Campus Series: Julie Nelsen – Bridging the Gap
Despite the many misconceptions surrounding sales, it is a profession centered on helping, serving, and problem-solving. Julie Nelsen’s teaching is shaped by this perspective, as she challenges her students to prioritize relationship-building, listening skills, and problem-solving in their hands-on role plays.
In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, the Director of the WSU Center for Professional Sales, unpacks her unique journey from fashion to business development and now sales education, emphasizes the importance of serving in sales, and shares her approach to sales education.
Guest-At-A-Glance
💡 Name: Julie Nelsen
💡What she does: Director for the WSU Center for Professional Sales
💡Company: Washington State University – Vancouver
💡Noteworthy: From fashion merchandising to leading sales education at WSU Vancouver.
💡 Where to find Julie: LinkedIn
Key Insights
Embrace the Journey: Sales as a Series of Small Wins
Julie discusses the importance of patience in sales, especially in industries with long sales cycles. She suggests focusing on small wins and enjoying the journey rather than being fixated on the result. Nelsen emphasizes the importance of setting up goals that allow for small victories along the way and using metrics that aren’t necessarily the final sale to track progress. This approach can help manage impatience and provide a sense of achievement throughout the sales process.
Practical Research: Bridging the Gap Between Academia and Sales
Julie shares her approach to research in sales education, focusing on practical, actionable insights. She discusses her current research projects, which include studying whether graduating sales students have enough financial acumen to hit the ground running in the workforce and why women in sales roles quit during the pandemic. Julie’s research aims to directly inform classroom teaching and help other faculty address the needs and challenges of their students.
Redefining Sales: From Pushy to Helpful
Julie addresses common misconceptions about sales, emphasizing that it’s a helping, service, and problem-solving profession. She strives to teach her students that sales skills are applicable in various aspects of life, from personal relationships to convincing someone to choose a particular restaurant. Julie’s classes focus on practical skills, such as listening and responding based on how someone else responds, which can benefit any aspect of life.
Episode Highlights
Julie’s Career Evolution: From Fashion to Sales Education
Julie shares her career journey, starting from a role that combined marketing, event management, and sales with her current position in sales education. She emphasizes the importance of sales as a foundation for all business roles and how her sales skills helped her transition to different roles throughout her career.
“Well, my belief is that sales, well, first of all, sales is a huge helping profession, and so is marketing. It’s finding out what the needs are and filling, figuring out how to meet those needs. And that’s what sales roles are. That’s what marketing roles are.”
Hands-On Learning: The Key to Sales Education
Julie elaborates on her teaching approach, which includes hands-on role plays to simulate real-world sales scenarios. She believes sales is not a subject to be learned through reading and writing papers but through active participation and practice.
“Sales is not, in my opinion, a read-and-write, paper type class. It’s an active participation. In my professional sales class, we do more than eight role plays typically within the timeframe.”
Sales vs. Marketing: A Comparative Analysis
Julie discusses the differences between sales and marketing roles, stating that sales involves relationships with a smaller population and requires more depth, while marketing involves communication with a larger audience. She emphasizes the importance of alignment between sales and marketing for the success of an organization.
“In my opinion, the best scenario is one where sales and marketing are under the same vice president because then you have some continuity between what is occurring from the sales perspective and the marketing perspective.”
Sales Cycles: The Long Game vs. Quick Wins
Julie talks about the importance of understanding sales cycles and how they can vary depending on the product and the individual’s tenacity level. She shares her preference for a sales cycle that allows for relationship building but doesn’t linger forever.
“I prefer not to work in what, something that’s gonna take me three years to make a sale and some, and not something that’s only gonna take me a month to make a sale. I like something that takes some relationship but doesn’t linger forever.”
Transcript:
F6345105_156 – memoryBlue – Campus Series – Julie Nelsen
[00:00:00] Kristen Wisdorf: All right, we’ll start recording in 3, 2, 1. Welcome back Hustlers to another episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers. It’s your special campus series. I’m your host, Kristen Wisdorf. Welcome back to the podcast, and today I have joining me, Kyle Gross. Hey, Kyle.
[00:00:17] Kyle Gross: Hey, Kristen, how’s it going? Excited to be here again.
[00:00:20] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, we’re excited to have you and we’re thrilled because we’re chatting with Dr. Julie Nelson, who is the director of the Professional Sales Center at Washington State Vancouver. Welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:31] Julie Nelsen: Thanks. I’m glad to be here. Thank you.
[00:00:33] Kristen Wisdorf: Uh, we wanna dive into all things Julie, and what you’re doing at WSU Vancouver, and I think also working with Pullman as well.
[00:00:41] Um, and, uh, you know, your office, um, or excuse me, our office in Seattle is not too far from the two universities, obviously, and we’ve hired a lot of WSU alum as well. So, um, we’ll have a lot to chat about, but. We like to start all of these conversations the same way I start my interviews with college students, which is, um, Julia, if you could take 60 seconds, give or take, there’s no timer here.
[00:01:08] tell us about you. Give us your, let’s call it your highlight reel.
[00:01:12] Julie Nelsen: Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so. I am delighted to be talking about sales cuz it’s a topic that’s very passionate to me and obviously I wouldn’t be teaching sales courses if I didn’t care a lot about this industry and the, the profession of sales. So I, gosh, the background is, I earned my undergraduate.
[00:01:33] Years and years ago, um, back in speech communication and fashion merchandising, actually long before there was even a sales option out there for, for people to be able, educated in the sales space. And my first job was a sales role. Uh, I ended up doing business development for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and I had gone to college in Paul, Minnesota, but I.
[00:01:59] Moved immediately to Phoenix, Arizona when I graduated and started the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. And, uh, had to kind of, uh, pull up the bootstraps and figure out, oh my gosh, what did I get myself into to start doing fundraising in a market where I know, knew no one? And to be able to start developing those relationships.
[00:02:20] Um, I was lucky enough actually not too soon after that to get hired away by the local cable operator who was one of my sponsors that I had sold to, to, and so they had recruited me and in that opportunity I was able to shift to, uh, more of a public relations and government relations role, which are very sales oriented of course too, but non-commissioned sales roles.
[00:02:47] And so, um, that was fun to be able to do that kind of work. Then I shifted into, uh, a marketing role for the advertising division of the cable company that I was working for and started doing, um, promotional events and um, co-op advertising and anything that would help. An advertiser decided to spend their money with the cable operator.
[00:03:12] We started with, uh, 10 cable networks and by the time I was done, I was selling 110 cable networks. So a lot of growth During that time, uh, I shifted eventually into a product management sales management role. For a new product that allowed me to, um, sell the national clients. So I was lucky enough to be able to do, um, national advertising, uh, sales trips to New York and, uh, San Francisco and, uh, Los Angeles, and calling some really major clients, which was super fun for me to be able to do that.
[00:03:49] Um, then our economic turndown happened in 2008, 2009, and I, like a lot of people were, uh, were let go in the Phoenix market. Um, and it happened to be exact same time when my husband was let go from his position. So, uh, that was interesting and challenging. And after 18 years with the company I was with, I, uh, was, you know, looking for the next opportunity and, uh, we decided to move back to Minnesota.
[00:04:16] Um, there I did some work in sales for executive education for a local, private university. Um, then I went back into the cable industry and worked for Comcast briefly in, in a sales role and. Then I eventually decided to quit and start my own interior design firm. So I sold to both commercial and business clients to be able to sell interior design products.
[00:04:44] After that, I shifted to commercial and, uh, commercial interior, interior product sales. So, um, Office furniture, uh, window coverings, carpeting, all those kind of things. And I managed the United Health Group account, um, for furniture sales for a little while. Eventually shifted into, this is too long, but just eventually shifted into, uh, The area of academics and being able to teach adjunct started that while I was doing some of the other roles.
[00:05:18] Eventually was offered an opportunity to teach fulltime, which I. You know, was excited about and um, then, um, was eager enough to decide to extend my education and went and got my PhD while I was working full-time. And I just finished in 2021. So I’m a late bloomer PhD and, uh, Following my finish of my PhD, I decided to look for a new opportunity and found this great opportunity at Washington State University.
[00:05:50] And, um, I’m here in the Vancouver market, but I also oversee the Pullman Washington market, which has a, we both have, um, sales programs on both campuses.
[00:06:02] Kristen Wisdorf: Okay. That’s great. I had a feeling I heard a little bit of a Minnesota accent in which I say because I was born there myself and up there. Um, Um, so I am really struck by your kind of career transitions and, and trajectory. You like a lot of people, you ended up in sales even though you didn’t necessarily set out to be in sales after college graduation.
[00:06:28] So I wanna dig into that a little bit. I think you said, um, it was speech communication and fashion merchandising. How did you then, Land that cystic fibro, uh, cystic fibrosis foundation job after college. Like walk, walk us that story and how that evolved.
[00:06:44] Julie Nelsen: Yeah, it’s it’s kinda interesting and I think you’re right. Um, I think the statistic actually is that no matter what your degree is, it’s something that 50% of college graduates end up in the first five years in some sort of sales role. So, I mean, it’s, it’s very common. But, um, for me, it, it was kinda a natural journey.
[00:07:03] I, um, I originally thought I was gonna do public relations for a. The vision of what I thought I was gonna do and from that perspective. But, um, there aren’t a lot of clothing lines in Minnesota or in Arizona, so it wasn’t really fitting into that work. And so I had spent most of my college career doing a lot of, uh, event management and project management.
[00:07:30] Uh, I had, um, managed the entire, um, Orientation program for my college’s, first time freshman and transfer students and had gotten really involved in that project planning and that kind of work. And so the cystic fibrosis role was kinda a combination role. It was a marketing role and it was event management role and it was a sales role.
[00:07:53] So it, um, So I had a great experience in two thirds of the job, but no experience really in that sales side of the job. And so, um, they took a chance on me because it was, you know, the, that I had a big chunk of the opportunities and they thought that I could learn the other pieces.
[00:08:15] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s great. And I think it’s very, very common. Um, and you know, like you said, a lot of college, um, graduates end up in sales and particularly, you know, business school graduates as well. Um, It really is the foundation for all things business. Even if you wanna be, you know, a CFO one day, it behooves you to have, um, that sales and that customer interaction.
[00:08:39] Another thing that is actually really interesting about your background, that I hear from students all the time that we interview, and I, I’ve been hearing this. For years and years and years as I’ve, I’ve, as I’ve interviewed and worked with college students is that, you know, a lot of college students get into a sales role, but the ultimate goal is to transition or parlay that to a marketing role.
[00:08:59] we hear very, very often, especially with marketing majors of course. And so, and that’s something that you did as well. Um, you know, not only, you know, public relations, but also marketing role in advertising, et cetera. So how, I mean, What, I guess what I’m interested in is what sales foundation or skills did you use when you transitioned out of that kind of direct selling role?
[00:09:22] Um, or that direct selling role? Um,
[00:09:24] Julie Nelsen: Well, my belief is that sales, well, first of all, sales is a huge helping profession, and so is marketing, right? It’s a, it’s a finding out what the needs are and filling, figuring out how to meet those needs. And that’s what sales roles are, that’s what marketing roles are. That’s actually what good management roles are.
[00:09:45] So it’s all, you know, tied together is figuring out what needs to be done and then, and then doing it. So that’s the huge piece from that perspective. So, but I also say that my relationship billing skills and are a huge piece of being able to transition and, um, I tell my students that I have reinvented myself.
[00:10:09] To at least seven careers and, and that, that, that’s something that they should think about too. It is that they should think they shouldn’t. In my opinion, people shouldn’t go into a college, college thinking that I’m going to study this and that I’m gonna do this for the rest of my life. Right? I believe that people evolve and shift and change, and that they need to do what’s right for them at the right time.
[00:10:38] With their life situation, their, you know, make balance in their life to earn what they wanna earn to, you know, to do whatever. It’s, and so I really think that those relationship building skills are what has been consistent across every one of my career aspects is that if you can listen to people and build a relationship with people that you can accomplish anything.
[00:11:06] Kyle Gross: Yeah, I agree. And I actually wanted to take, uh, go a different take on this. So the similarities um, your roles as you know, sales, marketing, a lot of, uh, the students that we interview, um, a lot of them will be coming to us looking. For sales and also looking for an interviewing for marketing roles.
[00:11:26] I’ve come to notice that a lot of times, uh, they see them as almost very similar or the same things. And so I’m curious to know from your experience, Julie, be out in the field and and then also marketing advertising roles. What is the biggest difference in those two types of, uh, those types of positions?
[00:11:46] Julie Nelsen: What a great question. I see. So in general, I would say marketing as is relationships with, with a. A larger population, and I see sales as relationship with a smaller population. Uh, it’s more directed. Um, so the skills apply in both, but, um, the approach is maybe different because, um, when you’re in the marketing space, you’re typically communicating to a larger audience and you’re doing it simultaneously.
[00:12:24] Whereas in sales, you more often are. Or a smaller audience at one time and your. You know, focusing very specifically on the needs of that individual versus the mass. Um, so I think salespeople tend to be more, um, what’s the right word? Is that they have to go into more depth than a marketer. Does because they, um, have to talk about that or reach that specific need of that specific customer versus figure out what a marketer’s always trying to figure out what the similarities are between the customers.
[00:13:02] Um, and sometimes marketers in my, my experience, um, Don’t notice the nuances that are present in individual clients, or they can’t because of the, the way their role is established and the work they’re doing. So they can’t get that.
[00:13:22] Kristen Wisdorf: They have to generalize a bit more,
[00:13:25] Julie Nelsen: They have to, otherwise they’re not able to be able to, to finish, to do, you know, to actually execute anything.
[00:13:33] And so that gets complicated.
[00:13:35] Kyle Gross: Yeah. And, and, uh, It, it’s funny that, that you phrase it like that also, because, you know, we work with a lot of clients that are in the tech space and sometimes the main points of contact that we report to are the VPs of sales. But in a lot of, uh, at a lot of companies it’s the VPs of marketing or the CMOs at these tech organizations and you.
[00:13:56] You can tell pretty quickly that what those two different types of roles care about are are very different. Can you speak a little bit further to, I guess, uh, the, the sales personas versus the marketing personas? At the end of the day, what is the definition of success in those different types of roles?
[00:14:14] Julie Nelsen: Oh, what interesting question. Um, so you triggered something else for me first is that one of the things I talk about in my classes is that I suggest my students always pay attention to how the sales and the marketing function rolls up in a company and that. In my opinion, the best scenario is one where sales and marketing are under the same vice president.
[00:14:37] Where it, and because then you have some continuity between what is occurring from the sales perspective and the marketing perspective. I’ve seen some challenges in organizations where the sales VP and the marketing VP don’t necessarily align, and that’s, that’s a huge myth in my opinion, that they, they have to be aligned.
[00:14:59] They are should be connected at the hip, they should be working in tandem. They should not be separated in, in my viewpoint. And so, so that’s the first perspective is that, um, that I think that they have to be partnered together because good salespeople don’t, um, do as well without good marketers. And good marketers don’t do as well without good sales people.
[00:15:25] And, and so they need each other to be able to, to move forward and to, to make direction. So from a persona perspective, I mean I actually, I personally admire the companies most that allow people to go back and forth between sales and marketing roles and that, um, You know, that allow people to see both sides of the perspective and, um, because I think good marketing people become better marketing people when they’ve done sales, and I think good sales people do better when they’ve done marketing.
[00:16:01] So, um, so that’s my, you know, obviously I have a biased opinion based on my background and, and things that I’ve seen, but I think sometimes it, each side of the, the, the. The funnel, uh, or the decision making, um, can get isolated if they’re not being aware of what’s happening on the other side or if they haven’t been in the other person’s shoes.
[00:16:26] Because they just don’t understand some of the nuances of the role. Um, but that said, I think that good marketers, um, maybe have to hone their skills more in that analysis and, um, detail orientation. Uh, Of the data and understand that part. And I think that the, a good sales person needs to really work on their relationship building skills.
[00:16:53] So I’d say those are the two things that maybe differentiates a little bit more. But my, in my role, um, perspective, I think that people should be able to do both, uh, and would be better off if they did.
[00:17:09] Kristen Wisdorf: Well, it’s also interesting, you also were a business owner for quite a long Um, so how ha was that experience as a business owner? How does that guide or influence how you teach your students and what you teach students?
[00:17:25] Julie Nelsen: Yeah, I think it definitely makes me a better, uh, instructor. Uh, I teach entrepreneurial marketing. I teach marketing research. Uh, I teach professional selling and I teach advanced selling. So, um, with those classes, um, that entrepreneurial experience seeps in, in all of those classes in different ways, uh, especially helps me in that entrepreneurial marketing.
[00:17:50] Class to be able to help students understand that, that they are salespeople at the same, if they’re an entrepreneur, they are a salesperson, right? They have to be to be selling those pieces all the time. Uh, One of the things that I talked to my students about is that it gave me a quick lesson to understand that I prefer to sell in the B2B space than the B2C space.
[00:18:16] Um, consumers are extremely fickle. And to ha I really learned that I love the B2B space so much, and I align with the thoughts of the B2B space very well. It, it’s a space where people plan, where they understand the perspectives of what it is they need in a product, but also what they need in a relationship.
[00:18:45] It, it’s just, it’s more logical in my than the way a consumer reacts to things. What I would find in the interior design space with my consumer direct consumer sales population is that they would take. Sometimes two years to make a decision. And that sales cycle should not be that long. If you’re calling me to do some interior design work, it should be, you know, it should be some.
[00:19:16] So, um, and actually that’s probably a good point too, is that I, I’ve learned a lot about sales cycles and what kind of sales cycle I prefer to work in. Um, I prefer to not work in what, something that’s gonna take me three years to make a sales sale and some, and not something that’s only gonna take me a month to make a sale.
[00:19:36] I like something that takes some relationship but doesn’t linger forever.
[00:19:43] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s actually a good point, and I imagine it’s maybe perspective that some of your students don’t have yet if they haven’t, you know, had the experience. So do you find that students. Are looking for more of a kind of that, um, that faster success or win rate with like a more, not, not necessarily transactional, but a, a clo faster sales cycle, or are your students more open to playing the long game when it comes to sales in their career?
[00:20:14] Julie Nelsen: I see both. I see both. It depends on that person’s. Um, Tenacity level, um, how deep they want those relationships to be with their clients. Um, the complexity of the product they’re selling and the interest in the complexity. There’s so many different facets that impact that sales cycle and. I try to give my students some experiences where they can learn a little bit about that.
[00:20:42] You know, whether it’s my guest speakers that come into class or it’s, um, I require a shadow day in, uh, both my professional sales classes where they have to do some sort of shadow interview days so that they get some experience and, um, look at. You know, I sit there through a sales call of some sort and, and learn a little bit about what that looks like, because I could tell, teach some things in that class, but until you experience them, it doesn’t stick right.
[00:21:16] It’s that, it’s that practice that makes things stick and I think observing somebody else in their environment is a really good way to be able to, to start seeing those nuances and, and differences in, in companies and product.
[00:21:31] Kyle Gross: Yeah. Uh, kind of kind of a similar, uh, question that, that Kristen just asked too. I wanted to go back to like sales cycles, length of sales cycles and things like that. Um, one, one funny thing, and I, I joke about, About it when it comes up in some interviews with students, uh, applying, um, is we innately kind of hire inpatient people because inpatient people tend to be pretty good at sales.
[00:21:54] Yeah. Uh, yeah, absolutely. That said though, then especially in an industry like tech sales, where the sales cycles are, as long as they are, uh, apparently interior design as well too, um, I’m, I’m curious to know kind of what advice that you would give to people that are starting a career in sales because they understand the value that a career in sales or tech sales could provide them, but they are innately impatient and look for that kind of immediate gratification.
[00:22:23] Julie Nelsen: Oof. That’s a rough question. You know, I. To be able to do that. Cause I know exactly what you’re talking about. I know. Cause I’m actually an impatient person too, right?
[00:22:39] Is that they have to figure out. I, I think I would probably use the concept of small wins in, in that place. So you set up your set up goals that, um, allow you to have those small wins along the way. And if somebody actually mentioned this to me recently on a research project that I’m working on, is that we need to start working on enjoying the journey.
[00:23:06] We need to actually think about, um, Not necessarily saying that the end result is the be all end all, even though that is what it is in sales, right? I mean, we need to get measured by that end result of, of closing a sale is that I, I think that we need to, um, enjoy the journey of the steps that get us to that sale.
[00:23:26] So, I think using metrics that aren’t necessarily the final sale might help with that. Inpatients, you know, that you, you know, you need to make 20 calls this week and then you need to, you know, get at least five appointments and the, you know, the metrics that, to go through that process. I think that that could potentially help with some of that inpatients if they can see that they’re building on something, that they’re making progress.
[00:23:54] Kyle Gross: Yeah, absolutely. No, I love the idea of being able to have those small wins, small victories that you can latch onto. And even in some instances where it’s not metric based, but just I overcame that objection. I felt better about how I sounded on the phone or what have you too. Um,
[00:24:11] Julie Nelsen: that’s,
[00:24:13] Kyle Gross: Yeah, I, I wanted to pivot also back to, uh, something Kristen mentioned earlier.
[00:24:17] Uh, and we see it every day. A lot of people, you know, that start their career in sales, especially right outta school, their end goal isn’t necessarily to stay in sales, um, as their end goal of their career. It might be C f O, it might be, um, you know, getting into marketing. It might be opening up. Their own company one day, and I do see a lot more of those entrepreneurial minded people that are coming through the door.
[00:24:43] And so I’m curious, uh, how did you know that the timing, I guess, was right for you to go ahead and, uh, start your own business?
[00:24:53] Julie Nelsen: That’s a great question and I wish I had been probably brave enough to do it earlier. I, you know, and I think that same is true for. For some of my sales role, I wish I had been braver earlier, that I had felt confident earlier that I could have taken some of those risks earlier. Um, but you know, I think that’s life circumstances.
[00:25:16] It starts setting you up to be able to know it when you are ready, when you know. I think there’s just some indicators that say, um, So, I guess the first thing is that I was confident enough to be able to, to, to take that risk. And then second of all, I was supported from friends and family. You know, I had.
[00:25:38] The ability to be able to do it financially at that time, which is sometimes risky. And I think that something like 80% of small businesses are funded by either friends, family, or the individual themselves. And so, That’s, you know, you have to know, you have to be ready financially to be able to, to take that risk and to be able to, to figure out if it’s gonna work for you from that perspective.
[00:26:03] And then also I will tell you that my life circumstance has made a huge difference at that stage in my life. I had, uh, two children who, um, were in their early teens and I wanted to be, More present in the home and to make sure that I was there when they went to school and I was there when they got back from school.
[00:26:25] And other people say that sometimes the early years of raising children is the hardest, but I totally disagree. It’s that stage where they’re becoming young adults where you need to have more physical presence and be really hands on because. Um, there’s a lot of opportunity to get in challenging situations at that point.
[00:26:44] And so, um, I think being present during that four or five years during, um, my kids upbringing was really important.
[00:26:55] Kristen Wisdorf: Uh, you know, kind of going off that question about starting your own business and the timing being. Right. Talk to us about your leap into academia and ultimately, um, you know, teaching sales and marketing courses. I think you said it started in, um, in Minnesota at Catherine’s. Yeah.
[00:27:13] Julie Nelsen: It did. And yes. And that was, um, all my alma mater also. So, um, and I actually started in that fashion merchandising space, uh, teaching adjunct. It was, that was my first opportunity. Um, old department chair who was my mentor when I was a student, hired me. And then she retired. So, but she got me on the door, which is super exciting.
[00:27:38] And I had, my first course that I took taught was, uh, retail, was retail math basically. So, and it was, uh, basically helping students who are in that merchandising. Space, understand the financials of inventory management and all those kind of things from a sales perspective. So, uh, it was a great opportunity for me to, to get into that space.
[00:28:05] And, and then I slowly added different classes. I taught, uh, visual merchandising class, um, and then I eventually taught the, the business department at the same university to allow me to teach, uh, intro to. Management class and then an intro to marketing class, and then an intro to selling class. So it was just slowly, um, convincing them to let me try different things.
[00:28:32] And, uh, it was a great experience and at one point I was actually teaching 12 credits at once, which is a pretty decent load, um, for a semester as an adjunct. And, but they were in three different departments, which is kind of funny. And, uh, And I wanted the opportunity to teach full-time, but there wasn’t an opportunity.
[00:28:55] So I actually kinda, I actually quit for a semester and went and just did full-time at, uh, atmospheric Commercial Interiors, which was formerly a division of Target Corporation. They sold commercial furniture and I sold to United Health Group and absolutely was enjoying that position. And, um, Was just gonna focus on, on the Sales World event again.
[00:29:20] And then their sales faculty quit at St. Catherine University and they had a full-time position open. And so I interviewed and, and got the opportunity, uh, in 2015. So I taught there full-time from 2015 to 2022 when I left. Um, and so I’ve only been here at Washington State University for, uh, it’ll be a year in a few weeks.
[00:29:48] So
[00:29:49] Kristen Wisdorf: Congrats. That’s exciting.
[00:29:50] Julie Nelsen: Thank you. Yeah, it’s a great experience and uh, the decision to go back and get my PhD was kind of wild to do that at age 48 to start my PhD. And um, but that was a great opportunity and I got my PhD through Marquette University and it was, uh, an interdisciplinary PhD, which crossed, uh, uh, marketing communications and management.
[00:30:13] So I. Kind of an interesting background for my PhD. Most people focus on one area, but I’m kind of a more of an interdisciplinary person. So I was lucky enough to find a program that let me, uh, design it myself and, uh, get it approved and, uh, it was an excellent experience for me.
[00:30:33] Kristen Wisdorf: You know, it’s interesting you are, um, You know, you’ve been a professor for quite a while, um, obviously with St. Catherine’s and then now at, um, wsu, but you also have very recent sales and sales event experience. Do you feel like that, um, experience, you know, in the field, let’s call it, has impacted the type of professor you are and the way you teach your students?
[00:30:57] Julie Nelsen: Oh, definitely, and I think it’s something that’s really important to me is to try and stay as relevant as possible to, which is why I like working with companies like yours and, and being able to see what’s happening out there and doing everything that I can to, to stay relevant from that perspective.
[00:31:13] And interestingly enough, I actually have a sales role as part of Washington. My position here at Washington State University, I’m responsible for all the partnerships that, um, exists with our, uh, partners like you to be able to connect to our students. And so we have 15 active partners, um, for WSU that, uh, operate across both campuses and every one of ’em said that they were able to hire at least one graduate in this
[00:31:40] lasted academic year. So that’s a huge win for me. So I think that, um, so I’m selling those partnerships, but I’m also, um, selling the value of working with W S U and our sales students and helping them start their careers and great companies like yours.
[00:31:59] Kristen Wisdorf: And talk to us about the last, now you said year at wsu. Um, what, I guess, what are the main differences in the sales center, the sales program you worked in before versus what y’all are doing at wsu and you know, what are some of the, I guess, exciting things to look forward to with your program in Washington?
[00:32:20] Julie Nelsen: Yeah, so the difference is is that the St. Catherine program actually had two sales related majors and two sales minors. So they had a professional sales major and minor and a healthcare sales major and minor. So they had a real. Um, St. Catherine’s had a focus, um, they started in 1905 and they’re huge nursing school, so it made sense to have that healthcare piece.
[00:32:45] And Minnesota is a hub for, um, medical device, and so it made sense to have that, that healthcare sales piece there. So that’s, and then at wsu we have a certificate program, so it’s, um, More concentrated. Our intent, um, within WSU is to make it as an add-on to whatever chosen major that the student has.
[00:33:08] Whether that be, you know, something outside of the business area like biology or um, or let’s see, digital communications or whatever it is that they decide. That they could add on the sales certificate. Um, but the majority of our students are from that marketing and management space that does, and actually I’m getting a lot of accounting students recently, which is really interesting.
[00:33:32] That are adding Exactly. That are adding on that sales certificate. So they’re recognizing that, um, As what I say all the time, sales skills are life skills and that if you can, um, add those skill sets to whatever it is you’re doing, that you’re gonna be be in, you know, better shape. So the great things that are happening here for, first of all, we, we have amazing business partners like you that help us with our students.
[00:34:02] They, um, they help coach our students. Um, they’re involved in five events across the two campuses each semester that, um, Allow for networking and they do a internal sales competition where they actually practice and do those role play things to be able to get some real world experience that that isn’t role playing with me as a professor, that kind of ups the stakes to be able to interact with professionals.
[00:34:32] Um, We are seeing a lot of growth in our program, which is really exciting. The Vancouver campus started in 2006 with a sales program, but the in, uh, 2020 was actually the addition of the Pullman. Program. Um, so they have, we’ve hired three full-time faculty that are in the Pullman campus that are working on that program.
[00:34:56] And they are doing a phenomenal job, um, of recruiting students. The Pullman campus is more of a traditional age student, so they tend to be that 18 to 22 year old that’s going to college. And, um, and. So that is a little bit different audience than we have here in the Vancouver market where it tends, our average age tends to be about 27.
[00:35:22] So we have a lot more of a returning adult student. The college originally started as a completely a transfer college and later added on. Um, and right now we’re at about 50 50. About 50% of our students are transfer students and 50% outta the traditional age coming outta college. So we have an interesting mix in the classroom of, you know, Some students that are in their fifties and some students that are, you know, 19, which makes for a real different dynamic in.
[00:35:53] Kristen Wisdorf: curriculum is good for all ages and all students. It really is.
[00:35:57] Julie Nelsen: It really is. Um, we also have a lot of return, a lot of military effect, um, here at the, you know, retired military that are here on the Vancouver campus. And so I’m really finding that those military students, uh, do really well in the sales space too. They’re disciplines.
[00:36:15] Kyle Gross: Yeah.
[00:36:15] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah. Our public sector SDR team is a lot of, um, Former military as well, so it works well for them.
[00:36:23] Julie Nelsen: they have some skillsets that are really impressive. So, uh, I’m just delighted with the things that we’re seeing with the students. And ultimately the reason we do this is that we wanna see our students, you know, have the, have great lives and to meet the needs of themselves and their families, and to work for companies that align with their personal values.
[00:36:46] And I, and I’m seeing that happen, which is super exciting to be able to, to see that result and to get that text from my students that says, I, I was offered the job. I, you know, thanks so much. I’m so excited to see what happens next. And that’s just, that’s very fulfilling for me.
[00:37:04] Kyle Gross: Yeah. And, and real quick to speak to the partnership, it’s funny, just earlier this week I was, uh, uh, I’ve been emailing back and forth with Biddy, uh, from the, uh, Pullman campus. She’s planning on actually coming in, uh, visiting r c. Office here, uh, either next week or the week after to interview some of the SDRs, hear them making some calls on the floor, uh, to again, kind of keep a good pulse on, um, how we do things and, you know, what the SDRs are running into, out in the, out in the field, in the industry.
[00:37:32] So,
[00:37:32] Julie Nelsen: Oh, I love to hear that. So again, it’s just so great to see that our team is so focused on making sure that we’re relevant to what’s happening now and that we’re helping, you know, Have our students be able to ramp up very early within their careers and, and really, you know, hit the ground running.
[00:37:52] Kyle Gross: Yeah, absolutely. It, it, staying relevant is, is, it’s obviously very important, but it’s crazy how fast things have been shifting, especially in tech sales. I know, you know, for us, we hire primarily the sales development representative role and that’s the role everybody here starts off in, myself included.
[00:38:09] But even just from, you know, four or five years ago when I was in the, uh, S D R role, it was very rare or almost unheard of, of people doing their prospecting and sending, uh, sales messages to prospects via LinkedIn. And now it’s of our regular cadence where
[00:38:26] Julie Nelsen: It has.
[00:38:26] Kyle Gross: should be connecting with everybody.
[00:38:27] So yeah, being able to stay relevant with the times of what’s going to capture prospect’s attention in this role. It’s, it’s vital. Um, one, one question that I do have, I love to ask always. What, what surprised you the most, um, in your shift to, um, now teaching sales, um, versus when were out field?
[00:38:48] Julie Nelsen: What surprised me the most? Hm. I, well, this is what surprised me the most is how, this might sound a little weird, is the focus academics have on research versus teaching.
[00:39:08] Ive, it was, that one was an adjustment for me and I’m still working on it, and I do believe that research is important. I’m not gonna, you know, I can’t, I can’t say that it’s not, but. I’m such a practical, get things done. You know, show results, kinda
[00:39:32] Kristen Wisdorf: practitioner.
[00:39:33] Julie Nelsen: I’m a practitioner, so I had a little bit of aran, you know, a challenge with that of, of, um, shifting my mindset to, and I am in my position, only about 20% of my job is research.
[00:39:48] And so I, I do, so when I do my research, I tend to make, like you said, have a very practical approach to it. For example, I’m doing some research right now. On, um, whether graduating sales students have enough financial acumen to really hit the ground running when they hit the workforce. And so that’s very practical, right?
[00:40:13] It helps, um, it helps the students be able to f you know, me, figure out what the students need to know. It helps me figure out what we should teach in the classroom. It helps me share that with other faculty so that they can do that. So I tend to do kind of those things that are very. Very practical.
[00:40:30] Another piece of research I’m working on right now was, um, I interviewed, um, 10 women who quit during the pandemic sales. They were in sales role that quit during the pandemic and looked at why they quit. And what prompted that quit and what prompted them to go somewhere else. And so I tend to do very practical research that I hope will help me, but will all as an instructor, but will also help other faculty be able to, um, address those needs and those challenges.
[00:41:03] So, um, but other academics do a lot more. Intensive analytical research that I have a hard time sometimes figuring out how it applies. And so I think that’s probably my biggest challenge is that, um, I’m such a practical application person that, um, I. And I want something to be easily read, you know, easily understood.
[00:41:33] And um, sometimes research is not.
[00:41:36] Kristen Wisdorf: Well, I think that’s, it goes to show all of the experience you have, um, like you said, as a practitioner out in the field or in, in your, um, individual roles because that is how consumers or. Um, prospects want their information, especially nowadays. They just, they want something that’s easy to digest and consume and the details and the facts and, um, and in a way that doesn’t feel like long and drawn out or they have to dig for it.
[00:42:05] change and, um, given you have. So much experience working with buyers, that’s, um, that’s probably why you’ve, you know, you, you go down that path because you have that experience with them.
[00:42:17] Julie Nelsen: Yeah, that sense.
[00:42:19] Kristen Wisdorf: are there any, well, we know there are a lot of misconceptions in sales, right? And have been, and they’ve evolved over time.
[00:42:26] What do you find are some of the misconceptions your students or people who are considering adding on that sales certificate? Think about sales before then they actually take one of your classes.
[00:42:39] Julie Nelsen: Yeah, and I think it, it’s something that I. I struggle with a lot is that I think that I often don’t get students in my class because of some of the preconceptions of sales. I, I think that a lot of people see sales as, um, pushy and aggressive and, um, not, um, not contributing. And I see it as the exact opposite.
[00:43:06] I see sales as a helping profession. I see it as a service profession. I see it as a, um, problem solving profession. And, and so that’s what I really strive to, to do in my classes is to. To help people see how we are constantly selling in every aspect of our lives. Whether it’s an idea, whether it’s, um, a personal relationship, whether it’s, um, convincing somebody to go to this restaurant versus that restaurant.
[00:43:44] It’s all those. Things are happening every day in the life, and we’re not taught in general, those, some of those communication skills we’re, we’re not taught to listen to what this and, and to figure out how, how I can interpret what that need is and make my product meet that need. Right. So how, how I can do that piece and, and I think that that’s what the students get in my classes.
[00:44:16] Well, I think that first of all they get that this is a very, a lot of personal confidence in my classes because they. Start figuring out how to do that elevator speech. They figure out how to listen and respond based on how somebody respond. You know, so they, they get some real practical skills that will help them in any aspect of their lives.
[00:44:41] And so I, I think that that’s the thing that. That they get after they’ve sat some time in my, in my classes. Um, and I do a lot of hands-on work in my classes. It sales is not a, in my opinion, it is not a read and. Write a paper type class. It’s a active participation In my, uh, professional sales class, we do more than eight role plays typically within, uh, the timeframe.
[00:45:12] Um, some of ’em are short little. You know, elevator speech type things and others are the intricate ones where, um, people are doing a 20 minute sales call to, to a mock client and they have to go through the whole scenario and research things, et cetera. So, um, So I wish I, that’s the one thing I’m really working on is trying to figure out how to overcome those perceptions of negativity that sales carries with it, um, and be able to really push forward.
[00:45:46] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah.
[00:45:46] Julie Nelsen: you have any good ideas for me, please let me know.
[00:45:51] Kyle Gross: yeah, yeah. No, I, and I’m a firm believer in also, actually, I. You know, in, in our interview process, we, we also do, you know, role play exercises with candidates as well too. And it’s not necessarily just to see are they already good at the job? It’s more so to be able see for that candidate, get their toes into the roles there, something that they can, you know, realistically see themselves wanting to do and working to get better at.
[00:46:12] We do a coaching session, are they going to be coachable? Um, so I, I’m, I’m a firm believer in that as well too. Uh, I’m curious to know then, for your, uh, graduating sales students, what’s. Um, the top one or uh, bits of advice that, that you like to give them?
[00:46:32] Julie Nelsen: That’s a great question. So first of all, I really Well things, do you thinking more about the interview pro process or when, or how they’re gonna go through in that first job?
[00:46:44] Kristen Wisdorf: Probably that first job. Yeah. That’s
[00:46:47] Julie Nelsen: Yeah, so, so in that first job, the things that I would say is that they need to be a sponge. You know, they need to. Think about the themselves as lifelong learners and recognize that they’re not gonna get it all right, right away.
[00:47:06] And that just like the role plays that we did in class, they may have been crappy at it the first time. And that the more they practice and the more time and energy and thought they put into something, the better they’re gonna be at it. And I, I think that in general, and I’m not sure why this happens to society, but we think we’re gonna be good at something the first time we do it.
[00:47:28] And we’re, and we’re not. And so I hope to help them see it as kind of like an athlete. An athlete starts and they have to, to build up that muscle memory. They have to, um, understand the game better. They have to think about the strategy. They have to, they have to think things through. They don’t just automat.
[00:47:50] You know, the first time my kids played soccer, it was their five-year-olds going around like a crazy little thing out there. Right? And by the time they were through their, their traveling soccer periods, they, they knew how to play that game. They knew their position, they knew where they. Could rely on their teammates.
[00:48:09] They knew where they, um, needed to do things themselves. They, you know, they understood all the different pieces to it. So I say that’s the first piece is, is that really just realized that it, it’s a journey. It’s not gonna happen right away. They have to plug away. They need to put in the time and effort and energy to, to make it work.
[00:48:30] The other thing is that I’m big on alignment and really making sure that the students know that they need to be in alignment with the company that they’re working for, and they need to have a value that align with that. Otherwise, they’re gonna, um, they’re gonna. Really get frustrated in the roles if they’re not feeling like they’re making a contribution and that they believe in what the company is doing.
[00:49:03] And so from that perspective, I really encourage them to really understand the company, ask a lot of questions, um, get to know management, do informational interviews internally. Um, do all those things that are gonna help them understand the company and whether it is a, um, a good fit for now or a good fit forever.
[00:49:24] And, um, and really get to know they have to do their due diligence to understand the company. You can’t just, um, you can’t just let it happen to you. You have to dive in and embrace it and, um, I think that that’ll serve them well if they, if they understand the company better, that they can sell better.
[00:49:48] Kyle Gross: Yeah, I wanna say I, I, I love that answer. I mean, the, the, the first part of being like a sponge, it’s very important and very sound advice, but, but your second half of that answer is a unique one that I haven’t really heard as but I, I, I love it being aligned with the company goals, the company mission, asking questions.
[00:50:05] Talking to people outside of who’s on your team or your direct uh, manager as well too. Um, because I have seen it happen before where, you know, everybody will come into to a new job, bright eyed, bushy tailed, and somewhere along the way, you know, occasionally that person may. Get a little bit frustrated.
[00:50:24] Maybe they’re not seeing that early success that they were hoping for, and they lose sight of, you know, you came here to be a lifelong learner. You came here to be a sponge. You didn’t come here because you were already going to be excellent at the job. And also, let’s remember why you came here in the first place and get back to kind of aligning with why you came here in the first place.
[00:50:40] So I, I really appreciated that answer.
[00:50:43] Julie Nelsen: Yep.
[00:50:45] Kristen Wisdorf: Well, I, uh, appreciated. Um, Our discussion today. I love how you said sales is a helping profession. It’s a service profession, it’s a problem solving profession, and I think that’s such a good kinda reminder and maybe lesson for some of our listeners who haven’t taken you know, haven’t dipped their toes into a sales, um, sales role or sales career yet.
[00:51:06] So we very much appreciate you joining us and walking us through your background and how you found your way to WSU Vancouver. We love our relationship with Washington State, so thank you so much for working with your students. Um, I know Kyle and the whole Seattle squad loves when we get to hire, um, Washington State alumni.
[00:51:24] So thanks for joining us on the podcast.
[00:51:27] Julie Nelsen: Thank you for having me. It was a great experience.
[00:51:30] Kristen Wisdorf: Great.
[00:51:31] Julie Nelsen: Okay.