Zero to 60 in One Semester: Using an Applied Advanced Selling Project to Build a Professional Sales Program

The semester team project in our Advanced Selling course is designed to not only apply skills covered during the semester, but also to build awareness of the new Professional Sales program and attract students majoring in various disciplines across campus to consider a minor in Professional Sales. It is designed to help majors understand how a professional sales minor would assist them in their careers, even if they do not have a business background. The team project addresses two problems, the need for an applied team project for a new course in Advanced Selling and the need to build brand awareness of the new Professional Sales concentration and minor in order to recruit students from across the university. The outcome for this project is to take the Advanced Positional Selling concepts and to apply them in a real world selling situation. The student teams (sales team) are selling their product (the Professional Sales Minor) to their client (the targeted department outside of the CBA, with a faculty “client” facilitating the best route to communicate the message. The team project approach in sales courses has been cited as having benefits such as teaching students to work with others as well as building leadership skills