This capstone documented the process of defining, developing, and evaluating a curriculum for professional selling within a business school in a small liberal arts university. Specifically, it addressed the research question: What knowledge and skills do students need in preparation for a professional selling career, and how does implementing these in a formal curriculum improve students' sales competencies? Identification of the required knowledge and skills and the associated new curriculum were developed through secondary research, benchmarking other programs, and qualitative interviews with sales curriculum experts. Competency was defined as the ability to implement the knowledge and skills. The model used to evaluate student competencies throughout this new curriculum was a variation on the four-level Kirkpatrick model of reaction, learning, behavior, and results. Specifically, Level 2, Learning and Level 3, Behavior, were used to measure sales competencies and answer the research question being studied. Level 1, Reaction and Level 4, Results were identified as necessary for a comprehensive review of the new program being implemented, although they did not explicitly address the research question. The newly approved curriculum requires the completion of three, 3-credit hour courses, including an introductory level sales course and an advanced sales course. Students then choose additional courses from a list of options to complete the specialization. The program was defined with three overall learning objectives. These objectives were met through the completion of this new curriculum, including nine core knowledge and skill areas. These nine core knowledge and skill areas were introduced in the required introductory course and reinforced in the advanced level course. Ten additional, more advanced skills were introduced and practiced in the advanced course and elective courses. 12 The new curriculum was implemented during fall 2020, spring 2021, and fall 2021 semesters. Prior to the formal evaluation, students assessed the new curriculum through a survey instrument and their feedback provided direction for adjustments within individual courses. These results showed a high level of satisfaction among the students in the program. The Level 2 and 3 formal evaluation results were obtained at the end of each of the three semesters. A significant increase in sales competency was observed, as measured by (a) within group knowledge and skill development gains using a pretest; post-test role play exercise in the introductory and advanced sales courses; (b) end of course project evaluations in two courses; and (c) internship supervisor evaluations. Additional results of interest to the program design included the Level 4 findings of positive career outcomes among program graduates. Some lessons learned during this project include the importance of 1) using adaptive leadership principles in a project’s early stages, especially when there are a variety of collaborators and stakeholders with differing values; 2) communicating needs and constraints to collaborators and stakeholders; 3) anticipating difficulties and accepting limitations within the organization, its structure, and its processes; and 4) developing leadership capacity to effectively manage the outcome while generating excitement to engage with a vision for the future.

Creator

• Rumreich, Lori

Publisher

• MUShare

Language

• English

Keyword

• professional selling

• Kirkpatrick model

• curriculum design

• sales training

• university sales

• sales competency

• business school

Date created

• 2022

Resource type

• Capstone Project

Rights statement

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/