Huntsman MBA Adds a New Sales Course to the Executive Curriculum

Sales Is Art. Sales Is Science. Sales Is Strategy.

Dr Sterling Bone will be teaching one of our new courses: Strategic Sales Management to help students understand that selling today is not the used-car salesman sales stereotype from the past.

Sales: It is at the very heart of business. Accounting, financing, operations and human resource departments have very little to do that creates any value for the firm, “until a sale is made.” If you can’t close, you can’t compete, they say. Sure, most people would like to design campaigns, massage numbers, or steer a vision and culture. In the end, you need to knock on doors; build relationships; hear “no” over-and-over; and overcome lame excuses about time, budget, manpower, and authority. Sales isn’t glorious, but at the same time, sales is the fuel that propels the innovation engine of business. Remember, just as a car will only go as long as it has fuel in the engine, sales is the single most important strategic contingency. A business without sales does not stay in business very long.

If you are having a hard time swallowing the figurative “sales pill” and are saying to yourself, I am an MBA student, why should I be studying sales? Please consider the following CEOs who worked in professional sales; Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway), Howard Schultz (Starbucks), Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks Owner and AXS TV), William Weldon (Johnson & Johnson), Samuel Palmisano (IBM), and Anne Mulcahy (Xerox). Each of these CEOs recognizes that they personally would not have arrived or survived as CEO without selling to customers, channel partners, investors, and their employees. Knowing how to sell and to manage sales will prepare you to drive innovation and to inspire new venture growth.

Not convinced yet? Then perhaps you may want to consider that the following top MBA programs offer courses in sales (Harvard, Stanford, U Penn-Wharton, Northwestern-Kellogg, and many others). Perhaps, it is not a stretch then that this course on strategic sales management would be offered in the USU Huntsman MBA.

This course is designed as a three-act play. In Act 1, you will focus on building a Sales Foundation around Plays, Process, and System. You will be introduced and will gain certification and mastery in the latest sales methodologies (Winning by Design, Griffin Hill, Franklin Covey, and Challenger Sale) that are driving innovation and new venture growth. In Act 2, you will learn how to create new value for startup and growth firms by using sales architecture and strategic sales coaching. Finally, Act 3 will focus on the direct application of what you have learned in the previous acts as you apply sales blueprinting and sales technology tools in a sales consulting project. In summary, this course is designed to deliver resume and career-building tools that will help you become a thought-leader in how to drive sales and revenue across the firm.

Sterling Bone, Ph.D.