FTMBA 2024 B2B Sales Management

Class Day I: B2B Pricing

1.              Introduction to Sales and B2B

2.              Pricing Commodities

3.              Pricing Value-Added

4.              From Pricing to Selling

Class Day II: B2B Selling

5.              Lead, Opportunity, and Account Management

6.              Negotiation Preparation Time

7./8.   Windblades Role-Play Simulation

Class Day III: B2B Sales Force Management

9.              Steering by Potential

10.          Steering by Pay

11.          Steering by Pipeline

12.          The Future of B2B Sales

B2B is larger than B2C. In B2B firms, sales and service are often the largest functions. In B2B, marketing is a part of sales, not vice versa. Most country subsidiaries of multinational enterprises are essentially sales organizations. Thus, mastering business administration requires learning to lead the sales force.

The course intends to enhance five categories of competencies:

• Factual knowledge, for example, applying salespeople jargon to discussing the status of a sale (such as the "buying center," "red flags," "mentor," "RFQ," "gatekeepers," and other idioms), applying sales management jargon (such as quota, forecast, pipeline, DSM, and other expressions), and defining sales performance indicators,
• conceptual knowledge, for example, analyzing economic value-to-customer, calculating price-trade-offs against other profit drivers, analyzing the composition of a buying center, organizing the elements of a structured selling methodology, classifying different types of sales forces and sales jobs, classifying the dimensions of sales performance management, and evaluating sales KPIs,
• sales-specific procedural knowledge, for example, demonstrating economic value to the customer, assessing the win probability of a sales opportunity, analyzing sales pipelines, and generating sales forecasts,
• general business-relevant procedural knowledge, for example, preparing for business meetings, making the best out of a limited preparation time budget, making concise contributions to discussions, and constructively building on arguments by other participants,
• metacognitive knowledge, for example, creating a skill profile for salespeople and evaluating the excellence of sales organizations.

The learning method mix includes role-play sessions between students with joint debriefings, case-based discussions with concluding mini-lectures, and interactive concept lectures. Watch this video showing the style of case-based sessions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbNNsq1fC0A . Problem-based learning requires significant energy from both the student and the teacher.

The course marks use a scale from 0 to 100:

• Recent Part-time MBA cohorts consistently achieved average scores between 83 and 84 (PTMBA 2023: 84, 2022: 83.33, 2021: 83.95). 40% to 60% of participants scored 90 and above, the equivalent of A- and A (2023: 54%, 2022: 60%, 2021: 40%). 24% to 55% of scores fell between 74 and 90, the equivalent of B-, B, and B+ (2023: 24%, 2022: 25%, 2021: 55%). 0% to 16% of scores fell between 58 and 74, the equivalent of C-, C, and C+ (2023: 16%, 2022: 4%, 2021: 0%). 3% to 9% of participants scored less than 50 (2023: 3%, 2022: 9%, 2021: 5%).
• Recent Full-Time MBA cohorts achieved average scores between 68 and 84 (FTMBA 2023_II: 68.33, 2023_I: 83.7, 2022_II: 68.75, 2022_I: 82.38, 2021_II: 78.88, 2021_I: 78.27). 0% to 50% of participants scored 90 and above, the equivalent of A- and A (2023_II: 0%, 2023_I: 50%, 2022_II: 25%, 2022_I: 43%, 2021_II: 44%, 2021_I: 36%). 0% to 19% scored less than 50 (2023_II: 11%, 2023_I: 0%, 2022_II: 19%, 2022_I: 4%, 2021_II: 6%, 2021_I: 9%).