Lisa Nausley
Sales training methodologies developed by Sandler Training has been incorporated into Harvard Business School’s leadership curriculum.
David Mattson, CEO of Sandler Training, has worked closely with Frank V. Cespedes, faculty chair for the Aligning Strategy and Sales executive program at Harvard Business School (HBS) as well as Mark Roberge, senior lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at HBS, to incorporate Sandler sales training techniques into the school's curriculum.
Mr. Cespedes and Mr. Roberge teach an MBA course on "Entrepreneurial Sales and Marketing" (ESM), which examines customer acquisition and retention in ventures from seed stage to scaling. A case study incorporating Sandler techniques is now part of that course.
"Entrepreneurs and business executives all over the world recognize that selling is ubiquitous and an essential skill that all students should learn before entering their careers,” said Lisa Nausley, CEO of Sandler Training in Chattanooga.
Students receive a selling scenario case study and a series of videos of various sales interactions where the seller is not trained by Sandler. In class, they then view a second series of videos of the same interactions but where the seller is Sandler trained. After showing these videos, the instructors and Mr. Mattson will lead a discussion based on the differences between the two videos and highlight the importance of several factors taught by the Sandler selling methodology.
Eventually, the case study and videos will be distributed by Harvard Business Review Publishing to other business schools and universities globally. As an added bonus, however, the Harvard MBA students will have access to Sandler Online, Sandler Training's vast digital sales and management library.
Ms. Nausley said, "In our firm, we find it interesting how often sales ability is looked upon as a trait some are born with while others are not. Frankly, that’s just not true. No one is born with the knowledge and ability to perform at a high level in professional sales any more than doctors, lawyers, engineers or CPA’s are born. We expect each of those professionals to have spent years learning and practicing their craft and not coincidentally, to have ongoing professional development training to continually sharpen their skills. Harvard Business School recognizes the importance of having this curriculum as an integral part of their MBA program.”
Dave Mattson