We are excited to announce our two teams of researchers who have been awarded an SEF Research Grant. These teams represent the growing list of professors dedicated to providing timely, practical sales research to the Professional Sales industry and academia. Our 2021 grants have been awarded to:

-Scott Friend, Peter Nguyen & Christopher Blocker for their research proposal titled, “Assessing Customer Defection and Sales Win-Back Strategies via Machine Learning.”

-Bruno Lussier, Nathaniel Hartmann & Nawar Chaker for their research proposal titled, “Understanding and Mitigating the Undesirable Consequences of B2B Salespeople Working from Home on Burnout and Sales Performance.”

The goal of the SEF Research Grant Program is to recognize sales-specific research with the potential for application by sales executives, sales managers and/or the sales force. Two recipients are chosen annually by an independent Selection Committee to each receive a $5,000 grant. Proposals are evaluated on three key criteria – Innovation, Practicality and Dissemination.

The post SEF Awards Two Sales Research Grants for 2021 appeared first on Sales Education Foundation.

Season 2 episodes are now available on a variety of platforms including:

Links via our SEF website Knowledge Center – http://salesfoundation.org/knowledge-center/

Videos on the SEF YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI8HjbiJwLoV7NPqpf9TwBw

Audio on Anchor – https://anchor.fm/saleseducationfoundation

Audio on Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/2iG2K8zoyI8oQ6QmjsgSA9

You can also find our podcasts on Google Podcasts!

However you choose to access the podcasts, we hope you’ll enjoy our interviews. More are planned in the coming weeks, so stay tuned, follow and enjoy!

The post SEF hosts “The New Selling of Sales” Podcast series appeared first on Sales Education Foundation.

Let’s take a look back 10 years to 2011. If you know much about the SEF Annual magazine, you know we survey universities, collect data and publish that data in the Annual magazines. We’ve been doing this for 15 years! But what about our 5th magazine in 2011?

The 2011 Annual listed 53 universities (worldwide) teaching Professional Sales – slightly over 25% of what we listed in 2021. Also, in 2011, we could find only 18 majors and 18 minors in Professional Sales. Compare that with 2021 – 37 majors and 81 minors – in only 10 years time!

Our Annual magazine provides concrete evidence that universities are embracing Professional Sales education – and there numbers are growing! We now find sales courses as part of not only Colleges of Business, but Agri-Business and Entrepreneurship. Focus options include Communication/Broadcast Sales, Entrepreneurship, Financial Services, Industrial Distribution, Insurance, International Business, Media, Medical/Health Care, Technology and the list goes on.

Professional Sales is growing and the Sales Education Foundation is contributing to that growth by providing universities a platform for promotion (the Annual), offering research grants, providing scholarships, helping students find their strengths and best fit through the Chally Assessment and sponsoring unique academic events and workshops. For a list of the 2021 Professional Sales majors and minors, check out this quick reference list.

For the other 82 universities listed we find students can earn a Professional Sales certificate, concentration or emphasis along with their chosen major.

Yes, Professional Sales education is growing and – thanks to the hundreds of educators providing high quality education and companies willing to put dollars into helping this discipline grow – we are truly – “elevating the Sales profession through university education.”

The post Evidence Professional Sales Education is Growing! appeared first on Sales Education Foundation.

Almost 80% (78.57%) of the responding companies reported that their companies underwent significant changes to their business as a result of COVID-19. See the interesting outcomes in the complete report here.

The post Pandemic Recovery Survey from California State University Fullerton appeared first on Sales Education Foundation.

“Winners of Excellence in Technology Awards are at the forefront of technology innovation. Our program evaluates not just the solution itself, but the benefit to the human capital management function, the business and the customer. That is the ultimate differentiator — whether the technology has a positive business impact. Technology Award winners pass that test with flying colors,” said Rachel Cooke, Chief Operating Officer of Brandon Hall Group and head of the awards program.

“An Excellence Award also validates the vision of the technology development team, the wisdom of the company’s investment in the solution and the value the technology brings to the end user,” said Mike Cooke, Chief Executive Officer of Brandon Hall Group.

The post Chally Assessment Wins Bronze in 2020 Excellence in Technology Awards appeared first on Sales Education Foundation.

For sales managers, one difficult “either/or” choice revolves around whom to hire. That is, is it better for an organization to hire experienced salespeople, or “fresh recruits” straight out of collegiate sales programs? New research led by Willy Bolander at Florida State University, and published in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management (JPSSM), provides much needed insight into this critical question … In short, for organizations looking for sustained, long-term success, it pays to hire collegiately trained, inexperienced salespeople.

See the Executive Summary and link to the full paper here.

The post Research Explores Critical Question – Hire Experience or “Fresh Recruits?” appeared first on Sales Education Foundation.