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A Deep Dive into Sales Education Programs w/Chuck Howlett
35 Plays9 days ago
In this episode, Brian Dietmeyer talks to Chuck Howlett about the evolution and impact of university-level sales degree programs. They dive into Chuck's extensive background in sales education, including his roles at Northern Illinois University and the University of Idaho, and discuss how these programs prepare students for real-world sales environments. This conversation sheds light on the increasing importance of structured sales education and its role in shaping the next generation of sales professionals.
Resources mentioned in this podcast:
Click here for the NIU Journal of Selling
Click here for the Sales Education Foundation
Click here for Pi Sigma Epsilon (PSE)
Timestamps:
00:02 Introduction to the episode and guest Chuck Howlett.
00:30 Chuck's background and current roles in sales education.
00:50 Discussion on the emergence of sales training at university levels.
01:02 Brian shares his teaching experience at NIU.
01:47 Overview of the growth in university sales programs across the U.S.
03:08 Challenges in recruiting sales professionals from non-sales academic programs.
04:11 Details on the types of degrees and certifications offered in sales programs.
05:03 Discussion on the historical perspective of sales roles in career choices.
06:30 Real-life sales training experiences within university programs.
09:18 Insights into top university sales programs and their impact.
11:08 Employment opportunities and readiness of graduates from sales programs.
13:41 The role of soft skills in sales education and their importance in the industry.
14:36 Closing thoughts on the contribution of sales education to the professional field.
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Close Mode Podcast
00:00:05
brian
Hello and welcome to another edition of Close Mode, the enterprise sales show. I am Brian Dietmeyer CEO of Close Strong AI, the home of precision-guided selling.
Meet Chuck Howlett
00:00:14
brian
And today I'm super lucky to be here with Chuck Howlett. Chuck, welcome to the show.
00:00:20
Chuck
Thank you very much for having me, Brian.
00:00:22
brian
So Chuck's got a pretty cool background. He was sales management with Eli Lilly, the director of the professional sales center at and NIU, and I have to say, go Huskies.
00:00:33
brian
For those of you who don't know, they are America's underdog, literally underdog team who beat Notre Dame last season. So that's pretty cool. And there's also currently adjunct faculty at University of Idaho. And
Importance of University Sales Training
00:00:45
brian
today, Chuck, as you well know, we're going to be chatting about sales degree programs. And I'm i'm really excited for this podcast today.
00:00:54
brian
I've met a ton of people who don't really realize that their their sales training is is now happening at the university level, and I think maybe even more importantly, a great place to recruit.
00:01:01
Chuck
Yep.
00:01:04
brian
I also had the honor of teaching a class at NIU. I taught a negotiation class to to some of the the students there, Chuck, and I was blown away.
00:01:09
Chuck
you
00:01:13
brian
they And I don't know if this is still the case, but they they all showed up in business wear. The ladies were in suits or dresses, the boys were in ties. you know
00:01:22
Chuck
yeah
00:01:22
brian
And I don't know if that still happens, but it's pretty cool.
00:01:23
Chuck
no Well, yeah I think it's not changed over the last couple of years when I was there. That was a fact. You had to do it. And it was funny. I had a ti tying competition because lot of the guys didn know how to tie their ties.
00:01:31
brian
Yes.
00:01:33
Chuck
So the women were helping them tie their ties and giving them, put it over their neck and things like that. But what we try to do at Northern is to try to emulate, you know, try to emulate the real sales world. It's not like you're wearing jeans and tennis shoes.
00:01:42
brian
yes
00:01:44
Chuck
So let's put them in the real world and try to give them an opportunity to really kind of soar. But yeah.
00:01:48
brian
Yeah. And that, that's definitely the the part that I want to bring out to our listeners today. Again, because I was, I was really, really blown away.
Evolution of University Sales Programs
00:01:55
brian
I'm really happy to see it, but let's let's start a couple, like for for those folks who aren't aware of this, roughly how many sales programs are out there at the university level?
00:02:06
Chuck
at the university level. Well, when I was with Lily, let me stop back on that one. When I was with Lily, NIU asked me to be a coach to the sales competition team that was going to Kennesaw State. So I'm like, sure, this will be fun.
00:02:15
brian
Okay.
00:02:16
Chuck
So I went to Kennesaw State with four kids from Northern Illinois, and I got down there, Brian, and i I'm like, I want to go home and fire half my team right now because these sales students, they are good, they're hungry, and they want it.
00:02:26
brian
Wow.
00:02:28
Chuck
So that got me an idea that I didn't know there's that many sales programs. And In 2007, I went back and did some research, there were 27 programs across the country, 27. twenty so Fast forward 18 years, there's 235 universities across United States and there's 20 of those in international schools that have some type of selling program or certificate, some kind of higher education in the field of sales.
00:02:38
brian
Okay.
Sales Graduates vs. Marketing Graduates
00:02:53
brian
Yeah, it's it's interesting too. i think I was telling you on our pre-call that when I was with Marriott and VP of National Councils, I went up to, i think, either Michigan State, I think, they had a hotel program and And nobody, and I was hiring salespeople and they were coming in with marketing degrees.
00:03:05
Chuck
Yeah.
00:03:09
brian
Nobody at 19 years old or however the heck old they are when they come out is going into marketing.
00:03:10
Chuck
Right.
00:03:14
brian
and And I went up and met with their dean and said, I'll even write a textbook for you, you know, because I was so frustrated with not being able to recruit.
00:03:19
Chuck
Right. Right.
00:03:21
brian
But what what is the the actual degree that they're getting? I think there's a range, right?
00:03:26
Chuck
There's a range, right?
Structure of Sales Programs
00:03:27
Chuck
So at Northern, we had a sales certificate program and to be accredited, and there's a group called Sales Education Foundation that was actually founded in 2007 when we first got these data.
00:03:30
brian
Okay. Okay.
00:03:37
Chuck
they they have to be accredited by the university. They have to say, yep, you have a program, the university acknowledges it. It has to have at least three sales classes. And then finally, it has to be accredited by an external person that comes in and says, yep, you have a sales program.
00:03:51
Chuck
So in in that whole scenario, you've got a lot of folks that have sales minors, you have sales majors more recently, and you have sales certificates. In our case, we did not go, at least when it was put together, not do a sales major. It only needs one more class to get a major.
00:04:08
Chuck
But we found more success in the marketing kids, students coming in.
00:04:08
brian
Okay.
Sales Program Entry and Student Advantages
00:04:12
Chuck
And they said, you know what, I'm going to finish my degree when get these classes and get a certificate or digital marketing or things like that.
00:04:18
brian
Hmm.
00:04:18
Chuck
When I left Northern, about half of the students were marketing majors. There was probably 20, 25% were management majors. We had some finance majors, had some accounting majors, a lot of sports management people.
00:04:31
Chuck
And the the funny thing is they get these sales certificates, put it on their resume. And in our case, you had to interview to get it into the class. So it was a limited entry. So any company says, what does this limited entry mean?
00:04:38
brian
Wow.
00:04:41
Chuck
And all of a sudden you've got one more, you know, one more star in your crown that says, hey, maybe they meet this person may be a great fit for us.
Career Trajectory of Sales Graduates
00:04:47
Chuck
So it kind ranges all over the world.
00:04:47
brian
Yeah.
00:04:51
brian
So but before these programs existed, i think you have a sense of, how how many college graduates were going into sales before there was ever sales certificate or degree programs.
00:05:04
brian
you have any idea about that?
00:05:04
Chuck
i
00:05:06
Chuck
Yeah, I mean, when I was there, I was going to be a husband veterinary. That didn't work real well. So ag business, that didn't work that well. But you become, because of the process of elimination, the the feeling 25 years ago is like, well, you know what?
00:05:17
Chuck
If you can't make it, go to sales kind of scenario.
00:05:20
brian
Right, right.
00:05:20
Chuck
And we're trying to try to flip that and say, you know what? If you can't make in sales, why don't you go be an accountant? Hasn't worked that great.
00:05:25
brian
Nice.
00:05:26
Chuck
but It's kind of fun on that one. But there's probably from the market research that we've done anywhere from 60 to 70% of college graduates go into the sales field. And that's pretty well documented. So if you're going to be two thirds, 60% of chance going to go out in sales, why don't you learn something on campus where it's no risk?
00:05:44
Chuck
You can't get fired, put on promotion or a probation kind of scenario. So that was the the just of trying to get some people some real life examples so they could use that and go to those companies that says, you know, we only hire salespeople.
00:05:52
brian
Yeah.
00:05:55
Chuck
like, well, I've got some sales education. It's in the academic world. And that's worked pretty pretty well.
00:05:59
brian
Right. Yeah.
Real-life Experience in Sales Education
00:06:03
brian
So Chuck, my, experience at NIU it led me to feel like it was almost like a sales trade school rather than an academic adventure, you know, because I just felt like they they were doing like real sales stuff. can Can you give our listeners some examples of, of kind of real life experiences they get in these programs? Yeah.
00:06:03
Chuck
Okay.
00:06:22
Chuck
No, think it's good question because first of all, when companies come in, they want people that have real life experience and more than anything else. So in a lot of programs, in my case, I had 25 corporations coming into the university and say, hey, I want to hire and want to hire your top salesperson.
00:06:36
Chuck
I'm like, you know what? They're all top salespeople. So let's work with that. So that put people in to say, if we if our product is going to be these students coming out, we need to have a product that they're going to want to hire.
00:06:46
Chuck
So because of that, we came back and did a lot of time on get get a resume.
00:06:46
brian
Yes.
00:06:50
Chuck
So it actually is a resume that represents you. Let's do an elevator pitches. Let's understand that. What is your value proposition for you? And then when you get in the classroom, learning about prospecting, qualifying prospecting, understanding the negotiations, pre-call plan.
00:07:04
Chuck
And then we have done a tremendous amount of inside sales role plays, improv, because in that case, the best salespeople, the ones that improv it. And then finally, the role play of actually sitting down face to face or now doing the Zoom or the Teams call, something like that.
Top University Sales Programs
00:07:19
brian
Yeah.
00:07:19
Chuck
And what really set us apart, I think, is instead of having a student on student, it became a corporate person versus a sales student. So that then became an interview for the corporation that says, I want to know this the student.
00:07:31
Chuck
And from the student, I got somebody in the real world giving me real advice. So it became a great marriage, I think, to move forward with that.
00:07:38
brian
Yeah. It's, it's so fascinating to me. It's so, kind of street level and, and kind of hands on, that I was, I was really, really blown away. And, you know, my next question has to do is sort of the top programs. And as I ask that question, it's like, how how do you, how do you sort of, you know, what, what means top, but like, what, what, who do you think's churning out some of the best, uh, graduates for, for those folks who might consider recruiting?
00:08:02
Chuck
but it's kind of like asking 20 parents who's the best parent, you know, same kind of scenario here, but out the 235, they're all in the top 235.
00:08:05
brian
Right.
00:08:10
Chuck
But I would say if we look at people that, you know, people that started this program, a lot of Mac schools did it, the Toledos, the Akrons, the Miamis of Ohio's, and Baylor got involved, Kennesaw State got involved.
00:08:10
brian
Yes.
00:08:21
Chuck
And if I were looking back on where I would go, you meet every year, at least once a year with the sales professionals, and you say, what's Brian doing? I want to steal that Brian idea and putting it over here. So because of that, we're really not competing against anybody to say we're the best.
00:08:35
brian
Right. Yep.
00:08:36
Chuck
It goes back to the companies. What are they looking for? If I'm in in Michigan, I'm looking for something maybe different than in California or you know up in Minneapolis kind of s scenario. But I would go to people like Baylor because Baylor has been around a long time and they have had tremendous success and support down there.
00:08:50
Chuck
I would also go to Kennesaw State. I would go to Northern Illinois because theyve and they have a journal on market research on selling.
00:08:54
brian
yeah
00:08:57
Chuck
North Dakota State's one that's been popping up. They have a new retired guy that's from a Microsoft-ish kind of thing. And he's he's like, he's got to find something to do. So he's doing a tremendous program. But they're depending on the area that you're in, because a lot of these students don't necessarily want to travel all over,
Resources for Sales Education
00:09:12
Chuck
If I need somebody in, in, i in Idaho, I'd probably go out there. Or if I need somebody in Miami, I'd probably go down there with a bilingual kind of sales education. So I can't really say who's the best on that.
00:09:21
brian
Great.
00:09:23
Chuck
But I think everybody gets to know the person that is doing great things in their programs and tries to steal it and bring it back into their university.
00:09:29
brian
Yeah, no, that's actually a great answer to the question. and And I do think that you talked a little bit about longevity. Maybe it was Baylor. You know, it's like thats that's got to have something to do with it, right?
00:09:36
Chuck
Mm-hmm.
00:09:38
brian
Who's been doing it for a while.
00:09:39
Chuck
right
00:09:40
brian
So what what kind of placements are you seeing? What what level of position are these folks? I mean, of course, they're going to need more product training and onboarding and that kind of thing. But what are they ready for?
00:09:51
Chuck
Well, they read it for, I think when I first started, it became a lot, first entry level job. I'm looking for a salesperson to go call 75, 100 people a day and make those cold calls, just go, go, go and burn out. I think as the the sales education has evolved with all the context and all that the globalization of this is depending on the students, like any bell-shaped curve, there's people on that far right side of the curve, they are ready to go into sales and maybe a second level, like a fleet management training or something like that based upon their skillset.
00:10:19
Chuck
At Northern, we placed somebody at a fleet level and never been done before. So that was quite cool. We did McKesson Pharmaceuticals. We've done, like i said, Enterprise. We've done C.H. Robinson. We've got a Salesforce person.
00:10:30
Chuck
We've got somebody Novartis, Takeda. So those kind of people, they may go back into the starter sales kind of role, but they go very quickly through that because those skills have been learned already. So now it's applying it, seeing it, differentiating yourself and moving forward.
00:10:45
brian
So where where can listeners learn more? Is there weren't any kind of a central hub for this?
00:10:51
Chuck
Yeah, there really is. And and that that took a while, but through the Sales Education Foundation, Brian, they go online and get that. They do an annual publication. It has all universities in it. There's, like I said, 235, but it also then gives you the contact information, where they're located, what they' what their program consists of, including a sales major, minor certificate, maybe some external kind of scenario.
00:11:05
brian
Hmm.
00:11:12
Chuck
But it gets it's a good playbook if I have an interest in doing that. and you can kind of see what you're interested in. So that will be the first resource. The second I'd go through is on campus, most most of these sales programs are affiliated with something called Pi Sigma Epsilon, you might've heard of it.
00:11:28
Chuck
It's a PSC, which is a fraternity for sales marketing. So they have chapters around a lot of these and you get the sales there people that are there learning the sales, also joining PSE.
00:11:38
Chuck
And those are national competitions where you can benchmark your skills over. So my two resources would be PSE, Phi Sigma Epsilon, and then also the Sales Education Foundation, where I think companies and listeners can really get some great information to try to find what their next recruiting options might be.
The Future of Sales Education and AI
00:11:54
brian
Yeah, I would, because you've been super generous with your time and your ideas, as as have many other sales and revenue leaders, that I'm actually going to go to both of those and share this podcast.
00:12:06
brian
Because I think for these students to hear what you and your peers, I mean, we've we've had sales enablement folks, CROs, VPs sales, and and some top performing AEs.
00:12:07
Chuck
All right.
00:12:15
brian
And I think it would be a really interesting part of any sales degree program to hear what are people struggling with today. So I'm going to push that out to them as well.
00:12:24
Chuck
no please do. And a lot of things we heard on campus was the technical skills are getting better and better and better. But the soft skills, the communication skills, having that conversation are becoming more difficult. and I think that reflects society today.
00:12:35
Chuck
And how can we set our students up to get those soft skills so they have a conversation, take notes and listen and solve the customer's problems?
00:12:36
brian
Right.
00:12:42
Chuck
So we're all working together on this. And the more we can do to help the industry, the better it's going to be.
00:12:46
brian
Yeah, for for sure. Well, I really, you know, I think of this podcast as sort of adding to the body of knowledge in our profession. So if you're out there doing something, you know, you can come and hear someone talk about forecasting or or enablement.
00:12:59
brian
and And you definitely in the role you're playing at Boise and and at NIU are adding to the profession. And just, I really honestly want to thank you for doing that because it's, it's, it's, uh, it's needed and, uh, and it's cool again, if you, if you haven't seen it, I encourage everybody to check, check these students out.
00:13:14
Chuck
but
00:13:18
brian
It's they're great programs.
00:13:21
Chuck
Absolutely, and I think keeps the the sales professors young too. i think I'm 25 at times, but the idea is like there's so many new things that are happening now with AI. What are people doing? How can we be more you know marketplace driven when we're on the in the campus in the classroom?
00:13:36
brian
Although, you know, when you think you're 25, do you have your thumbs up things there? do you have those around or is that at your other desk?
00:13:43
brian
So I did, you know, you you pulled these out on our previous call and I wanted to tell you, if you're going to be 25, you know, you can you can do that on your screen now.
00:13:43
Chuck
No, I think I can't.
00:13:48
Chuck
i
00:13:54
Chuck
I know, but this is more fun. So that way it's more interactive.
00:13:56
brian
it's so It certainly is. Chuck, again, thank you so much for your time. This has been a ton of fun.
00:14:02
Chuck
Thanks, Brian. I appreciate the opportunity.