It's official! Center for Sales Innovation Has “University” Status

After a year's worth of planning and a daunting amount of work by trustees, faculty and staff members, the College of St. Catherine became St. Catherine University on June 1. A task team and the Board concluded that a name change to "university" more accurately reflected the comprehensive nature of St. Catherine’s and positions the institution for national pre-eminence.

St. Catherine University is the only private institution in Minnesota to confer degrees at the associate, baccalaureate, master's and doctoral levels. It offers two clinical doctorates and eight master's programs as well as 11 programs at the associate level. Current total enrollment is 5,201. The Center for Sales Innovation resides in the School of Business and Leadership.

Gen Y Research: Twin Cities Sales Experts Team Up
for National White Paper

Lynn Schleeter

Research around on-boarding and recognizing Gen Y workers is incorporated into a new white paper published in the June issue of HRO Today magazine. “To Engage Gen Y Workers, Adopt New Approaches” covers the background of this “trophy generation” and how to retain and accelerate performance improvements from creating a culture of recognition and connections. Click here to download the pdf.

	Louise Anderson

The white paper’s authors are Lynn Schleeter, director of Center for Sales Innovation, and Louise Anderson, president of Twin Cities-based Anderson Performance Improvement Company. The white paper offers practical approaches for keeping staffs engaged and motivated, including new sales programs at Minneapolis-based Loffler, Inc. as described by the company’s vice president of sales, John Hastings. HRO Today is the only publication dedicated to covering the outsourced HR services market. Both Anderson and Hastings are members of the Center’s monthly Sales Executive Forum facilitated by Schleeter.

Learn How to Leverage Sales Academic Credibility

A recent Sales & Marketing Management magazine article, entitled “Schooling of Sales,” analyzed sales profession stereotypes and their impact on hiring and productivity. New initiatives to give reps academic credibility are being taken by the University Sales Education Foundation (USEF), a nonprofit group that promotes sales instruction at the collegiate level. Companies need to learn how to leverage this academic credibility, as discussed in the article.

“What’s the necessary thing to make (sales) a profession?” asks Howard Stevens, USEF’s founder. “You have to improve the image. You have to establish real, quality criteria and some real research, and universities are the best way to do that.” The article points out, however: “There is only one slight problem here: Formal sales education is virtually nonexistent in U.S. business schools.”

Summer Sales Interns Are Up For The Challenge!

Lauren Dunlap

Lauren Dunlap is a St. Kate’s intern this summer as an inside sales rep in 3M’s Industrial & Transportation business unit, where she’ll be working with one key distributor with multiple U.S. locations. Selling an industrial product will be a challenge for this healthcare sales major, but she’s up for it!  Her primary goals are to identify key decision makers at this distributor and expand 3M’s footprint with the hundreds of products that she is representing. She understands that her inside sales goals are similar to those of her outside sales colleagues. “My classroom skill development will serve me well based on the many videotaped role plays that helped me to develop vocabulary and clarity of speech that are important for building relationships over the phone,” she says.
 
Jessie Vermillion, also a healthcare sales major, is interning this summer at Minneapolis-based Medical Learning, a compliance and reimbursement company. She too is performing an inside sales role, responsible for calling on pharmacies in a three-state area about an online pharmacy tool, book and newsletter. She needs to maintain a monthly sales goal of $5,000 and a certain pipeline level, which she says is aggressive, and attends weekly check-in sessions with her sales team. According to Jessie, she feels well prepared for the double challenge of over-the-phone sales in the medical arena. “I just completed the Selling Into Managed Care course, in addition to the professional sales course," she says. "This has prepared me for working with providers, compliance issues, and hospital rules and regulations. It will be interesting and fun once I learn more about the products and can go beyond the script.”