Sales Education and Training 2.0

Abstract

Welcome to this special issue of the Journal of Marketing Education (JME) on Sales Education and Training 2.0. This special issue is a result of the tremendous response received for the first JME special issue on Sale Education and Training (Volume 36, Issue 2, August 2014). The first special issue provided outstanding research on recruiting, developing the student mindset, self-efficacy, and sales pedagogy. The current issue continues to expand our understanding of sales education with a renewed emphasis on sales education and pedagogy, and an expanded focus on sales competitions, technology, and student perceptions of sales education and a sales career. A few articles also address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the publication of the first special issue, sales education has continued to experience tremendous growth, driven in part by strong industry demand. For example, the Manpower Group routinely identifies the sales representative role as one of the most challenging jobs to fill (Manpower Group, 2018). Furthermore, in their 2018 Sales Talent Study, CSO Insights reports that only 16% of sales executives are confident they have the appropriate sales talent in place (Williams, 2018). While industry demand has been negatively affected in the short-term by the COVID-19 pandemic, the long-term trend should remain positive. Industry demand, in turn, has contributed to the ongoing growth in university sales centers and institutes. Emblematic of this growth, the University Sales Center Alliance grew from 30 universities in 2014 to 59 as of September 2020 (University Sales Center Alliance, 2020). Although the growth in sales education is trending in a positive direction, long-term demand outweighs supply, and much work remains. As noted in our Call for Papers for this special issue, although JME has increased its focus on sales education and training, we have only tapped the surface of this growing domain. The nine articles featured in this issue make a considerable contribution to our understanding of sales education and training, and we expect they will inspire researchers to investigate related topics instrumental to the growth of our discipline. We divided this special issue into three topical areas: (1) the State of Sales Education, (2) Sales Pedagogy and Competitions, and (3) Perceptions and Intentions to Pursue a Sales Career. The State of Sales Education