Selling is an evolving field and the need for professional sellers is more important than ever as technology, the internet and social media converge. Sales education is also evolving quickly, and St. Cloud State University’s Professional Selling Specialization is among those leading the way.
Launched in 2014, the certificate program has graduated more than 200 students and now attracts almost 100 students each year.
Well trained sales professionals are vital for industry because professional selling is one of the largest distribution expenses a company makes — more than is spent on advertising, said Dr. Denny Bristow, who leads a team of passionate faculty that works every day to prepare their students for the field.
“It’s critical for companies to have a top line, a revenue line, and sales is what brings in that revenue line,” said Assistant Professor Dave Titus. “No one can survive without a revenue line. One thing I teach in my first class is that without sales, we have nothing.”
St. Cloud State’s program is a combination of experiential learning and direct connections with industry partners.
It’s a combination that’s working for students and employers. The program has almost 100 percent job placement.
Graduates have gone into logistics, financial markets, and banking. They are becoming leaders in their companies.
St. Cloud State sales students are trained how to build a relationship with their clients. One of the main skills the program teach is communication and the sales process.
“Don’t refer to them as sales people,” Bristow said. “They’re problem solvers for these clients.”
Sales professionals need to have in-depth knowledge of the field they are working in and what their company has to offer in terms of products, offers and services. They need critical thinking skills, he said.
Pharmaceutical and surgical representatives are sometimes pulled into the operating room with physicians and surgeons asking whether they are using the equipment correctly.
“These students need to be so well organized, and they need to be willing to continuously learn,” Bristow said.
“The environment is changing every single day. They need to stay on top of that — knowing about the industry, pricing models, channels of distribution, new product development, that will help them be better sales people.”
Titus saw that first hand during his 30-year career in sales before joining St. Cloud State in 2014 as the sales program was recruiting its first students.
People often have a fear of sales because it’s intimidating to ask others to spend money, but if they take the time to learn the product, company and customers they can gain the confidence to know they are helping their customer and their company, Titus said.
“This fear factor people have with sales, it’s kind of unfortunate in many ways,” he said. “I want people to see that this can be a great career if you can understand and build your skill set.”
Professionalizing sales
In a trend throughout academia, Northwestern Mutual was seeing business graduates coming to them with a tremendous amount of business knowledge but with a lack of real-world human interaction when it came to buyer behavior and sales expertise, said Josh Longnecker, Northwestern Mutual managing director.
This need spurred Longnecker to get involved with St. Cloud State’s Marketing department and advocate for a larger sales presence.
The faculty of the Herberger Business School listened and developed the specialization as part of its strategic plan. They worked closely with industry experts locally, regionally and nationally to make sure they were meeting the needs for professional selling skills, Bristow said.
“St. Cloud State is one of the first schools in the United States to look at this as progressively as Denny Bristow and his group have done,” Longnecker said. “Students graduating from St. Cloud State are second to none.”
Having that hands-on experience sets St. Cloud State students apart in the job market with employers who are looking for credentials like St. Cloud State’s selling specialization when they hire.
“If they have that experience we’re much more likely to interview and ultimately hire those individuals,” Longnecker said. “It’s the ultimate differentiator in students coming out of college today.”
The Sales Education Foundation launched in 2007 to encourage institutions to increase their sales offerings because, with more than half of business graduates go into sales after graduation, their success can improve with just three sales courses, according to the website.
The Foundation tracks the Top Universities for Professional Sales Education. St. Cloud State has been on the list since 2015.
St. Cloud State’s program is continuing to grow with the goal of growing its national recognition. Herberger Business School is moving toward applying for membership in the University Sales Center Alliance, forming a Professional Selling Advisory Council and forming a Professional Selling Institute.
Ty Holstrom ’04 came to St. Cloud State with an eye for sales and majored in marketing. He’s worked for Anderson Trucking Service ever since. As an alumnus and local employer, he’s supported the establishment of the sales program because of the need for professionally-trained sales personnel in his industry.
“A lot of the business world is business to business sales. It’s a huge part of the economy,” he said. “It made sense for the university to evolve and put this program into place.”
Sales is a big part of Anderson Trucking’s business.
“We have a tremendous need for people to join ATS and help us fulfill our mission,” he said. “Sometimes we need to hire in the triple digits.”
St. Cloud State is ATS’s best relationship for attracting new hires who then start with the company and often relocate and take new positions in cities throughout the country.
Bryana Lommel ’20 took the program to get a better edge in business and gain a selling perspective.
She competed in the sales competition twice, making it into the top 16 on her first try and the top 8 in her second.
Her showing in the sales competition helped her qualify for the Sales Management Case Competition at the Collegiate World Cup of Sales, an international college sales competition, this fall where she and partner, Noah Pearson, placed second overall in the sales management division.
“Another thing I really liked about the program is it really pushes you outside your comfort zone,” she said.
Hands-on experience
The program is designed around experiential learning with students practicing their skills in the Northwestern Mutual Sales Lab.
“Northwestern Mutual Sales Lab puts us right at the very top of any school in the nation for facilities and ability for real-time learning for students,” Bristow said.
Professional sales education is something that Northwestern Mutual is passionate about. It needs financial advisors who can build a relationship with clients and understand their needs. That’s why it has been a supporter of professional sales education at St. Cloud State since before the specialization began and why it became a partner in launching the university’s first sales lab, where students get immersive, hands-on experience in practicing their skills in a mock office environment.
The lab provides a state-of-the art learning environment with facilities for recording, presentation critiques and real-time instructor feedback. It includes a simulation room that is a professional office setting with cameras.
In fall, St. Cloud State will launch a second lab, the Federated Insurance Professional Selling Role Play Lab, a mentoring lab for student leaders to inspire upcoming students.
The lab will be housed on Centennial Hall’s fourth floor.
Students will use the Role Play Lab for a newly launched Professional Selling Leadership Program that will bring top level students who have demonstrated leadership and competed in professional selling together with new students to help them prepare their sales presentations, answer questions and practice and refine their skills.
The student leaders will also help facilitate the sales competition, speaker’s bureau, career fair and more.
Experience-focused faculty
Tyler Sterner ’19 was impressed by the level of experience among faculty including Titus and David Yantes, who worked as vice president of Viking Coca-Cola before joining the Marketing faculty.
“Yantes and the teachers in this program were VPs and successful in the business world already,” he said. “They’ve done many things right, and they’ve done many things wrong and learning from their business experience has definitely benefited me.”
These professors had proven experience in the corporate world and could speak from personal experience about how they applied the concepts they were teaching and what happened when they didn’t, he said.
Titus’s main message is one of always working to improve your skills. It’s about trying to be effective, not trying to be perfect.
“Having worked in sales for about 30 years, I have a lot of credibility with the students,” Titus said. “They know I’m not just talking the talk. I’ve worked through all the scenarios I’m asking them to do.”
Sterner is now an associate product marketing manager with Graco, where he started as an assembly line worker while in school and later completed his internship. Today he manages two product lines globally.
He is responsible for growing revenue, new product development, promotions and working with the sales force. A big part of his job is getting out into the field with customers to show them prototypes and find out what they like or don’t like about the product and taking it back to the engineering team to make sure the product will provide the value and quality they are seeking, he said.
He uses the skills he learned in the specialization in communication, listening and relationship building almost every day.
“I use more of what I’ve learned in the selling classes than I did any of my marketing classes,” he said, adding that the skills are transferable to any profession.
“One thing you learn in the class is you have to listen to the customer,” he said. “Listen to what their pain points are and be the solution for them. … You want to make sure the customer is always telling you about it so you find the product that’s right for them and you’re not just trying to sell to them. That’s by far the biggest thing I learned in the program, and it’s definitely led to a ton of sales here.”
Partnerships making a difference
One reason the program is so successful is the partnerships established with industry. The program was designed with industry insight and industry volunteers present in classes, mentor students and serve as judges for sales competitions.
Fifty-plus organizations support the specialization from mentoring students, assisting with the competition or guest lecturing in classrooms.
Each semester speakers from a variety of industries participate on a panel session in the Professional Selling Speaker’s Bureau. Each speaker gives an overview of their firm and talks about trends in their industry and career paths and internship opportunities. Then they open it up to questions from students.
“We had speakers come in from every industry, healthcare, manufacturing,” Lommel said. “It was really interesting to see how sales in different industries work. That was something I wasn’t familiar with, and it gave me a broader view of the opportunities out there for sales.”
The capstone class requires students to do job shadows at companies in fields that interest them. Many times job shadows build a relationship that turns into a job offer.
These partnerships are making students stronger candidates, businesses healthier and the program more relevant.
“Colleges often shut their doors to others coming from outside academics, but they opened their doors and that just speaks to the progressive nature of St. Cloud State University,” Longnecker said. “Ultimately the biggest win of all is the students who spend a short time here and are prepared for the rest of their lives.”
