Marketing students at the UNL College of Business are learning new sales skills this semester in a class designed to help them role play real world business situations. So whether it’s an objectionable customer or a hard to convince buyer, students taking Marketing 357 are learning new techniques for success in sales.

To help them in their endeavor is first year marketing professor, Scott Friend. Friend came to UNL this year with the primary task of getting the new Professional Selling course up and running. He previously taught a similar class at Georgia State University.

“There’s a lot of excitement about the class because it is a new class that’s being offered,” said Friend. “The CBA advising board identified it as an area in the curriculum that they wanted to address. The students wanted it. The faculty wanted it. And as we’ve interacted with the local business community they’re pretty excited about it as well.”

Students taking the class not only role play various selling roles that they would encounter in real business situations but they also interact with business professionals who come to the class to participate and give feedback to students. The corporations participating this semester include Gallup, Lincoln Industries, Northwestern Mutual, Duncan Aviation, Black and Decker, National Research Corporation.

“The companies that come here to recruit were saying the students need to have more selling skills, and they need to understand the strategy of business and how it can impact business and customer relationships. These companies are very interested in hiring our students for internships and full time job opportunities. If they can get in the classroom and see a little bit beyond the resume then they get to know the students a little bit more.”

The class is currently being offered twice per semester and is capped at 25 students per class rather than the usual maximum of around 40 students. Lowering the number of students helps ensure that every student can fully participate in the role playing element of the class.

“At this point in the semester we’re doing some role plays which I think students are excited about. It’s set up kind of like speed dating where there’s a row of buyers and they’ll spend about 15 minutes with each buyer. Then we’ll move on to the next one. Each buyer is a different personality type with different needs and objections that they have to respond to.”

Friend hopes the class may eventually be used as a foundational course for a series of sales classes that could be set up in a similar manner. In the meantime, the Marketing 357 class serves as another example of the unique teaching and student classroom experience strived for at the UNL College of Business.