The term “sales pro” may be apt, but colleges still treat selling (at best) like a marketing’s bastard stepchild. The failure to recognize the importance of selling skills in every aspect of life-not just business-is a perfect example of what’s wrong with today’s academic community.
Let’s take inventory. According to the U.S. Department of Education, over the past decade, U.S. colleges and universities have awarded approximately 1.1 million MBAs. Guess how many of those graduated MBAs took even a single course in Sales? Answer: less than 1 percent. Guess how many of those MBAs were awarded with a concentration in Sales? Answer: Zero (or so close it makes no difference). Guess how many colleges offer even a minor in Sales as part of an undergraduate business degree? Less than 40 — out of several thousand institutions.
What gives? Why is Sales a pariah when it comes to academia?
It can’t be because Sales is an “art” and therefore not appropriate for colleges to teach. After all, during the same period of time, colleges awarded 73,882 masters degrees in English Literature and 30,118 in Liberal Arts, a major that encompasses sculpting and oil painting. And it can’t be because Sales is a “people skill” and therefore not appropriate for colleges to teach, since they managed to award 160,786 masters degrees in Psychology, the vast majority of which will be used in counseling rather than research. And it can’t because Sales is too airy-fairy and vague to be a valid subject matter, since they awarded 14,195 masters in Philosophy/Religion, not to mention 15,582 in Gender Studies (???).
Why does Sales get short shrift when it comes to higher education? Two reasons:
First, business schools are dominated by Marketing professionals who have a vested interest in minimizing the importance of Sales. For a marketing professional, the ideal world is one where there is no need for Sales because consumers buy products directly from manufacturers. Because they’re so enamored of “frictionless commerce,” they completely miss the point that B2B consultative sales is the only way for customers to make sense of the insane complexity of the modern business world. Marketing, as currently taught, is the enemy of Sales and they’re not going to let the enemy on their turf.
Second, academia, in general, considers commerce unclean. Outside of business schools, academia thinks of business as something that corrupts youth, turning them away from important life pursuits, like learning the history of proto-feminism in 12th century (or whatever). They’ll tolerate business schools because they bring in a lot of money, but launching Sales as a separate academic discipline would force academics to confront their own overwhelming hypocrisy. After all, when it comes to winning grant money and alumni donations, academics are the biggest whores on the planet. As such, the last thing they’d want is to trumpet that their school is good at teaching people to sell.
This would all just be mildly annoying if it weren’t for the fact that the unwillingness of colleges to treat Sales a serious profession has two negative outcomes:
First, it’s created a sales training industry where there’s no quality control or standards of performance. While there are some great sales training firms out there, the sad truth is that companies waste billions of dollars every year on sales programs that are basically useless entertainment.
Second, the lack of a real sales focus in colleges has made it difficult or impossible for sales pros to make the case that they’re professionals, who should be considered as professional as doctors, lawyers, and marketing drones with MBAs. The consequent lack of social standing encourages the obsolete and insulting notion that sales pros are simply hucksters in business suits.
What’s frustrating about the situation is that there isn’t a profession in the world where the ability to sell isn’t an absolute requirement for success. While they’ll pretend it isn’t so, even doctors and lawyers have to run businesses by selling their services to the public. Artist, musicians, writers and sculptors, if they plan to work in their field of choice, had better learn to sell or they won’t eat. Engineers and scientists have to sell their ideas to win money for research and development. As for the horde of psychologists, philosophers, pastors, and “gender studies” experts that colleges extrude each year from their ivy-covered hallways - all of them will have to convince people that they provide a salable service.
In short, everyone sells. Everyone. There is no life skill more valuable and more important than learning how to sell. That’s why it’s madness that colleges and universities continue to treat Sales as if it didn’t exist.
