CMiME:Entrepreneurial Selling

The course intends to enhance six categories of competences. The practical orientation of the course shows in its emphasis on procedural knowledge:
1) In regard to factual knowledge, participants are enabled to apply sales jargon to discussing the status of a negotiation (such as BATNA, ZOPA, walk-away price, logrolling) and the status of a sale (such as the decision making unit, red flags, pipeline, RFQ, gatekeepers, to understand the specifics and terminology of sales management in various business models, and to define sales performance indicators.
2) In regard to conceptual knowledge, participants are enabled to analyze the composition of a buying center, to analyze economic value to customer, to analyze negotiation interests and positions, to classify the dimensions of sales performance management, and to evaluate sales KPIs.
3) In regard to selling-specific procedural knowledge, participants are enabled to apply a structured sales process and blueprint, to evaluate approaches for getting access to C-level decision makers, to evaluate the win probability of an opportunity and identify potential roadblocks, to evaluate the needs of a customer through questions, to tell a compelling selling story, and to deal with negotiation tactics and price objections.
4) In regard to procedural knowledge of sales leadership, participants are enabled to coach salespeople on a sales opportunity, to conduct pipeline reviews, and to develop sales forecasts.
5) In regard to general business-relevant procedural knowledge, participants are enabled to prepare for business meetings and internal committee sessions, to make the best out of a limited preparation time budget, to make concise contributions to meetings, constructively build and comment on contributions by other participants in the meeting, derive a course of action from a careful analysis of the situation and a structured evaluation of alternatives, and, generally, to negotiate anything.
6) In regard to metacognitive knowledge, participants are enabled to evaluate their own selling behavior and skills, to create a skill profile for sales people, and to develop criteria of sales excellence.

There is no required textbook. We have not found a book that covers the range of topics discussed by this course. The learning material for this course includes presentation slides, articles, case studies, role-plays, videos, and black board notes. These and further course-related information are available on the learning management system myWHUcourses (another name for it is “Moodle”).

The overall learning method mix across all sessions of this course is:

• 20% role-play sessions between students,
• 20% case-based discussions with concluding mini-lectures,
• 55% interactive concept lectures, and
• 5% guest lectures.

A video shows the style of case-based sessions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbNNsq1fC0A

This way of learning requires a great amount of energy, both from the student and from the teacher.

The grading policy in this course has two differentiating characteristics:

• 100% individual performance. No team grades. No peer evaluation.
• No sit-down, speed-writing exam under time pressure, no memorizing of PowerPoint slides, no black-out risk.

The course grade is composed as follows:

• 30% (=3 x 10%): three case preparation notes (pdf, bullet points are enough, ca. 500-750 words)
• 10% (=2 x 5%): two hands-on exercises (database research, ca. 250-500 words)
• 10% (=2 x 5%): two quantitative online quizzes (price trade-offs)
• 15% (=1 x 5% + 1 x 10%): two qualitative online quizzes (negotiation concepts)
• 5%: oral class participation, which means fostering mutual learning in the classroom by displaying a positive learning spirit and connecting to classmates’ arguments with constructive, insightful comments
• 30%: one capstone case as final exam (pdf, essay, no less than 1500 and no more than 2250 words)

Enrollment in this course is not limited by pre-experience prerequisites. However, what you should be aware of is:

150