Entrepreneurial Selling

The course content is organized around five themes:

1) Fitting sales and business model

• Types of sales approaches
• Smart sales strategy for start-ups: It’s NOT all about ads
• Marketing positioning and value proposition

2) Personal selling techniques

• Telling a compelling selling story
• Designing powerful sales presentations and other support materials
• Sales conversation techniques (includes case Scheel & Partners, WHU)*

3) Enterprise sales process

• Understanding enterprise buying (includes case Mediquip, IMD)*
• Enterprise selling methodology
• Consultative selling and selling consulting (includes case Founding Fathers, WHU)

4) B2(B2)C sales process

• Outbound prospecting and email marketing
• Selling direct or through intermediaries (includes case Smart Entry into the Smart Home Market: Don’t Dance Where Elephants Play?, WHU)

5) Managing Entrepreneurial Sales Teams

• Selecting the right sales managers (includes case Vikings at the Gate: Entering a Market by Building or by Buying Business?, WHU)
• Roles and KPIs for inside sales organizations (includes case Sales Process Reengineering at Robin, IMD)

(*) Two of the 15 sessions of the course (i.e., 13%, topics are indicated by *) have overlaps with my WHU BSc course “Foundations of Sales”. This is necessary to bring the diverse MSc group up to a common level.

1) In regard to factual knowledge, participants are enabled to

• apply salespeople jargon to discussing the status of a sale (such as the decision making unit, red flags, pipeline, RFQ, gatekeepers, and other idioms),
• understand the specifics and terminology of selling to different customer segments,
• define sales performance indicators.

2) In regard to conceptual knowledge, participants are enabled to

• analyze the composition of a buying center,
• classify the varieties of sales strategies,
• evaluate sales pipeline KPIs.

3) In regard to selling-specific procedural knowledge, participants are enabled to

• apply a structured sales process and blueprint,
• evaluate approaches for getting access to C-level decision makers,
• evaluate the needs of a customer through questions,
• tell a compelling selling story,
• create a list of target prospects based on database research.

4) In regard to procedural knowledge of sales leadership, participants are enabled to

• provide constructive feedback on selling behavior of others,

5) In regard to general business-relevant procedural knowledge, participants are enabled to

• prepare for business meetings and internal committee sessions,
• make the best out of a limited preparation time budget,
• make concise contributions to meetings,
• constructively build and comment on contributions by other participants in the meeting,
• to derive a course of action from a careful analysis of the situation and a structured evaluation of alternatives.

6) In regard to metacognitive knowledge, participants are enabled to

• evaluate their own selling behavior and skills,
• evaluate the ethical dimension of a sales leadership situation,
• create a skill profile for sales people, and
• develop criteria of sales excellence.

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

• 24% role-play sessions between students,
• 32% case-based discussions with concluding mini-lectures,
• 29% interactive concept lectures, and
• 15% guest lectures of serial entrepreneurs.

This 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.

• 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:

• 20%: four class preparation notes (pdf, bullet points are enough, ca. 500-750 words)
• 20%: two role-play videos and two hands-on exercises,
• 60%: write-up and presentation of one real-life case (pdf, presentation)