NSU’s College of Business & Technology launches new sales emphasis

In a world where practices are ever-evolving and trends are constantly changing, Northeastern State Universitys Marketing program has made it a priority to stay up-to-date, providing students with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in the job market that they will enter upon graduation.

This fall semester the NSU Marketing program introduced a new initiative, a sales emphasis, which consists of three courses: Professional Sales, Advanced Professional Sales and Sales Management. The courses are open to students of any discipline, and the only prerequisite is Principles of Marketing.

In our department, we are always trying to focus on where the jobs are, Mike Landry, chair of the Department of Marketing, Hospitality and Supply Chain Management said. From there, we work back, building our curriculum to cater to the needs of the businesses that these students will be applying to when they graduate.

The sales courses are currently being offered on both the Tahlequah and Broken Arrow campuses, in both eight-week and 16-week formats.

We have a Sales Advisory Board, so we know what employers are looking for, Landry said. One reason we pushed so hard to make the sales emphasis happen is because employers want advanced sales training. We are very sensitive to this, and if we find there is a need, were going to focus on it.

Landry highly suggests the courses to those outside of the business major, his reasoning being that everyone will have to go out and sell themselves for their first jobs, and having a basic understanding of how sales works will do nothing but help someone out in the hunt for a career.

Because of the nature of the classes, most offerings will be face-to-face, with a hands-on, interactive approach.

Students will work to become fully prepared for entry level sales positions including developing effective sales proposals, demonstrating mastery of sales technology, developing customer relations and effective verbal and non-verbal communication techniques through role play, field work and networking, Dr. Jitendra Tewari, associate professor of marketing said.

Tewari, Landry and many of the other professors in the NSU Marketing program bring with them many years of real-world sales experience from previous careers. Tewari has developed sales training programs for companies like Johnson & Johnson, Modi-Xerox and Stencil-Lacoste in India, Landry sold television and radio advertising to Colorado businesses, professor Jon Shapiro, a geologist by training, has been involved in many aspects of sales in the gas and oil industry, professor Kathleen Reese spent many years in business-to-business sales of copy machines and assistant professor Ron Petty had a long career in retailing.

Although the marketing program has a solid foundation of regular faculty, Landry believes that the experience and knowledge brought in by the diverse adjunct faculty will also benefit the program tremendously.

The courses themselves will have many guest speakers from the communitys business arena; however, there is also a lot of interest from business owners and employees who are interested in teaching as adjunct staff, many of whom think of it as a hobby, Landry said. These types of resources will be invaluable to our program because they will be able to bring in diverse attitudes, expertise, knowledge and skill sets to share with our students.