Does Sales Need to Become More Professional?

In our last post on hiring, I tackled the question of whether or not sales has an image problem. Our research from this year’s study on Driving Sales Transformation found that many prospective job candidates were not attracted to sales jobs. In this post, I will focus on how 3M is combating sales’ negative perception by partnering with universities to develop sales curriculum that is designed to engage students and drive an interest in a career in sales.

As we have mentioned, sales organizations face many challenges when it comes to hiring sales reps. The common solution to this problem is to simply hire better talent. However, the type of talent most organizations are interested in, are likely not looking for a career in sales. The negative perception and reputation of sales prevents college candidates from even considering it as a viable career choice. Thus, the solution to attracting better talent may in fact be to solve sales’ image problem.

Earlier this year we profiled 3M, a company actively working across several college campuses to alter the perception of sales. By working with professors at various universities, 3M has developed sales programs to increase students’ interest in sales careers. These programs provide students with examples of careers paths in sales and teach the actual responsibilities of sales reps, all while debunking commonly held stereotypes about the industry. Due to the success of these programs, 3M is now able to address its need to source high-potential entry-level sales talent.

Recently, CEB sat down with several key participants in 3M’s partnerships to discuss this program more in depth. In the past, 3M faced the issue of attracting high-potential talent.  Instead of investing more resources into traditional recruiting initiatives, 3M decided to take a different approach and invested its resources and efforts in the primary source of new-hire talent: colleges and universities. 3M collaborated with professors at schools to build rigorous sales education programs designed to professionalize sales, with the goal of producing better-prepared “performance-ready” talent for 3M.

Candace Mailand, the Director of Sales Innovation at 3M, described 3M’s approach to shifting the reputation of sales, “So the question we {3M} asked, is how do we change that perception? How do you develop a rigorous program that attracts high potential students by convincingly showing them the art of sales, and even more so, the science…the program was designed with the intent of increasing the amount of sales education content, with the goal of elevating sales as both a discipline and a profession. It is because of these university sales programs that are now in place that 3M is able to address our need for attracting a diverse talent pool of performance-ready candidates.”

These programs not only fill 3M’s need for qualified sales talent, but also assist students in discovering a viable career choice. Before 3M’s involvement at DePaul University, one if it’s partner schools, the University surveyed its students to gauge student’s interest in sales careers. They found that 0% of surveyed students had any interest in sales careers. After 3M’s involvement on campus, DePaul found that after just one sales class, 35% of students wanted to pursue a career in sales. More importantly, at the end of DePaul’s sales program, 75% of the students enrolled chose a career in sales, and went to work for one of the University’s partner companies, including 3M.

SEC Members, read the full case study and listen to the webinar replay. Also, read the key findings from the study, Hiring Challengers in Today’s Sales Environment.