Teaching and Training Future Sales Professionals How to Negotiate with Real World Experience

Awell-staffed sales function is vital to business success (Fogel, Hoffmeister, Rocco, & Strunk, 2012); however, many organizations struggle filling this important sales function because there is a shortage of qualified salespeople in today’s workplace on both a domestic and global market (Cummins, Peltier, Erffmeyer, & Whalen, 2013). To satisfy this need there has been a major growth of Universities around the country that have opened sales centers to train sales professionals (Dixon & Tanner, 2012). These sales centers assist in teaching and training the next generation of professional salespeople. Universities that have sales centers or teach sales courses have a responsibility to make sure their students are set up to succeed in the field immediately. Sales instructors are tasked with teaching sales skills such as handling objections, closing techniques, identifying buying participants and negotiations techniques (Leach, Liu,& Johnston, 2005). Academics teaching sales courses have begun to consider innovative ways to enhance the learning environment in order to adequately expose students to the skills needed for succeeding immediately upon employment (Bobot, 2010).