# Developing Sales Professionals A term project that develops sales professionals through analyzing and evaluating the sales management of a particular company. **Goal**: To evaluate the professional selling and sales management effectiveness of an organization and provide the company with specific, actionable recommendations. **Background:** Prior readings for this course included - Contemporary Selling: Building Relationships, Creating Value, Greg Marshall and Mark W. Johnston; Selling 101: What every successful sales professional needs to know, Zig Ziglar; The One Minute Sales Person, Spenser Johnson, 1984; Blink, Malcolm Gladwell; The Top Ten Best Selling Tips of all Time, John Westman, 2013. Additionally, students completed a sales simulation (shootingformars.com) and signed up for a free tip of the day on professional selling (. **Assignment:** *Team Project* - A team of 3 or 4 students will select an organization, assess its professional selling and/or sales management effectiveness and make recommendations to improve its business results. This team will deliver a presentation to the class and a written (or electronic) report to the instructor. An example of one group’s final paper is attached. *Class presentation* - Create and deliver a concise and informative 10minute executive summary of the highlights of your project. The presentation can include (suggested time in parentheses): - a brief the company/product/situation as background (2 minutes), - details on what the company does well & what they can improve (3 minutes), and - specific, actionable recommendations (with an estimate of their impact) to help the company and/or sales rep be even more successful (5 minutes). Create actions that are specific and clear so that the company could implement them tomorrow. *Rubric* **Executive Summary Presentation rubric** Content (60%) - Information is clear and easy to understand - The assessment is thorough & states who (e.g. by title or customer segment) was surveyed - The recommendations are specific, can be implemented tomorrow, and you estimate their impact Delivery (40%) - Information is conveyed clearly and enthusiastically with good technical presentation skills - Memorable theme or moment that stands out, is informative and is an important message **Written report rubric** Content quality (60%) - purpose of the report is clear, outline shows logical organization of information - analyzed the organization’s selling approach with at least 5 concepts from the course - recommendations are realistic, specific, thoughtful and will help the organization - interviewed 5 or more people in the organization and interviewed or surveyed 10 or more customers Documentation quality (40%) - report is a written or edocument that gives a great first impression - easy to read using section headings, bullet points, tables, figures and graphs when appropriate - maximum 5 pages of text, 10 tables or figures **Comments**: - The instructor notes that a key benefit to this term project is the real-world, real-time engagement with course material and a relevant company - The instructor advises to define the rubric early, and after 3 classes, schedule time in each class to get input from at least 1 group on their project *Submitted by John Westman, Harvard Extension School* --- Attachments- [ picture\_as\_pdf bombardier\_activity.pdf ](/sites/g/files/omnuum4096/files/ablconnect/files/bombardier_activity.pdf) --- See also:- [ Business and Management ](/subject-area/business-and-management) - [ Authentic Learning (Simulations, Lab, Field) ](/learning-goals/authentic-learning-simulations-lab-field) - [ Expanding Depth and Breadth ](/learning-goals/expanding-depth-and-breadth) - [ Group & Cooperative Learning; Students as Classroom Leaders ](/learning-goals/group-cooperative-learning-students-classroom-leaders) - [ Stimulating Students to Think ](/learning-goals/stimulating-students-think) - [ Collaborate ](/learning-goals/collaborate) - [ Make Real World Connections to Course Material ](/learning-goals/make-real-world-connections-course-material) - [ Interpret Primary Sources to Propose a Model or Argument ](/learning-goals/interpret-primary-sources-propose-model-or-argument) - [ Full Class ](/length-activity/full-class) - [ Group ](/filter_by/group) - [ Term/Year ](/filter_by/every-class) - [ Applied/Concrete ](/filter_by/appliedconcrete) - [ Rubric-driven ](/filter_by/rubric-driven) - [ Westman, John ](/instructor/westman-john) - [ Case Study ](/activity-type/case-study) - [ Presentation ](/filter_by/presentation-0) - [ Research ](/filter_by/research) - [ MGMT E-6800: Professional Selling and Sales Management ](/class-code/mgmt-6800) - [ Professional Selling and Sales Management ](/class-name/professional-selling-and-sales-management) - [ Class Group ](/filter_by/group-0) - [ Teacher's eyes only ](/filter_by/teachers-eyes-only) - [ Paper ](/filter_by/essay) - [ Presentation ](/filter_by/presentation)