Lecture: 2 Hours/week; Seminar: 2 Hours/week
or
Hybrid: 2 hours/week in class; 2 hours/week online
or
Fully online
The course will involve a blend of lectures, discussions, videos, cases, on-line activities, and seminars. Presentations by students are an integral part of the course.
- The history of modern selling
- The complete sales process
- Skills and practice of presentation skills including story telling
- Sales field work with an organization
- Investigating industries and their sales methodologies
- Ethics and their role in professional selling
- Requests For Proposals and institutional selling, particularly in the public sector
- Virtual and social selling including the use of social media in professional sales
At the end of the course, the successful student should be able to:
- Explain the various components of the sales process and buying process.
- Assess the ebbs and flows of a professional salesperson (dealing with rejection and objections as well as the positives of completing a successful sales engagement).
- Validate whether professional sales is a career path they will consider upon completion of their studies at the College.
- Devise a sales approach using the telephone and/or email to complete successful cold calls.
- Test the use of social media in the sales process.
- Demonstrate a historical understanding of the evolution of professional selling in North America with a focus on the proper role of ethics in relationship and partnership selling.
- Critique the Request For Proposal (RFP) process as a part of organization to organization (B2B) selling.
Evaluation will be carried out in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy.
| Individual Assignments (at least 2) | 20-30% |
| Industry overview project | 10-20% |
| Course sales project | 30-40% |
| Tests & Final examination | 20-30% |
| Course participation | 10% |
| Total | 100% |
Students must achieve at least 50% on the combined non-group components in order to obtain credit for the course, with the 50% calculated on a weighted average basis.
Students must complete all projects, assignments and write all examinations in order to be eligible for a passing grade in the course.
Students may conduct research as part of their coursework in this class. Instructors for the course are responsible for ensuring that student research projects comply with College policies on ethical conduct for research involving humans, which can require obtaining Informed Consent from participants and getting the approval of the Douglas College Research Ethics Board prior to conducting the research.
Textbooks and Materials to be Purchased by Students:
Friedman, W. (latest ed). Birth of a salesman. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press
Thull, J. (latest ed), Mastering the Complex Sales, New York NY Wiley
Holden, R. (latest ed) Negotiating with Backbone New York NY Pearson
Bosworth, M. & Zoldan, B. (latest ed) What Great Salespeople Do New York Ny McGraw Hill
Schultz, M. Shaby, D. & Springer, A. (latest ed) Virtual Selling Boston MA Group Press
Ekstrom, P. and Markovitz, H. (latest ed) Gold Call Programme New York NY
And/or other texts and/or simulations and/ or materials as approved by the Department