Course

Professional Sales

Faculty
Commerce & Business Administration
Department
Marketing
Course Code
MARK 4390
Credits
3.00
Semester Length
15 Weeks
Max Class Size
35
Method(s) Of Instruction
Lecture
Seminar
Online
Hybrid
Typically Offered
To be determined

Overview

Course Description
Marketing 4390 is an advanced course in professional selling. Emphasis will be placed on the development of skills in qualifying sales opportunities, self-management, negotiation and the preparation of sales proposals and presentations. Students will explore the nuances of selling to multiple buyers and complicated sales situations. As part of the course work, the students will be assigned to a real-life professional selling project with a local organization (when available) where they will be responsible for managing the cold call sales process for a select number of prospects. There will be discussion about the emergence of virtual selling and the growing role of social media in professional sales.
Course Content
  1. The history of modern selling
  2. The complete sales process
  3. Skills and practice of presentation skills including story telling
  4. Sales field work with an organization
  5. Investigating industries and their sales methodologies
  6. Ethics and their role in professional selling
  7. Requests For Proposals and institutional selling, particularly in the public sector
  8. Virtual and social selling including the use of social media in professional sales
Learning Activities

The course will involve a blend of lectures, discussions, videos, cases, on-line activities, and seminars.  Presentations by students are an integral part of the course.

Means of Assessment

Evaluation will be carried out in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy. 

Individual Assignments (at least 2)  20-30%
Industry overview project 10-20%
Course sales project 30-40%
Tests & Final examination 20-30%
Course participation  10%
Total 100%

 

Students must achieve at least 50% on the combined non-group components in order to obtain credit for the course, with the 50% calculated on a weighted average basis. 

Students must complete all projects, assignments and write all examinations in order to be eligible for a passing grade in the course.

Students may conduct research as part of their coursework in this class. Instructors for the course are responsible for ensuring that student research projects comply with College policies on ethical conduct for research involving humans, which can require obtaining Informed Consent from participants and getting the approval of the Douglas College Research Ethics Board prior to conducting the research.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course, the successful student should be able to:

  1. Explain the various components of the sales process and buying process.
  2. Assess the ebbs and flows of a professional salesperson (dealing with rejection and objections as well as the positives of completing a successful sales engagement). 
  3. Validate whether professional sales is a career path they will consider upon completion of their studies at the College.
  4. Devise a sales approach using the telephone and/or email to complete successful cold calls.
  5. Test the use of social media in the sales process.
  6. Demonstrate a historical understanding of the evolution of professional selling in North America with a focus on the proper role of ethics in relationship and partnership selling. 
  7. Critique the Request For Proposal (RFP) process as a part of organization to organization (B2B) selling.
Textbook Materials

Textbooks and Materials to be Purchased by Students:

Friedman, W. (latest ed). Birth of a salesman. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press

Thull, J. (latest ed), Mastering the Complex Sales, New York NY Wiley

Holden, R. (latest ed) Negotiating with Backbone New York NY Pearson

Bosworth, M. & Zoldan, B. (latest ed) What Great Salespeople Do New York Ny McGraw Hill

Schultz, M. Shaby, D. & Springer, A. (latest ed) Virtual Selling Boston MA Group Press

Ekstrom, P. and Markovitz, H. (latest ed) Gold Call Programme New York NY

And/or other texts and/or simulations and/ or materials as approved by the Department

Requisites

Prerequisites

MARK 1120 AND MARK 2150 or permission of instructor

Corequisites

No corequisite courses.

Equivalencies

No equivalent courses.

Course Guidelines

Course Guidelines for previous years are viewable by selecting the version desired. If you took this course and do not see a listing for the starting semester / year of the course, consider the previous version as the applicable version.

(Current)

Course Transfers

These are for current course guidelines only. For a full list of archived courses please see https://www.bctransferguide.ca

Institution Transfer Details for MARK 4390
Athabasca University (AU) AU MKTG 3XX (3)
Capilano University (CAPU) CAPU BMKT 263 (3)
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) KPU MRKT 2360 (3)
Langara College (LANG) LANG MARK 2XXX (3)
Simon Fraser University (SFU) No credit
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) TRU BBUS 3XXX (3)
University of British Columbia - Okanagan (UBCO) No credit
University of British Columbia - Vancouver (UBCV) No credit
University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) UFV BUS 322 (3)
University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) UFV BUS 390 (3)
University of Victoria (UVIC) No credit

Course Offerings

Winter 2025

CRN Days Instructor Status
Maximum Seats
35
Currently Enrolled
2
Remaining Seats:
33
On Waitlist
0
Building
Anvil Office Tower
Room
609
Times:
Start Time
18:30
-
End Time
21:20