So, you were asked to teach a sales class, now what? Perhaps you have worked in sales for many years and feel like you have so much to share, but have questions about how to put your knowledge into a curriculum. Or perhaps you are a newly graduated Ph.D. student and are asked to teach professional selling in your first job, and don’t feel like you have a lot of sales knowledge. No worries! We got you covered.

Here are four easy steps to help get you started.

Four Steps to Building a Sales Curriculum

1. Define Your Course’s Focus: Decide on your course’s scope by determining what job role you’re preparing your students for. For example, are you teaching future entry-level sellers, such as Business Development Representatives (BDRs) or Sales Development Representatives (SDRs)? Is your class for more advanced students, or MBAs, and are you preparing them to be account executives? Or are you going to prepare students to be account managers or customer success managers, or something else?

   Remember that you can’t teach everything you know in one single sales class. So, narrowing this down will help you know what personal experiences you should share and what your core course subjects should be.

2. Choose Your Sales Process: Many sales teachers find they have a lot to share but struggle to teach it cohesively, with structure and organization. Usually, the best way to give your class structure is to pick a specific process, methodology, or widely recognized industry resource that you can use to structure your course.

   A logical progression is essential. Most students taking an intro class don’t even know what professional selling really is. Throwing every possible approach or concept at them at once actually does more harm than good.

   Thus, picking a foundation—whether it’s a sales method like Challenger, SPIN, Sandler, the sales funnel, or a structured process laid out in a well-regarded textbook—helps you guide students step by step. Each week or module builds on the last, creating continuity and a “map” students can follow.

   

3. Integrate Learning into the Real World: Sales is a highly applied discipline. This is what makes it awesome! Sometimes sales professors teach too much theory and not enough application. Consider how to bring sales realities into the classroom.

   Determine which tools, scenarios, or role-plays you will use to teach your students how to apply the material. For example, we created a simulation to accompany our textbook, designed assignments on using specific tools, such as Apollo, and invited industry experts to share their knowledge with our students. Guest speakers are a great addition to any classroom. Hint: Focus on getting guest speakers who are also recruiting for their companies. Then, students can network with them to also find jobs and internships.

4. Make Grading Efficient for You: One of the most common problems we hear from professors is that they have lots of cool ideas for assignments and creative exams, such as projects and role-play exams, but then realize how much time it takes to grade them.

   You must design a class that is scalable and replicable from semester to semester, that is not overly taxing on your time, and won’t exhaust you. Find the right balance of application-based assignments/exams for students with manageable grading for you.

Further, remember that grading is vital to students. Many first-year teachers get hit with student comments in their first teaching evaluations about how grading was unclear or unfair. Design your grading and assignments so your students will know what’s expected. Do this by using clear rubrics, integrating assignments, getting help from TAs, and leveraging automation when you can.

Lastly, if you are looking for great resources to help get you started, check out our textbooks and simulations, which offer professors a complete curriculum for their classes. We have these for Professional Selling and Advances Sales and Sales Management.

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