Professional Selling: A Guide for the Modern Sales Professional

Transform the Way You Teach Professional Sales

100+ Turn-key Resources for Your Professional Selling Course

The Most Up-to-date Professional Selling Courseware

Updated every year based on instructor and student feedback

Includes 100+ resources that help you teach a more engaging course

 

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Includes 100+ engaging resources for your course:

  • 25 individual assignments 
  • 1 cumulative project 
  • 13 lecture presentations (student and instructor versions)
  • 13 quizzes
  • 13 customizable lesson plans
  • 48 Expert Sessions videos featuring 34 different sales professionals
  • 1 sample syllabus
  • 1 course schedule

Table of Contents

A cutting-edge and training-focused courseware that will change the way professional selling is taught at the collegiate level

Chapter 1: What is Professional Selling?

Chapter 2: Mentality of Successful Sellers

Chapter 3: Planning and Goal Setting

Chapter 4: Strategic Sales Management and Analytics

Chapter 5: Understanding Prospective Customers

Chapter 6: Traditional Prospecting Methods

Chapter 7: Digital Prospecting and Social Selling

Chapter 8: Discovery Meetings With Prospective Customers

Chapter 9: Creating Individualized Customer Value

Chapter 10: Demonstrations and Proposals

Chapter 11: Closing the Deal

Chapter 12: Maintaining and Utilizing Customer Relationships

Chapter 13: Improving Selling Skills


Professional Selling: A Guide for the Modern Sales Professional

KEY LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students will learn to:
  • Plan and set goals, as well as determine the day-to-day operations of being a salesperson and identify possible careers within professional selling 
  • Strategically manage customers through customer analytics 
  • Manage the salesperson’s own performance through KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) 
  • Prospect for new customers using methods such as phone, video emails, and social media 
  • Meet customer needs through asking effective questions, resolving concerns, and creating individualized value 
  • Give product demonstrations and create product proposals 
  • Negotiate effectively, close deals, and manage customers post-purchase through account management

About the Authors

B.J. Allen

B.J. Allen

B.J. Allen is an assistant professor of marketing at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Prior to moving to Brigham Young University, B.J. worked as an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Arkansas. B.J. earned his B.S. in business management from Brigham Young University and his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Texas-San Antonio. His research interests include marketing strategy, new product innovation, professional selling, and marketing strategies in networked markets. His research has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and Journal of Cultural Economics. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Product Innovation Management.

B.J. currently teaches or has taught new product innovation, marketing strategy, and professional selling. He was a finalist for the Matthew Joseph Emerging Scholar Award and the Journal of Marketing Best Paper Award. B.J. also received the PDMA (Product Development Management Association) Best Dissertation Award. In 2020, B.J. was awarded the Walton College of Business Outstanding Teacher of the Year. He loves sports, being outdoors, and spending time with his awesome family. He resides in Provo, Utah with his wife Angie and their five children.

Donald Kelly

Donald Kelly

Donald Cecil Kelly’s mission is to evangelize the method of effective selling and to motivate sellers of all levels to DO BIG THINGS! As a former top-performing technology sales professional, who has successfully sold in both the public and private sectors, Donald was able to crack the code of helping teams thrive in sales. Donald has designed his training around concrete fundamental principles adaptable by any seller. He has helped sellers from companies all over the world build confidence in their selling abilities and increase revenue as a result. Organizations such as Rock Venture (Quicken Loans), HairClub, VMWare, Consolidated Electrical Distributors LLC. (CEB), Salt Edge, Charter Spectrum, and Hibu/The Real Yellow Pages, Citi Group, and New York Life. Along with helping for-profit organizations, Donald has also assisted non-profit firms such as Florida State Minority Supplier Development Council, The Eastern Minority Supplier Development Council, GEAR UP, and Cal Poly University.

As a speaker, Donald has spoken to audiences across the country and has shared the stage with speakers such as Aisha Tyler, Sarah Koenig, Chris Brogan, and Marc Maron. In addition to training sales professionals in workshops, online courses, keynote presentations, and students as an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University-Idaho, Donald is the host of a popular sales podcast called “The Sales Evangelist.” With listeners in over 155 countries and over 3.5 million all-time downloads. The podcast has received recognition from publications such as Entrepreneur magazine, Inc. magazine, Forbes, HubSpot, The Huffington Post, and the South Florida Business Journal.

Dustin
Student

“This book is the perfect jumpstart to your future sales career. I learned the essential hard and soft skills about selling straight from this book. The authors did an amazing job of highlighting the necessary skills a successful salesperson needs. I loved how updated the book is with references to modern software and practices. The book is easy to follow, direct, and to the point. The assignments at the end of the chapters tie perfectly into how to apply the techniques. I highly recommend this book to anyone considering sales!"

Cali
Student

“This book gave an extensive and insightful overview of what goes into professional selling, and does an excellent job at making concepts easy to understand and applicable to real-world situations.”

Mackenzie
Student

"Reading Professional Selling has helped me to understand what it means to be a seller, and it is much more than I initially thought.  I have learned what it takes to become a successful seller and how I can get there. Through the study of the examples and details included in the book, I feel ready to start a career in sales."

Wes Young
VP of Sales, Skipio

"I've worked in sales since 1999 and since then I know that every year I have to learn something new to keep my skills fresh. It isn't because I forget, it's because things are constantly changing. For me, the biggest change is in how I find people to sell to and how I manage through their process. Technology is different and how I communicate with them is constantly evolving. Donald and BJ hit the nail on the head in this courseware as it addresses not only getting your mind right to be successful but also the latest and greatest ways to sell to your customers. Oh, and don't forget after you close the deal, you need to finish it right. They touch on all of it! Think about why you are doing what you do.....to help someone else and to help yourself win more. Do both at a high level! As a sales leader, I wish all my new sellers went through something like this in college. They would be light years ahead of their peers."

Erika
Student

“BJ Allen and Donald Kelly have created a textbook that makes me, as a student, excited to read it! This textbook is organized in a way that makes the information easy to intake and understand. The sales process is clearly laid out and gives us students the opportunity to understand B2B sales in the real world; every time I read it, I learn something valuable. The tools in this textbook have helped me gain the skills necessary to feel confident in my sales abilities, which have now led me to multiple job opportunities.”

Gabe
Student

"This textbook does an excellent job of explaining principles and techniques that anyone in sales can implement right away. Unlike so many other textbooks, it is straightforward and meaningfully interactive, and it covers a wide range of topics. I would recommend this text to anyone interested in sales."

Brickton Flammer
Account Manager, Amazon Web Services

“I wish I had had a course like this coming out of school, and I would have been better prepared for a career in sales. This textbook is unique in its focus on real-world professional selling. Students learn skills they will use in their first week on the job, such as phone prospecting, discovery meetings, and handling customer objections. I especially like the focus on new emerging techniques such as using social media to sell and the chapter on CRM analytics, which is becoming more and more important in the selling profession.”

Jake Page
Sales Manager US, GetCiara

"Sales skills like prospecting, executing a discovery call, relationship building, and networking must be practiced, not acquired. By focusing on these things in college through a sales courseware that offers practical implantation, it is putting the next generation of sellers at the front of the high-performance track. Well done."

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FREE Sample Syllabus:
Professional Selling

Who doesn’t love free stuff? Hundreds of instructors are using this syllabus for their course, teaching the topic of Professional Selling.