Movies like The Wolf of Wall Street might inform most people’s vision of what a person in sales is like. A new documentary called The Story of Sales stands that perception on its head, revealing the motivations of sellers, the history and evolution of their profession, and the need for more sales education programs such as the one offered at the Naveen Jindal School of Management.
The documentary, almost 80 minutes long, premiered in March at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Richardson, TX, for Jindal School faculty, staff, students, alumni and sales executives.
Salesforce, a cloud-based customer-relations management platform, produced the documentary, which is presented in storybook style over eight “chapters.” There are interviews with sales influencers, authors, researchers and thought leaders.
Among those interviewed is Dr. Howard Dover, a Jindal School professor who directs JSOM’s Professional Sales Concentration. Dover and the sales program have a four-year relationship with Salesforce, which has sponsored licenses that enable JSOM students to use company products.
“One of the first things I teach my students is that they need to be great communicators,” Dover said in the movie. “While I think the generation that are in universities today are great communicators — in digital format — they aren’t always great communicators in a one-to-one or face-to-face format.”
Dover’s students had the opportunity to sharpen their communication skills during a sales challenge last year. Scenes from that competition appear in the documentary. Jim Hopkins, senior manager of product marketing at Salesforce, spoke with Dover about the contest, which, he said, showed students’ energy and activity. “I saw hope and transformation, and we loved that,” said Hopkins, who directed and co-produced the documentary. “I’m impressed by the school’s entire approach to teaching the modern version of sales, and I think having this young generation in the film made all the difference.”
Tiffani Bova, global customer growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce, said that before this movie, nothing defined the good side of sales so clearly. “This film shows the day in the life of sellers and the balance that does exist between work and family life, the pressures associated with working on commission and serving customers in this always on culture we now work in.”
Among the students in the documentary is Jindal School marketing senior Brittany Knowles. She overcame a shaky start to the interviewing process in a competition last summer to win a scholarship at the conclusion of the competition. She became one of the top-ranked students in the sales program.
“I hope more students will consider a career in sales, or at least educate themselves more about sales,” said Knowles, who graduated in May and started a full-time recruiting position at The Encompass Group.
Shawn Pearson, vice president of sales at Mimecast and a member of Dover’s industry advisory group, also appeared in The Story of Sales. “Dr. Dover’s class is a great thing because they’re already practicing the craft of selling,” he said. “These are people who have a lot of potential to grow our company, lower our attrition rates and help us stay effective longer.”
Fewer than 200 universities in the U.S. offer a sales programs or even a sales class. Experts estimate that more than 50 percent of college graduates, regardless of major, will at some point hold a sales position.
In addition to UT Dallas, other colleges represented in the film included Harvard University and Northwestern University and University of Southern California. Dover said he hopes the film will raise awareness of sales programs. Hopkins said he hopes the film results in more sales courses at universities. “We hope people think differently about sales, that more young people consider a career in sales and our film becomes the salesperson’s favorite documentary.”
View The Story of Sales online at www.thestoryofsales.com
