{"id":6301,"date":"2010-01-20T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T13:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=6301"},"modified":"2017-11-20T08:11:12","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T13:11:12","slug":"students-learn-selling-skills-by-selling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2010\/01\/students-learn-selling-skills-by-selling\/","title":{"rendered":"Students learn selling skills . . . by selling."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cClose to 70% of students with marketing degrees end up in sales.\u201d\u2014College recruiters<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t consider myself a selling-type person.\u201d\u2014<strong>Diane Edwards<\/strong>, marketing major, College of Business Administration, Florida International University (FIU)<\/p>\n<p>Given that such a high percentage of marketing majors become salespeople, and given the resistance expressed by Edwards and likely shared by many of her classmates, <strong>Nancy Rauseo<\/strong>, who teaches sales management and customer relationship management at FIU, faced a challenge: how to best prepare marketing students for the strong likelihood that they go into sales\u2014especially consultative sales in which they will establish long-term relationships with customers and help solve their problems.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 625px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-6301-1\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/business.fiu.edu\/biznews\/2010\/1\/personal_selling.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/business.fiu.edu\/biznews\/2010\/1\/personal_selling.mp4\">https:\/\/business.fiu.edu\/biznews\/2010\/1\/personal_selling.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>Her solution was to structure her <em>Personal Selling<\/em> course to culminate in an assignment that required the 95 students to put into practice what they had learned about consultative sales through reading, lectures, role plays and presentations: for one-third of their grade, they prepared a detailed sales plan and then videotaped themselves playing the part of both buyer and seller.<\/p>\n<p>To mimic a real-life situation, Rauseo provided each buyer with objections to which the seller had to respond, using all their knowledge, creativity and on-the-fly thinking.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6353\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6353\" style=\"width: 253px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-6353 size-full\" title=\"Diane Edwards\" src=\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/tn_Diane-Edwards.jpg\" alt=\"Diane Edwards\" width=\"253\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6353\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diane Edwards<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI was a buyer for a small business copier and a seller of plumbing fixtures,\u201d said Edwards, who \u201clived, breathed and slept sales,\u201d leading up to the video. \u201cAs a buyer, I knew I could use the objections I had been given such as cost, lack of need or concerns about the product. But when objections came at me, I had to draw on what I had learned and improvise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Ability to sell opens career options.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Despite the statistics, Edwards doesn\u2019t think she\u2019ll go into sales, but if she does she \u201ccan now see the strategy and method behind it,\u201d and no longer thinks that \u201cselling means lying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Firmly believing that \u201cyou can\u2019t learn how to sell by reading a textbook,\u201d Rauseo plans to continue to include such active learning components in the course, especially since the initial offering went so well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe results were fantastic,\u201d Rauseo said. \u201cI\u2019m thrilled with the final product and how the students did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cClose to 70% of students with marketing degrees end up in sales.\u201d\u2014College recruiters \u201cI don\u2019t consider myself a selling-type person.\u201d\u2014Diane Edwards, marketing major, College of Business Administration, Florida International University (FIU) Given that such a high percentage of marketing majors become salespeople, and given the resistance expressed by Edwards and likely shared by many of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[516,4551,3912,1973],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6301"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6301"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29806,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6301\/revisions\/29806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}