Sales Positions Are Stepping Stones to Success

• Employees with sales backgrounds ramp up faster than other new workers, turn over less frequently, and save companies significant amounts of money.
• Schools can ensure graduates will be good salespeople by encouraging them to cultivate empathy, adaptability, and an understanding of technology.
• At the University of New England Center for Sales Excellence, students gain hands-on sales experience by becoming sales development representatives for local companies.

In my sales management and leadership career, I often have encouraged college students to pursue careers in sales. Many object to the idea because they perceive anyone in this field to be like a used-car salesperson—due to the perception that someone uses high-pressure tactics to achieve a quick deal.

The reality is quite the opposite. Successful salespeople must practice careful relationship-building, engage in active listening, and demonstrate flexibility and agility. They must be empathetic, well-informed, and technologically savvy.

According to the Sales Education Foundation (SEF), more than 50 percent of business majors find that their first career roles are in sales. A report from SEF offers supporting statistics from other sources, while noting that that the typical business curriculum doesn’t reflect those numbers. For instance, a study from the Florida State University Sales Institute shows that more than 88 percent of marketing majors take their first jobs in sales. But research from the National Center for Education Statistics notes that, while 3,982 postsecondary institutions in the U.S. offer degree programs, fewer than 6 percent currently host recognized sales programs.

I believe it is time for colleges to “lean into” sales as a career instead of letting students perceive it as a “fallback” option.

Why Sales?

Many students struggle with the transition from college to the workforce, since employers want new hires to come up to speed within a few months. But when students take jobs in sales, they will be on the fast track to professional development and career success.

As salespeople, they immediately will be able to apply their learned skills in areas such as product knowledge, supply chain management, finance, and operations. They will become experts in the products and services they sell, and they will be deeply aware of considerations around pricing, costs, and delivery. As they master all aspects of sales, they also will learn every part of the business operation and every requirement for bringing a product to market.

When students take jobs in sales, they will be on the fast track to professional development and career success.

Research shows that graduates of university sales programs have distinct advantages over their peers from other disciplines, according to another study from SEF. When employees with sales backgrounds receive standard company training, they ramp up 50 percent faster than other new workers, turn over an average of 30 percent less, and potentially save companies approximately 200,000 USD per hire within the first year and a half of employment.

Key Requirements

But if graduates are going to achieve personal and professional growth in the sales field, they need to possess three key qualities, according to a recent Gartner study: empathy, agility, and the ability to leverage technology. While many of today’s students already demonstrate these qualities, business schools can find ways to encourage them to cultivate each one even more.

Active listening and empathy. Successful salespeople need to have emotional intelligence, social awareness, resilience, and the ability to handle rejection. Schools can help students build these characteristics by pushing them out of their comfort zones and requiring them to tackle real-world situations.

That’s our approach at the Center for Sales Excellence at the University of New England (UNE), which has campuses in Biddeford and Portland, Maine. At the UNE Sales Center, we engage with businesses and sales leaders across the Northeast to bring real-time opportunities to our students. For instance, at some of our partner companies, students act as sales development representatives who build lists and create messaging that could resonate with potential customers.

To help students better understand their target customers, we teach them to build customer personas. Such personas help students learn to view potential customers as real people, not just demographic statistics. Personas are named and built around experiences. By building personas, students develop empathy and learn to craft suitable messages that cater to the needs of the customer.

Flexibility and agility. As today’s workforce shifts to a model that embraces hybrid and work-from-home options, salespeople must find new ways and times to reach customers. For instance, many of our clients at the UNE Sales Center are working remotely with their own customers, and our students must learn to do the same. We have our students prepare email campaigns and marketing messages while they’re working at the sales center, then schedule these messages to be delivered at times that suit their customers’ schedules.

We also emphasize to students that most sales jobs will offer them maximum flexibility in their own jobs, enabling them to work when they are most productive.

Customer personas help students learn to view potential customers as real people, not just demographic statistics.

The ability to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and technology. According to the Gartner study, 50 percent of salespeople are overwhelmed by the amount of technology it takes to do their jobs. When business schools teach students how to work with AI, they will prepare their graduates to thrive more quickly in the workplace.

At UNE, we have partnered with RNMKRS, an AI tool created at Bryant University, to allow our students to practice their selling skills. With the tool, students can engage in unlimited role-playing conversations to learn how to close sales. As a bonus, students who have practiced with a chatbot will be more comfortable with technology once they’re on the job.

Hands-On Help

At the UNE Center for Sales Excellence, one of our key priorities is to provide students with hands-on opportunities to address business challenges in real time. These opportunities allow students to take their classroom knowledge and put it into practice. As mentioned above, our students frequently act as sales development representatives who can help companies engage with customers, solve revenue problems, and grow their businesses.

Our students are involved with two organizations. The first is a startup footwear company looking to create targeted channels of business and reach ideal customers. Recently, our students spent a semester reviewing distribution methods and researching competitive data. At the end of the semester, they produced a document that identified four channels of business opportunities and more than 4,000 potential customer targets.

The second is a sustainable washcloth company that wants to develop a sales structure for processing the sizable inventory in its warehouse. The UNE Sales Center recruits and manages two sales development representatives who can help the company reach out to its customer base. In the first phase of this project, the students reviewed and compiled target customer lists, prepared email messaging, wrote phone scripts, and created a nurture campaign for repeated outreach. Now that the lists have been finalized, other students will continue and expand the work in upcoming semesters.

In addition to offering students hands-on opportunities, the Sales Center looks for ways to provide them with increased engagement opportunities. For that reason, we organize sales competitions, bring in outside speakers, and host conferences to give students additional exposure to possible careers.

A company cannot function and grow without maintaining a consistent and expanding revenue stream, and salespeople contribute directly to a company’s bottom line.

Our overall goal is to be a “yes, and” option that students can use to enhance their college careers. Many of our students come from majors outside of business and are considering sales careers in medical, pharmaceutical, or environmental disciplines. We want to provide them with experiences that complement the rest of their learning, no matter what subjects they’re studying.

Benefits for All

There is a reason so many CEOs and C-level executives were in sales at some point in their lives. Sales jobs are natural stepping stones to leadership responsibilities. A company cannot function and grow without maintaining a consistent and expanding revenue stream, and salespeople contribute directly to a company’s bottom line.

But a strong sales program doesn’t just help students advance in their careers—it also acts as a great recruitment and retention tool for institutions. Students know that, in such programs, they will be prepared with hands-on experiences and real-time sales situations that will make them career-ready on day one of their jobs.

I have seen firsthand what benefits the Sales Center has brought to our students and our university. I believe that when colleges and schools place sales programs front and center, they will position both their students and their institutions for success.