature to provide the reader with a comprehensive list of sales skills.

Finally, the TRIP Protocol is introduced as a set of novel processes and methods for curriculum development. The protocol is applied in the development of Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes for both the introductory to sales and advanced sales courses.

Collectively, the material presented in this paper provides sales educators with the insights, methods, and processes to develop a localized and current sales curriculum grounded in theory and data.

Supplemental Material

supplemental_material – Supplemental material for Sales Student Preconceptions and a Novel Approach to Sales Curriculum Mapping: Insights, Implications, and Application for Sales Educators

Supplemental material, supplemental_material for Sales Student Preconceptions and a Novel Approach to Sales Curriculum Mapping: Insights, Implications, and Application for Sales Educators by Robert W. Hammond in Journal of Marketing Education

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Robert W. Hammond

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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