This week on the podcast Brent sits down with Judith Ann Garretson Folse, Department Chair, and John Ballentine, the sales program director, both from the Department of Marketing at the Walton College. The conversation focuses on the importance of sales skills in both your professional and personal life. Judith and John discuss their passion for creating opportunities for students to succeed in the marketplace by honing their sales abilities. The conversation also covers how the Walton College's sales program and sales competition, with its rich blend of academic and practical experience, is set apart from others. They also discuss their vision for the sales program and the potential for growth, underscoring the importance of sales in every aspect of commercialization and product marketing.

We get to tell the students I wish when I

started as a sales professional, that I knew ABCD, and we get to

talk to them about that, but not just tell them about the skills,

having practice skills, but give stories, the context of those

stories that we get to tell that we experienced and that and that

goes in and failures and successes.

Well, today I have with me Judith Folse, who is Department

Chair of the Department of Marketing in the Walton College.

And I have John Ballentine, who is the sales program director

also in the Department of Marketing. So, Judith, John,

welcome.

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Thank you. We're very grateful to be

here.

So much of a blessing to be here.

Well our topic today is going to be about sales

and sales is, is a sales experience is something that I

feel like had a big impact on my professional, professional

journey. I spent five or six years in a sales role and I just

think I have used those skills in every part of my career, and

probably maybe, to some degree, every part of my life. And it's

just made a big impact. And, you know, Judith, you've been with

us now at the Walton College for about three full semesters at

this point. And as you came in to lead the marketing

department, one of the things we decided to really focus on was

sales. So, you know, why was that so important to you?

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Well, really, at the end of the day,

it's about students, and the opportunities that students have

in the marketplace. And I spent my first year listening and

learning and I listened to faculty, whether they were

teaching one course, or they were teaching a full load, if

they taught only one time, or if they'd been here for 30 years to

get their perspective, and how I can help them. I talked to

industry and industry was really insightful, and then learned

from students what they valued, and recognized the potential

opportunity for students here, not only in Northwest Arkansas,

but really nationwide in terms of sales. So I feel like we have

such an opportunity and really an obligation to help students

be very successful. You know, John and I have talked about

this a lot. And our goal is to create opportunities for

students so that they can have satisfying lives and careers.

And we are very passionate about training students so that they

can execute well, and we look at our, our backyard and just the

nation and everything is really about sales. You know, we

listened to your podcast with Spencer Fraser from JB Hunt and

that was very inspirational to us because it really echoes a

lot of what we value. And we also look at is the

commercialization process. And I know John will probably want to

talk about that. But that sales happens in at all levels of

taking a product to market and this commercialization, but even

deeper within each section. So, again, student opportunities, we

know that if you go and look at the labor market, the jobs are

there. And we want students to be connected with us

opportunities.

When we started thinking about this initiative

and John, I think this is one thing you and I talked about

really early. And well, John is relatively new as an instructor

to the Walton College, not new to the Walton College or the

region in any way and been involved here for many, many

years. You know, what we found is there's some studies out

there that show very, very few university graduates take a

sales class or have a sales experience, we learned that the

Walton College was better than those averages. But still, there

was a lot of opportunity there.

It's really fun to see how, you know, we

crunched some numbers on that. Thanks for reminding me about

that study, we crunched some numbers. And we know on average

that Walton and University of Arkansas students, on average,

have more opportunities to take a sales class we have the

numbers are staggering. We had I think, in the last school year,

we had over 700 students take a sales class, which is

phenomenal, and bigger than a lot of other sales programs that

we have in the country. Doesn't mean we don't have a lot of room

to grow, because we do but but we're excited about that. And I

just when you and Judith presented your vision for what

we can do here on the sales program, it was very inspiring

to me and just very thankful I get to help be a part of making

that happen. But I can't say enough about how the experience

that we have from an instructor base that's teaching our

students is everyone has experience you know, in sales,

and they know the value just what you spoke of earlier the

value of the skills and the art the science of selling are to

the students no matter what their job is.

Yeah, those skills do matter. You're right

no matter you know, if if you're directly selling if you're not

doing directly selling, you're indirectly selling. Well, one of

the, you know, you mentioned this, John and I us pitch this,

both of you, and however you want to answer it, you know, you

mentioned our the, the instructors that we have

teaching sales come from a real practical background. You know,

one thing I love about the Walton College is this unique

mix in our faculty have, you know, a faculty members that

have spent their careers in academia, you know, really going

deep and developing expertise. And then, you know, we also have

a significant part of our faculty that's coming from

practice, you know, that has amazing experience, and they're

bringing all that experience and our student leaves, you know, at

the end of their undergraduate career, with a real mix of

experience in that way. And I think that's really, really

good. But in this particular area, we've really chosen to go,

at least right now with really experienced people in sales.

What are some of those dynamics that you see in the classroom

when you're teaching sales? Like what are you encountering with

our students?

That's a great, fun question. Because when we

think about I mean, just, we have over 150 years of practical

experience, collectively, and our group of instructors is

teaching in the sales program, which I love to brag on, because

that's real live experience. And what it means in the classroom

is, it means we get to stand in front of the students. And we

get to say, hey, students, this is what we experienced in life

and in our careers. And this is how we use the the art and

science and the skills that we're trying to train you, we

get to tell the students I wish when I started as a sales

professional, that I knew ABCD, and we get to talk to them about

that, but not just tell them about the skills, having

practice skills, but give stories, the context of those

stories that we get to tell that we experienced and that and that

goes in and failures and successes. And I think when I

share the failures I had, or the the choices that I made, that

didn't turn out the way I had hoped they might, in class, I

know all of our instructors do this, it's so impactful for the

students, because they can they can feel and they have they,

they can empathize with those mistakes. And they say, okay, I

can learn from that, and not have to make that same mistake.

So I think getting to share the wins and the losses with the

students is so impactful.

How do you all in your program define sales?

Because you have to start there, right. And I actually think

that's a really, really important part of the

educational process.

No, question. No question. We we talk about

how prestigious an opportunity in sales is for a student. And

we know based on that numbers, that anywhere between probably

50 to 70% of Walton College graduates are going to have the

opportunity to accept a prestigious job in sales. So

really talking about the nobility of the profession. And

that came out when you were talking with Spencer, so

clearly, and I love the conversation you guys had. But

sales is a profession of problem solving is a profession of value

creation. And we create value for our own companies and sales

professionals and for our clients as a company. I'm

recapitulating what he said, through the practice of solving

problems and as soon as I ask why do you enjoy sales? I said,

I enjoy sales because I like solving problems like fixing

things.

Yeah. Because you like solving problems. And

you like working with people to do it. Right. You know, and

that's what I love about the sales process. And Judith, one

thing I feel like you've done really well, since you've been

here is you've been you one, you've been very strategic,

first of all. And two, you've really been focused on how you

get industry engaged. And I assume sales is an opportunity

for industry to engage?

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Absolutely. You know, we want to build a

program that is rigorous and relevant and offers resonance.

And we really are seeking partners who want to lean in and

help us with this process. So we have great sales competitions

here on campus that have been traditions for years. And I'll

be honest, I came in with one lens and have had a couple of

paradigm shifts since I've been here.

Okay, I'll tell you gotta tell us about that.

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Okay, so when I was on my listening

and learning journey, I really wanted to absorb every single

thing that I was learning. I talked to as I told you, I

talked to people from industry and I had a first of all I went

to the sales competition and most universities that have

sales programs, they will coach students and then they will take

them to these different competitions out of state, and

they'll take maybe six to eight students for a few competitions

a semester, when I went to our sales competition for the first

time, I was completely blown away. When I saw the caliber of

the judges who were there for the students, very other

serving, and I saw the sheer number of students who competed,

I said, we don't need to go anywhere. We have such an

opportunity right here to train our students in sales. And to

witness the students running up to the professors after they

went through their first round and seeking encouragement and

strategies was just really wonderful to watch. And I am

very proud of the fact that we've been very intentional on

growing that sales competition. And we can speak to that a

little bit, I can share the numbers, they're, they're

ingrained in my brain because I'm so happy. The first in Fall

of 2022, we had 45, excuse me, 56 students compete in the sales

competition, in the spring, we had 98, the following spring.

And in fall of 2023, we had 145.

I like your growth rate.

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Yeah, we do, too. We're very proud of

it. And I'm so proud of this sales team that we have in

place. So that was my first paradigm shift, I said, we can

serve a greater number of students, we can impact the

lives of more people, and we can serve our industry. And you

could see that industry really is wanting to be a part of this.

I mean, they're coming to the competitions, they are leaning

in, they're encouraging students, it's amazing to really

see that. And I know, we'll probably talk about that, again,

the pride that we have in executing our sales competition

with excellence.

So you've got 700 plus students taking the

sales class, and then you've got 150 or so now in the fall of

2023 going above and beyond that, in getting this deeper

experience. The sales competition is something I love

as well. John, tell us a little bit about how it works.

Okay. Sure, it's, uh, it's pretty simple. We

have we invite industry to come in and sponsor a case. So they

help we work with the industry partner, to write a case for the

students to present. And they can the case can be somewhat

simple. But basically, you have some a little bit of research

you need to do about the product line or, or the company, what

the product offering is. And then we have a specific ask, so

there's a close that the student is going to look for. And then

they schedule a follow up. But the the organization we have in

the morning, students compete. And in the afternoon, we we

choose the top six students, and then afternoon they compete in

what we call the finals. So that's the basic situation we

need about somewhere between 30 to 60, judges, you know, for a

two day event

okay

So and our industry partners have really

responded to show up for that. But the students present, and

they have a rubric to go through. And basically we follow

the steps of the sales process. And there we asked them to

follow those steps to the sales process to close the deal and,

in a 10 minute, 15 minute presentation. And it's a

roleplay. So it's a little bit contrived environment. But the

idea is to practice and get gain confidence and understanding how

this can flow. And then when we really want to train the

students, you have to uncover the needs of the client. So you

can tie the your solution to their need, and then understand

what objections they may have and overcome those objections.

So that's what we asked them to do in the roleplay.

So I heard a story from one of you,and I

don't remember which one actually, I heard it from maybe

both from the fall competition, about a group that actually

really didn't have the confidence going in. But the

competition made a major, major difference. And so this is about

learning. Right? So this is about learning and role playing.

But this is so much about confidence.

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Yeah,

One of one of you tell that story. Yeah John,

go ahead.

The well, first of all, almost every student are

in this in the fall of 2023. We did some team competitions. And

the idea was to increase the number of students we can get

through. They have that experience but it's so

fascinating to see how nervous and concerned the students are

and they do a lot of work. And they put a lot of work into

getting ready for this and do a good job and we mentor coach.

But there's a lot of maybe fear is not the right word, but

concern going into the competition. But once they make

that first presentation and they walk out, it is so much joy for

me to see the faces of the students light up, and have that

confidence in almost in every case, they say I gained so much

confidence from doing this. And in the fall competition, we

there was a team of students that presented, and they weren't

really expecting to do well, but they did exceptionally well. And

they were chosen to go to the finals. And I can distinctly

remember, their professor was standing next to me, Mr.

Fairman. And the team came up to us, and they looked at us with

this great concern. We can't we can't do it, we can't go to the

finals. We're so nervous, we just we're not ready. And Trey

and I looked at each other and said, you're ready, you got this

far, you can do it. And they, they did it. And guess what? Got

second place in the entire competition. So fun. And you

know, the students, the students that come to and participate,

they get job offers, the industry, people are there

because they want to hire great students and there, there will

be jobs that come out of.

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Yes, some of the judges were coming

out to us, asking us about some of the students, how do you

pronounce that student's name, we want to go talk to that

student. And it was really exciting to see how much the

judges were leaning in and you know, getting involved and

recognizing the talent.

I wanna I wanna go back to that moment for that

student or student, this group of students, likely life

changing, you know, potentially at least. And those are the

moments here in an educational process that really, really

matter. And, you know, I assume that not only in the sales

competition, but throughout your classes that they're very

experiential, I assume you see many of those kinds of moments?

We do, we see them all throughout the

we do we see

semester. And what we see is, you know, our sales instructors,

they start the semester, being perceived by the students, as

teachers or instructors well, by the end of the semester, they're

seen as mentors or coaches. And, and I love that shift that

happens, because it's true, it's and if we're interested in and,

and all this, the care that, that this group of instructors

all of the Walton College professors really, but we care

so much about the life and career of the student and their

success. But seeing that manifests itself in the coaching

opportunities that we have, just to help the students get ready

for the sales competition, or the career fair, or a job

interview, or their first role is, is where I see that

manifestation of that care and that of that mentorship. So it's

fun to watch that, but, but to your point about the confidence

building and the life changing, I had a student after one class,

and it was it was life changing for me to hear this, but the

student said, Mr. Ballentine, the skills that you're teaching

us, what you're teaching us to do, and how to work and how to

relate to people, and how to uncover people's needs, is going

to change the way I do my work. My other classes that I take is

going to even change the way I talk to my mom.

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: I loved it when he shared that

story with me.

So and that's kind of the life changing part

of that, but you take it to the next level when you go to the

sales competition, you get in this team of students that

talked about, they got to present twice in the same day to

a different set of judges. And again, that confidence and that

that confirmation and affirmation that hey, you can do

this is really so valuable. But the gold, the gold nuggets in

what we do in the sales competition is the feedback that

the judges give the students after they present both in the

morning, and in the afternoon. They get a chance to give

feedback and I got to share with the finalist. In the fall. I

said, guys, you, you, teams, you people, you students we get to

we get to nitpick you on some things because you did so well.

You did so well. You went above and beyond and you presented a

very classy and very well organized case presentation that

we get to critique you on some things that a lot of people

don't get a chance to critique you off. So you're getting to

the next level of learning here and that's where the gold is and

I love that feedback process coming both

from from our faculty and from industry. Back to the students,

you mentioned several industry members have engaged I think you

said you need you need lots of judges first of all, I'm sure

that's one way. Sure they're engaging in classes who are some

of the some of the partners that's really come alongside you

all?

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Well, in our sales competition, we've

had case sponsors like General Mills, and Kimberly Clark. We've

also had Tyson and Cintas. This, in the last fall competition, we

had Fastenal, as well as Sanofi and the brands that were part of

that competition were aspercreme and icy hot. And we've got great

judges that are coming from all CPG and non CPG companies. So

we've got Hershey's, we had a Hershey's person participated

both days, I think, full days, both days and was very, very

involved. And we could probably talk about how we streamed the

finals for the first time this year. And thanks to the

competition, but we've got industry partners that, you

know, John's been doing a great job reaching out to new

partners, and who are very interested in opportunity to be

K sponsor. So we have a great retail advisory board.

Obviously, you know about that board, since that's been

something that you have been able to continue for the Walton

College, great group of people, many of the brands I mentioned

are on that board, obviously Walmart, very, very involved in

what we do. But we're we're actually having other companies

that are reaching out and talking with us about, hey, how

can we be more involved, and it's those partnerships that are

going to allow the students to excel, you know, we really want

to have these student engagement opportunities. You know, you and

I have talked about that. We want the companies to come and

lean in and serve as judges, but really work alongside the

students, allow them to shadow them, create internship

opportunities for them, we want to host networking events with

them, we want to help our industry clients, our partners.

So there's a great opportunity for them to be more involved if

they've been involved or become involved.

This is something that was very evident

to me. As we grow the competition as we get more

industry clients involved, and we get more students involved.

We have this was somewhat of a revelation to me, as we think

about the commercialization of sales, I visualize it as a

pyramid. And the pinnacle of the pyramid is when we deliver

products to retail and we have a team of salespeople that work

with the retailers to do all the things that they do, they're

very special to get the products into retail, but behind that,

and we want to train the entire sales force that's behind and

underneath, lifting up that pinnacle of getting the products

to the retailer. And you can break that all the way back down

to the farm, right to if it's a food product, okay, the farmers

need tractors, somebody's got to sell the tractor, they need

agricultural chemicals we've got to sell them that, we need seed,

we got to sell them that, we got to transportation people have to

move that product to the silos and the finance people have to

help with financing the tractor so we have this

commercialization of sales pyramid that all I can think of.

And it was so evident to me in this last fall that we're that

our client base is expanding to where we're filling more of that

commercialization sales pyramid up, because we've got packaging

companies, International Paper joined us for the first time and

brought two sales professionals and their HR person that's

building rebuilding their entire sales training program, they

engage with us and engage with the students. And it was so fun

to see their engagement with that, we had transportation

companies, you know, that are coming and giving great

feedback, we have a Fastenal with their support that they

give to the complete supply chain for running manufacturing

operations that are required to to win this consolidated

distributors has been a very good supporter of us. And they

provide all the electrical equipment and packaging, line

integration and all these things to company. So seeing this,

seeing this flesh out in this I visualized as a as a parameter,

support for the pinnacle of getting our products to retail.

So it's fun to see that come into fruition. And as that

happens, our geographies expanding too. We had people fly

in from Ohio to be a part of the sales

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: And Memphis, drive over from

Memphis. Yeah. And the one thing that we really loved when we

think about this commercialization because John

presented it to me and I said we've got to talk about this at

the Retail Advisory Board meeting because it really just

shows that sales really occurs throughout the process, like

John said, it starts at the farm with the seed. And it ends up as

it may be a cereal box that's on the shelf at Walmart. But what

we loved about Spencer conversation was that you have

sales within the organization, you mentioned earlier that you

have external sales, and you have internal sales. And I think

a lot of people recognize that, you're probably going to be

selling your ideas internally, more than you're selling them

externally. And you're going through the exact same process,

you know, really understanding what the need is within your

organization, because eventually your other serving, you're

focusing on your clients. But we loved how Spencer talked about,

you know, uncovering the needs, providing value, as John

mentioned, but he also talked about the operations team and

the engineering team. And he said, the operations teams, I

mean, that's really the closing team, because the fact that

they're able to gain the trust of the client, because they're

showing how they can actually execute. So it starts with maybe

the salesperson or the front line person who's working with a

client and understanding what the needs are, and then going

back to different teams and identifying potential solutions,

and then presenting them. But it's the entire company that's

really selling, and delivering. So when we talked about the

commercialization process, where we kind of took a step back and

said, wow, now that we've listened to Spencer, it's even

deeper than we envisioned it as being in terms of opportunities

for students in sales. And so you need to look at the

different industries that have opportunities for students,

you've got the financial industry, you've got CPG, you

have industrial sales, you have consultative selling. And then

we also have opportunities to help engineering students, and

other students really at the University of Arkansas, within

the one college and outside the Walton College, really gain

these transferable skills and be successful in the marketplace.

And this just makes us so excited to think about the

impact that we can have. And that goes back to that paradigm

shift that I had, you know, where we can serve more students

and impact their lives, you know, give them the confidence

to be successful because of the competitions. And we're actually

expanding our competition from a two day competition to a three

day competition. And we're identifying different ways that

we can continue to elevate the competition and the program. So

for the first time, in the fall of 2023, we had team selling,

because we recognize that there would be a that really mimics

what happens in the marketplace. You walk in and you have a team

of people, Spencer's podcast once again, talking about teams.

And so we thought this is a great opportunity for students

to work as teams, and in their role playing, and it was allowed

us to touch more students, but also allow them to gain greater

skill sets that are more transferable.

A couple of things strike me from all of

that. One is that this this program, in terms of industry

engagement, there is an opportunity maybe for any

company, to engage in this it doesn't it doesn't matter what

you're producing, what your what your service is, how you're

engaged in, in the value chain, you can engage whether you're

big or small, actually.

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Absolutely, we, we believe that our purpose

is to be other serving. And we would love the opportunity to

work alongside companies that really want to hire students who

can uncover the needs of their clients, and help them excel in

the marketplace and build teams.

Absolutely the one I've just been listening to

you talk Judith and and connecting the one of the

questions that Brent asked about, what is it we teach our

students and when it comes to the art and science of selling.

And here you you reminded me about this. When you reference

to operations, people making the clothes and building that trust,

and we teach, we talk about this every day in class that sales

professionals operate with under the highest level of integrity

and build trust for their clients. If you don't have that

trust that you build with the client. You don't have an

opportunity to engage that client understand what their

needs are. And I had we we're so blessed to have so many great

people that are able to come in and deliver helped over content

in our sales class and one of, one of the sales development

managers at or director of sales and development at Simmons Foods

comes and talks to my class, every semester, Adam, come talk

toward at the end of the class and he walked in, he said, okay,

students, I want you to tell me the most the number one thing

that a sales professional needs to develop in order to be

successful. And several students answered questions that were all

very close to accurate. But finally the one student said,

trust. And he says absolutely, if you have to start there. And

I think that's when you asked, sourcing professionals what's

the most important thing about sales, professional? Trust and

integrity. So I didn't want to gloss over that. Because that's

really what Spencer was talking about our operations people come

in close, because they proved to me exactly, we do.

Such a such a great point and such a it's so

critical, right? That we're teaching our undergraduate

students that is the core, because it's going to set them

up for success going forward. So I guess the takeaway for me, if

I'm a company that wants to engage in the sales program,

there's probably a place for me. So reach out to John Ballentine,

if you're listening and want to engage. You know, the other key

takeaway for me is that there's really an opportunity for the

Walton College through this program, because it doesn't

matter if you're a marketing major, you know, or if you are a

civil engineer, or if you're in poultry science, you know, and

anywhere in between, probably a sales experience could help you.

So we, we have an introduction to sales class, we have an

advanced sales class for developing and implementing

sales applications. We also have sales analytics in the program.

So you know, it sounds like to me, you're starting with really

foundational concepts of you're solving students, you're solving

problems with sales, you've got to start with trust and

integrity. But in the program, we're going all the way to I

like how are you applying technology to sales?

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Yeah, absolutely. I'm really proud of

the team that we have in place our sales team, and that we're

able to offer, you know, these four different courses will be

in our fourth, like John said, in spring of 2024. Because, you

know, for sales analytics, we're using insights to guide a lot of

these decisions. And we really need that in today's age where

all of the decisions are based on on data. And we anticipate

even more growth in terms of digital, I really loved how I

keep going back to Spencer, but I loved how he talked about the

fact that then that relationships are always going

to be key in sales. But the digital world is changing the

way that we actually deliver content and conversations on

some occasions, with the clients helping us shape the content, so

that the students who go through that course are getting cutting

edge opportunities to excel when they hit the their first sales

job.

Well Judith and John, I am so proud of both of

you and all of the team that you've put together and what

you're doing. I think, you know, just a few, I don't know, it

feels like a few short months ago that we really started

pursuing this vision in in a strong way. And the progress

made is tremendous. The the growth in the program and the

number of students engaging has well exceeded my expectations. I

can't wait to see what you all do in the future. Thank you for

spending time with me today.

Judith Ann Garretson Folse: Thank you for the opportunity, we're

very excited for the future.

It'll build out your vision Brent, this is