Selling Sales

Abstract

With a better understanding of the typical sales student, sales educators can design and deliver curriculum with a more customer-oriented approach. In order to better understand the decision to pursue sales education, more than 500 undergraduate business students at a large Midwestern university participated in a survey that examined the factors influencing their decision to pursue sales education within a business major. The findings indicate that the choice of sales education is driven by students’ appreciation for creativity and people skills and their own interests and abilities, but the students’ school advisors (either college or high school) have significant influence as well. In today’s data-driven world, sales jobs depend on the use of analytical and intensively quantitative skills, yet our results indicate that sales students lack appreciation and enjoyment of the quantitative aspects of their major and potential career path.