Teaching Personal Selling with Volunteer Professional Salesperson Role-play Scenarios

Producing what is often referred to as “career ready” graduates is a challenge that most business department faculty take seriously; after all, we are measured to some extent by the success of our students. As a faculty member with twenty-plus years of experience in competitive sales environments, I believe that it is essential to create roleplay personal selling situations for students that simulate what happens in the consultative sales environment. Providing students with realistic situations calls upon the student to perform at a higher level. It is my position that these role-plays provide the best learning outcomes when conducted with professional sales people versus the use of peers or faculty to facilitate the role play. As educators, we have a luxury that doesn’t exist in most professional settings. That luxury is in our purpose; we are here to develop career-ready business leaders. While this purpose is also true for sales training staff in their respective organizations, they have to do this without exposing their weaknesses. Corporate Sales Trainers cannot, in most cases, bring in one of their top clients and ask them to run role play practices with their new sales trainees. In the collegiate environment, many of those top clients are more than willing to do just that; they volunteer their time to help coach a sales student. Their reasons for doing so are likely quite varied, but regardless of motive, I’ve rarely had difficulty recruiting sales and buying professionals to serve as role-play partners for students. They want to give back; making a contribution is a strong motivator. While I will readily admit that I don’t use professional volunteer buyers in all of my classroom role play scenarios in my sales and marketing coursework, I have reached the conclusion that professional sales people as volunteers are essential to creating a more realistic role play situation. Mary Ellen Weimer in her book Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice, states, “(this book) seeks to answer this question: What should teachers do to maximize learning outcomes for their students?” Specifically, as it relates to this topic, I concur with Weimer’s concept that “learner-centered teaching engages students in the hard, messy work of learning.” We need to help our students develop learning skills through personal practice. This situational instruction requires that the following stipulations be followed for the best possible outcome for student learning. These specifications include: selecting the most appropriate professional sales role-play volunteers, creating a case study that is robust enough, but is still easy to follow, and creating a simulation that closely replicates a consultative sales call. In the use of role plays, I believe that student learning maximizes by securing the best professional sales role play volunteers. It is important to find a professional sales person that will be generous with his/her time. Sadly, I’ve had some professionals that have wanted to help, but have then not completely “shown up” for the situation; while they may show up for the event, they’ve over extended themselves and spend the time distracted by what is happening in their lives. While this may be realistic for some sales call experiences, it doesn’t maximize the student’s learning. Also, you need a sales professional that is going to provide detailed and prolific feedback both verbally and in writing. Giving and receiving clear feedback is the “messy” part of learning, but individuals will not grow in their sales skills unless they get accurate and honest feedback. Finally, the sales professional needs to be nurturing. I’m not suggesting that they hold back in their feedback, but they need to be able to encourage and mentor the students – not necessarily beyond the role play, but at least for the time they spend with the student. All of these combined attributes of a professional sales role play volunteer provide a positive learning experience for the student. The second essential element of a strong professional sales role play scenario is to have a robust case study but to not make it overly complex. The important aspects of the case study include having a strong, but not excessively detailed background story. Digging into research to gain product knowledge such as the features, benefits, and advantages of a product or service is essential learning for students on how to approach a sales call. As a part of the scenario, some conflict needs to be included as well; this can take many different forms as either an objection or a challenge, but this conflict helps students understand that uncovering the client’s “pain” will lead them to better understanding how to meet the clients’ needs. I have also had success with role play circumstances that are somewhat ambiguous. This ambiguity exists in real life sales situations, so helping students understand that they’re not going to have all the answers and that they will need to do some investigation in the form of both research and questions to the client are relevant to the learning outcomes. Finally, the final essential piece of an effective professional sales role play scenario is the creation of a simulated environment that closely replicates a sales call. There are several elements that I believe are important in this simulated environment. First, it is best if the professional sales person has not met the sales role play student before the role play. Not having a prior introduction creates a dynamic similar to that first sales call and places the responsibility of creating rapport in the hands of the student. Next, I think it’s best if no other students are in the room during the role play. It can be videotaped for shared learning later, but having a peer audience changes the dynamic of the situation, and it is a more realistic simulation if an audience is not present. Creating a realistic role play that puts the sales call experience into perspective will help students better understand their strengths and weaknesses as it relates to the sales process. Ultimately, some will argue that this is too much effort to go through to create a professional sales volunteer role play in each class. To not over tax my volunteers and to better utilize class time, I frequently set up many volunteers for the same class period. Also, I usually don’t rely on the same volunteer for more than one class. Following this plan of action puts the pressure on the instructor to develop a strong network of professional sales people. However, I would argue that the effort to present more opportunities for students to practice sales in this way will make a substantial difference in our student’s success in a commission-based sales career. REFERENCES Weimer, M., 1947, & ebrary, I. (2013). Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice (2nd ed.). San Francisco;Palo Alto, Calif;: Jossey-Bass

Precise Estimation of Cosmological Parameters Using a More Accurate Likelihood Function

The estimation of cosmological parameters from a given data set requires a construction of a likelihood function which, in general, has a complicated functional form. We adopt a Gaussian copula and constructed a copula likelihood function for the convergence power spectrum from a weak lensing survey. We show that the parameter estimation based on the Gaussian likelihood erroneously introduces a systematic shift in the confidence region, in particular for a parameter of the dark energy equation of state w. Thus, the copula likelihood should be used in future cosmological observations.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Maches version published by the Physical Review Letter

Intellectual Property Management in Health and Agricultural Innovation: Executive Guide

Prepared by and for policy-makers, leaders of public sector research establishments, technology transfer professionals, licensing executives, and scientists, this online resource offers up-to-date information and strategies for utilizing the power of both intellectual property and the public domain. Emphasis is placed on advancing innovation in health and agriculture, though many of the principles outlined here are broadly applicable across technology fields. Eschewing ideological debates and general proclamations, the authors always keep their eye on the practical side of IP management. The site is based on a comprehensive Handbook and Executive Guide that provide substantive discussions and analysis of the opportunities awaiting anyone in the field who wants to put intellectual property to work. This multi-volume work contains 153 chapters on a full range of IP topics and over 50 case studies, composed by over 200 authors from North, South, East, and West. If you are a policymaker, a senior administrator, a technology transfer manager, or a scientist, we invite you to use the companion site guide available at http://www.iphandbook.org/index.html The site guide distills the key points of each IP topic covered by the Handbook into simple language and places it in the context of evolving best practices specific to your professional role within the overall picture of IP management

Evolution of the Dependence of Residual Lifetimes

We investigate the dependence properties of a vector of residual lifetimes by means of the copula associated with the conditional distribution function. In particular, the evolution of positive dependence properties (like quadrant dependence and total positivity) are analyzed and expressions for the evolution of measures of association are given

The structure of the class of maximum tsallis-havrda-chavat entropy copulas

A maximum entropy copula is the copula associated with the joint distribution, with prescribed marginal distributions on [0, 1], which maximizes the Tsallis-Havrda-Chavat entropy with q = 2. We find necessary and sufficient conditions for each maximum entropy copula to be a copula in the class introduced in Rodriguez-Lallena and Ubeda-Flores (2004), and we also show that each copula in that class is a maximum entropy copula.A maximum entropy copula is the copula associated with the joint distribution, with prescribed marginal distributions on [0, 1], which maximizes the Tsallis-Havrda-Chavat entropy with q = 2. We find necessary and sufficient conditions for each maximum entropy copula to be a copula in the class introduced in Rodriguez-Lallena and Ubeda-Flores (2004), and we also show that each copula in that class is a maximum entropy copula.18

Intellectual Property Management in Health and Agricultural Innovation: A Handbook of Best Practices, Vol. 1

Prepared by and for policy-makers, leaders of public sector research establishments, technology transfer professionals, licensing executives, and scientists, this online resource offers up-to-date information and strategies for utilizing the power of both intellectual property and the public domain. Emphasis is placed on advancing innovation in health and agriculture, though many of the principles outlined here are broadly applicable across technology fields. Eschewing ideological debates and general proclamations, the authors always keep their eye on the practical side of IP management. The site is based on a comprehensive Handbook and Executive Guide that provide substantive discussions and analysis of the opportunities awaiting anyone in the field who wants to put intellectual property to work. This multi-volume work contains 153 chapters on a full range of IP topics and over 50 case studies, composed by over 200 authors from North, South, East, and West. If you are a policymaker, a senior administrator, a technology transfer manager, or a scientist, we invite you to use the companion site guide available at http://www.iphandbook.org/index.html The site guide distills the key points of each IP topic covered by the Handbook into simple language and places it in the context of evolving best practices specific to your professional role within the overall picture of IP management

Meniscal tissue explants response depends on level of dynamic compressive strain

SummaryObjectiveFollowing partial meniscectomy, the remaining meniscus is exposed to an altered loading environment. In vitro 20% dynamic compressive strains on meniscal tissue explants has been shown to lead to an increase in release of glycosaminoglycans from the tissue and increased expression of interleukin-1α (IL-1α). The goal of this study was to determine if compressive loading which induces endogenously expressed IL-1 results in downstream changes in gene expression of anabolic and catabolic molecules in meniscal tissue, such as MMP expression.MethodRelative changes in gene expression of MMP-1, MMP-3, MMP-9, MMP-13, A Disintegrin and Metalloproteinase with ThromboSpondin 4 (ADAMTS4), ADAMTS5, TNFα, TGFβ, COX-2, Type I collagen (COL-1) and aggrecan and subsequent changes in the concentration of prostaglandin E2 released by meniscal tissue in response to varying levels of dynamic compression (0%, 10%, and 20%) were measured. Porcine meniscal explants were dynamically compressed for 2h at 1Hz.Results20% dynamic compressive strains upregulated MMP-1, MMP-3, MMP-13 and ADAMTS4 compared to no dynamic loading. Aggrecan, COX-2, and ADAMTS5 gene expression were upregulated under 10% strain compared to no dynamic loading while COL-1, TIMP-1, and TGFβ gene expression were not dependent on the magnitude of loading.ConclusionThis data suggests that changes in mechanical loading of the knee joint meniscus from 10% to 20% dynamic strain can increase the catabolic activity of the meniscus

An information theoretic approach to statistical dependence: copula information

We discuss the connection between information and copula theories by showing that a copula can be employed to decompose the information content of a multivariate distribution into marginal and dependence components, with the latter quantified by the mutual information. We define the information excess as a measure of deviation from a maximum entropy distribution. The idea of marginal invariant dependence measures is also discussed and used to show that empirical linear correlation underestimates the amplitude of the actual correlation in the case of non-Gaussian marginals. The mutual information is shown to provide an upper bound for the asymptotic empirical log-likelihood of a copula. An analytical expression for the information excess of T-copulas is provided, allowing for simple model identification within this family. We illustrate the framework in a financial data set.Comment: to appear in Europhysics Letter