Professional Sales
- Mission Statement
- The professional sales program prepares individuals to serve as agents or sales representatives in selling products and services to businesses, plants, professionals, public and private institutions. This program offers a sales emphasis tailored toward specific sales fields such as manufacturing representative, technology sales, sales engineering, medical device representative and many other fields.
- The sales and merchandising program is designed to prepare people for employment in selling at all levels of distribution and merchandising and middle management areas of retailing.
- Students will supplement their coursework with practical on-the-job training in national, regional, and local business establishments. The students are affiliated with the department’s Professional Sales Student Association (PSSA) which provides students the opportunity to compete in a myriad of national collegiate sales competitions to refine classroom skills with a competitive atmosphere. The format varies from role-play, speed selling, team selling, and elevator pitch scenarios. Additionally, students compete in Collegiate DECA, a national student business organization with chapters in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Canada, China, Germany, Guam, Hong Kong, Korea, Mexico and Puerto Rico. These competitive events give students opportunities to compete in various business simulations as well as network with national companies and their recruiters who provide employment opportunities.
- The sales programs offered are specifically designed to prepare students for immediate employment. Program graduates are ready to make an immediate industry contribution through the use of industry advisory committee members, a constantly updated course curriculum, well-trained faculty, senior project and internship industry experience, and a national business organization affiliation.
- Student Learning Outcomes
- Certificates (Not Applicable)
- Associate Degree
At the end of their study at WSU, students with an Associate of Applied Science in Sales and Merchandising degree will:
- Basic Selling Techniques: Demonstrate effective selling skills.
- Contract and Sales Negotiations: Apply negotiation techniques to selling situations.
- Customer Profiling: Identify and profile the various selling styles.
- Sales Proposal Writing: Apply the principles of proposal writing.
- Team Building Skills: Development of the interpersonal and leadership skills to work effectively in teams.
- Customer Service Skills: Identify successful techniques for working with customers in business situations.
- Supervision Skills: Practical application of supervisory skills including choosing, organizing, training and evaluating.
- Sales Presentation Skills: Identifying and using the principles and practices of professional sales consultants.
- Interpersonal Relationship Skills: Identifying and demonstrating interpersonal relationship skills.
- Legal Compliance and Sales Ethics: Applying the principles, techniques and analysis of ethics and the law in the sales and service profession.
- Planning and organization skills: Apply the principles of organization and planning to all facets of the sales and service profession.
- Technology Skills: Understand and apply sales technologies used in the field.
- Bachelor Degree
At the end of their study at WSU, students with a Bachelor of Science in Professional Sales will:
- Basic Selling Techniques: Demonstrate effective selling skills.
- Contract and Sales Negotiations: Apply negotiation techniques to selling situations.
Goals to be accomplished through the above student learning outcomes:
- All four of the departmental goals of Communication, Knowledge, Application and Career Preparation are a part of the thirteen departmental student learning outcomes. The level of achievement and emphasis varies according to the class.
- Customer Profiling: Identify and profile the various selling styles.
- Sales Proposal Writing: Apply the principles of proposal writing.
- Team Building Skills: Development of the interpersonal and leadership skills to work effectively in teams.
- Customer Service Skills: Identify successful techniques for working with customers in business situations.
- Business Math Skills: Apply the basic principles of business math: markup, cost of goods sold, profit and loss statement, merchandise plans, pricing techniques, etc.
- Supervision Skills: Practical application of supervisory skills including choosing, organizing, training and evaluating.
- Supervised Sales Experience: The practical use of program skills and applying them to the workplace.
- Sales Presentation Skills: Identifying and using the principles and practices of professional sales consultants.
- Interpersonal Relationship Skills: Identifying and demonstrating interpersonal relationship skills.
- Legal Compliance and Sales Ethics: Applying the principles, techniques and analysis of ethics and the law in the sales and service profession.
- Planning and organization skills: Apply the principles of organization and planning to all facets of the sales and service profession.
- Certificates (Not Applicable)
- Curriculum Grid
- Program and Contact Information
- The professional sales program at Weber State is a very unique program. It is the only program offering 18 courses related directly to sales. The department is a member of the National Sales Center Alliance (NSCA) and is recognized by the Sales Education Foundation (SEF) as one of the top sales programs in the country. This gives us the opportunity to continue to offer a unique program that meets the needs of a very important and basic building block of business.
- The sales and merchandising program is an associate of applied science degree which feeds into the professional sales program. It provides additional options for students to pursue.
Contact Information:
Blake Nielson
1465 Edvalson St. Dept 2402
Ogden, UT 84408-2402
Technical Education Bldg, Rm 101
(801) 626-7385 - Assessment Plan
We assess our courses to ensure they meet the learning outcomes using the office of institutional effectiveness biennial schedule. Our last biennial report in 2021 included assessment of all our 3000 and 4000 level classes with our updated curriculum grid, learning outcomes and more comprehensive assessment practices. Our next Biennial Report will include our assessment data for all of our 1000 and 2000 level classes with these same techniques. Our latest review of our 3000 and 4000 level classes in this review include online courses as well as our traditional courses to ensure learning across both teaching methods. This will be our model moving forward.Assessment of Graduating Students
We have senior level project classes where students are assessed to ensure they are ready to enter the workforce. PS 4610 and PS 4620 assesses all skills in our program to check for mastery of all competencies required for a BS in professional sales. Student are assessed through either an internship or comprehensive report.
Since our last program review we have also started collecting post graduate data to ensure our program is preparing students to be successful in the field. During this last assessment that was completed in 2021 we found 100% job placement and an average first year earnings around 70K. Furthermore, within 5 years post-graduation the average sales student is making more than 100K. We plan to replicate this process every 5-7 years to continue to assess and measure past graduates. - Assessment Report Submissions
- 2021-2022
1) Review and comment on the trend of minority students enrolling in your classes (particularly lower-division, GEN Ed) and in your programs. We wish we had more minority students enrolling in our courses. Although we have gone up (slightly) in our latinx population, overall there is room for improvement. We do try. We have visited local high schools and sponsor local high school DECA competitions to help make local students aware of our program and opportunity.
2) What support (from enrollment services, advising, first-year transition office, access & diversity, etc.) do you need to help you recruit and retain students?
I have no idea. I do know that our program is not advertised as much as some other programs. We think that our program is a great fit for diverse students and wish it would be promoted more to new students at WSU. We have a very high graduation rate and virtually 100% job placement. Our average student makes around 65K-68K in their first year in the field.
3) We have invited you to re-think your program assessment. What strategies are you considering? What support or help would you like?
We went though this process with Gail over the last couple of years and now more aligned learning outcomes as well as a curriculum grid. We have worked hard to get to the point to have good system of checking our masterly level learning outcomes.
4) Finally, we are supporting our Concurrent Enrollment accreditation process. Does your program offer concurrent enrollment classes? If so, have you been able to submit the information requested from the Concurrent Enrollment office? Staff from OIE will reach out to you in the next few months to assist in finalizing that data submission as well as gather information for concurrent Gen Ed assessment.
We do offer concurrent enrollment classes. Tim Border and Brock Adams run this program for our department. They are working with the concurrent enrollment office to submit all the things they ask for.
The full report is available for viewing.
- 2019-2020
1) First year student success is critical to WSU’s retention and graduation efforts. We are interested in finding out how departments support their first-year students. Do you have mechanisms and processes in place to identify, meet with, and support first-year students? Please provide a brief narrative focusing on your program’s support of new students:
- Any first-year students taking courses in your program(s).
- We rarely have first year students in our courses. We do have three 1000 level courses; however, most don’t take these class’s until at least their sophomore year.
- With that being said we strongly support new students. They meet with the department adviser right away and we are very selective of who teaches these entry level courses. Faculty reach out to students when they miss class and/or assignments to help them on their way.
- Students declared in your program(s), whether or not they are taking courses in your program(s)
- The same as above in A. We have them meet with the adviser every semester and we are committed as a faculty to be nice to our students. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but we do have one of the highest retention rates on campus.
2) A key component of sound assessment practice is the process of ‘closing the loop’ – that is, following up on changes implemented as a response to your assessment findings, to determine the impact of those changes/innovations. It is also an aspect of assessment on which we need to improve, as suggested in our NWCCU mid-cycle report. Please describe the processes your program has in place to ‘close the loop’.
- We are closing the loop by doing the things that are recommended through are review processes. We follow the strategic plan we have in place and make changes when necessary.
The full report is available for viewing.
- Any first-year students taking courses in your program(s).
- 2017
1) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?
- This year we will be collecting and analyzing our 200 level courses. We will also continue to address the three concerns that came up during our 2017 annual assessment reported in Appendix A.
2) We are interested in better understanding how departments/programs assess their graduating seniors or graduate students. Please provide a short narrative describing the practices/curriculum in place for your department/program. Please include both direct and indirect measures employed. Finally, what were your findings from this past year’s graduates?- Our graduating seniors complete two classes (at the same time) that show us they are ready to graduate. These classes are very project oriented and they must have some type of sales job or internship to complete the class (the instructor helps them find one if they don’t already have one). This class assures that they have the necessary skills to graduate with a bachelor’s degree as well as the necessary skills to graduate in professional sales. They create a binder that is stored in the department to show evidence of learning for their bachelor’s degree in professional sales.
The full report is available for viewing.
- 2016
The Professional Sales Department conducted a 5 year program review with full self-study during the spring of 2016. Those results are presented in place of the Annual Assessment. Please reference those documents for information that includes data for the 2015/16 academic year.
- 2015
1) Reflecting on this year’s assessment(s), how does the evidence of student learning impact your faculty’s confidence in the program being reviewed; how does that analysis change when compared with previous assessment evidence?
- Reflecting on this year’s assessment the faculty continues to have great confidence in the sales program and fully believes in the results of its learning objectives. This was our fourth year of data gathering. This data is being captured annually and is being retained to establish future assessment comparisons. There is a greater fit now with industry because of the department and degree name change to “Professional Sales.” Our partners who donate to our program have been very happy with their return and the value of our students.
2) With whom did you share the results of the year’s assessment efforts?
- The results of this year’s efforts were shared with the faculty, the Dean of the College of Engineering, Applied Science and Technology and the University Director of Institutional Effectiveness, Academic Planning and Evaluation and to our sales center.
3) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?
- The assessment artifacts will continue to be collected and compared to four years ago.
- The artifacts will even more closely align with the established learning objectives
- Our program is currently building a sales certificate program that will be used for training and recruiting
- The department will continue to develop a relationship with the recently established Alan E. Hall Center for Sales Excellence
- A balance between course offerings online, hybrid and face-to-face will continue to be evaluated
- We will stay current in our external accrediting group that we are one of only 23 universities nationwide that hold the full membership accreditation https://www.universitysalescenteralliance.org/memberschools/full/
The full report is available for viewing.
- 2014
1) Reflecting on this year’s assessment(s), how does the evidence of student learning impact your faculty’s confidence in the program being reviewed; how does that analysis change when compared with previous assessment evidence?
- Reflecting on this year’s assessment the faculty continues to have great confidence in the sale program and fully believes in the results of its learning objectives. The data base for all classes is almost complete. We have finished three of the four year data gathering. This data is being captured annually and is being retained to establish future assessment comparisons. There is a greater fit now with industry because of the department and degree name change to “Professional Sales.”
2) With whom did you share the results of the year’s assessment efforts?
- The results of this year’s efforts were shared with the faculty, the Dean of the College of Applied Science and Technology and the University Director of Institutional Effectiveness, Academic Planning and Evaluation.
3) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?
- The assessment artifacts will continue to be collected
- The artifacts will even more closely align with the established learning objectives
- In the past year, two new courses have been developed to meet the current needs of industry and the students
- The department will continue to develop a relationship with the recently established Alan E. Hall Center for Sales Excellence
- A balance between course offerings online, hybrid and face-to-face will continue to be evaluated
The full report is available for viewing
- 2013
1) Reflecting on this year’s assessment(s), how does the evidence of student learning impact your faculty’s confidence in the program being reviewed; how does that analysis change when compared with previous assessment evidence?
- Reflecting on this year’s assessment the faculty continues to have great confidence in the sales program and fully believes in the results of its learning objectives. We do not have a complete data base of previous assessment evidence. We are two years into establishing four years of data that is needed for analytical data comparisons. This data is being captured annually and retained to establish future comparisons for this assessment.
2) With whom did you share the results of the year’s assessment efforts?
- The results of this year’s efforts were shared with the Dean of the College of Applied Science and Technology and the university Director of Institutional Effectiveness, Academic Planning & Evaluation.
3) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?
- The needed types of assessment artifacts will continue to be collected.
- The artifacts being collected will demonstrate that established learning objectives are being met.
- A system has been developed to ensure a consistent plan of data collection such that goals achievement can be demonstrated.
- In the past 4 years the department has developed three new classes and developed three separate BIS options.
- The department has also pioneered several state-of-the art hardware and software technologies to advance teaching methods. Ongoing development continues to be a priority.
- We have established an external chair of the SST external technical advisory board. We are giving them some authority and ownership as to the agenda and functioning of the board.
- The department will continue to work for balance in the offering of online, hybrid and face to face courses.
- All of the faculty are being involved in contributing to the assessment process.
To view the full report select this link: SST - Technical Sales 2012/13 Annual Assessment Report
- 2021-2022
- Program Review