Nov. 4
November 4, 2008
Roger "Jay" Rebstock
November 6, 2008
“Lights, camera and action” is no longer a phrase that relates only to the entertainment industry.
At Nicholls State University, aspiring professional sales students are using role play and cameras in the university’s state-of-the-art sales and interactive training laboratory to learn how to negotiate and sell their way to the top.
The lab, which opened in 2003, is a key component of the College of Business Administration’s professional sales initiative that aims to draw students toward a career in sales.
The main lab courses are professional selling, sales management and advanced professional selling.
Dr. Charles Viosca, who serves as the assistant dean of the College of Business Administration, said the interactive lab is set up to look like a production studio. It has three role-play rooms, a control room and a professional conference room.
This allows the students to gain the professional skills they need without setting foot off campus, he said.
Each role-play room is equipped with professional video cameras and one-way observation mirrors. The control room houses the digital video recording and editing equipment and the lab is used for students to perfect their sales skills.
The actual program is the brainchild of Chris Cox, a former Nicholls professor who has an extensive background in sales.
While teaching at Nicholls, Cox saw that a multitude of the marketing students were taking professional sales jobs right out of college, but weren’t adequately prepared to perform the specific job duties.
He, along with the College of Business staff, wanted to devise a curriculum that would better prepare the students to enter the workforce.
Viosca has since taken over the program. He said when students enroll in the course they better come prepared to act rather than listen to lectures the entire class.
“We eliminated the textbook because it only shows students about the sales profession, but we needed them to have first-hand experience,” he said. “I still cover things from the textbook but the majority of the class is giving them a toolbox of skills that they can use to their advantage to help their customers.”
Viosca gives the students detailed feedback along with a DVD of their classroom performance.
“We video them so that they can see firsthand what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong,” he said. “This helps them learn from their mistakes and capitalize on the things they are doing right so that they can improve from role play to role play.”
At the end, passing or failing comes down to the students’ actual skills and not what they can put down on paper.
Nicholls President Dr. Stephen Hulbert likes the constant video taping of students. In his opinion, the taping is helping Nicholls produce graduates with a broader base of experience and self-confidence.
Prior to this, Hulbert said students did not have enough experience in the sales field.
“In the nursing field, the students get to work in a hospital setting before they are certified. In education, the students are shadowed by teachers before they are allowed in a classroom,” he said. “Now Nicholls sales courses give the students the same pre-experiences like any other profession.”
Hulbert said the programs are in line with the governor’s workforce development concept, sending trained workers into the workforce.
Nicholls was able to fund the facility through a grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents. Bill Hornsby of the Hornsby Group in Metairie and the Northwestern Financial Service Foundation donated the furniture for the lab.
However, the program does not take the place of an internship. Sales students still have to compete for high-quality internships before graduation.
Viosca said the interaction in the lab and the internship helps students be more marketable, better understand the industry and enhance their ability to choose the right career path.
The marketing department is not the only department helping its students advance. Marketing professors have joined their teaching methods with the finance department to better prepare aspiring financial investment brokers for the workforce.
Together, the two departments have developed a course called financial services marketing. According to Viosca, Nicholls is the only university in the nation that offers a financial services marketing course for finance students.
“Financial services is a huge market right now, so having this class helps to make us part of the cutting edge,” he said. “We are giving the students in finance the basic concepts of their intended major plus the knowledge of how to deal with their clients.”
Phil Leathers, a representative from the headquarters of Edward Jones in St. Louis, role plays sales scenarios with Nicholls State University students Brandi Becnel and Danielle Zeringue as part of the Bayou Sales Challenge, a regional, intercollegiate sales competition held at Nicholls. * Photo courtesy of NSU
