The need for qualified salespeople is increasing in the workforce with the number of sales jobs up to 15.8 million, a jump over the past four years of 445,000 (Bureau of Labor, 2013). While there has been growth in colleges offering sales curriculum (Cummins, Peltier, Erffmeyer, & Whalen, 2013; Deeter-Schmelz & Kennedy, 2011; Dixon & Tanner, 2012), there is still unmet demand for sales jobs with sales representatives being the second hardest job to fill this year , a trend that has endured since 2006 (Manpower Survey, 2013).
Project Details
Additionally, 35% of sales managers say they cannot find qualified candidates with a recent article in USA Today claiming, “the American salesperson isn't dead, but he is getting harder to find” (Davidson, 2013). Online education and hybrid formats offer a solution to train more potential salespeople, but the majority of college sales education is taught solely in-person with “the perception that sales education and online education are not congruent, given the interpersonal nature of sales” (Deeter-Schmelz & Kennedy, 2011, p. 65). Due to face-to-face formats dominating sales curriculum (Deeter-Schmelz & Kennedy, 2011), little is known about how sales can be taught in a hybrid format with recent scholars asking for effective pedagogies to be shared (Cummins et al., 2013; Deeter-Schmelz & Kennedy, 2011). In order to contribute to the existing gap in the literature and to test a new teaching technique, the purpose of this research is to see if a project that allows students to actually sell a product will lead to successful engagement and learning in a hybrid class.