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Today’s show is a special “Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged” episode featuring Dr. Lenita Davis, Sales Program Director at the University of Wisconsin Claire.
Find Dr. Davis on LinkedIn.
DR. DAVIS’ TIP: “Sales is about giving and serving. You succeed by giving and serving others. You should always be getting better, never satisfied with the status quo. Listening is key , and the number one desire of almost any human being is to be seen. If you can really listen and let people know that you see them, you’re always going to do well.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: This is the Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged show. I have Dr. Lenita Davis with the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire on the show today. Dr. Davis, I’m very excited to talk to you for a whole bunch of things. I know you have one of your big competitions coming up. We’re doing today’s interview in June of 2025, and we just kicked off the Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, at the Institute for Effective Professional Selling, we’ve become more aware of the universities that have a sales degree, a professional sales curriculum.
We went to a couple of the competitions in 2025, and my partner, Gina Stracuzzi, who runs the Center for Elevating Women in Sales Leadership, and I just fell in love with everything that the USCA universities are doing. We said, “This is our community too,” the professors like you who are committed to training college kids to get into B2B or B2C or B2G sales, whatever it might be, and hitting the ground running. We’re also in sync with the students who work at many of the companies who are IEPS members, and a lot of your sponsors who also have the same goal. Those are companies that join the IEPS.
I’m thrilled to be talking to you today. Get us started. Why don’t you introduce yourself and share your journey to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire?
Dr. Lenita Davis: I graduated from Tuskegee University, in mechanical engineering of all things. I went to work for Procter & Gamble and worked on Pampers diapers and on and on, and I left Procter & Gamble, went to James River. But I had a life changing incident when I was at James River. I was always good at being on sales calls and connecting with people. But anyway, I got hit by a drunk driver. I was trapped in the car and while they were cutting me out, you start to think about your life, “Am I going to die? What’s going to happen?” I realized that I can’t keep putting off things that I wanted to make a difference in this world, and I wanted to make a difference in other people’s lives. By the time they got me out of that car, one of my goals was to finish my MBA and I decided to finish that and go ahead and get my PhD and really have an impact on the future.
I got my PhD and my first interview was with University of Alabama. The day I wanted to teach e-commerce, my dissertations in e-commerce, and I wanted to teach e-commerce, but the day I arrived, the person who taught sales retired. My whole interview was about, “Can you teach sales?” which I had done at the University of Cincinnati, and I was, “I can teach anything,” and so I taught sales at University of Alabama.
When I was coming up on tenure, a friend of mine, Dr. Eli Jones, visited our campus and started talking about sales centers. He was at University of Houston. He built the sales center there. Right after he left, my boss was coming to me and saying, “Can you build a sales program?” I wrote their curriculum, I built their sales program. I ended up working with Haywood Pulliam at cenergyIT, that’s a whole nother story, and we invented recording software for sales role play. I’ve been doing this for a minute, and at that time, we were still doing video recordings, where you put the tape in, it was a real hassle. We were one of the first software programs where you recorded to the cloud and you got an instant upload. That system ended up being placed in over 40 universities.
My friend, Robert Meyer, was retiring here at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and he is like, “Lenita, don’t you want to come to Eau Claire?” After a few glasses of bourbon, I agreed to interview. It was exciting because I was used to building programs and this program is already established, and so it was a different challenge for me. That’s how I came to Eau Claire.
Fred Diamond: Wow. You’ve done great things, as we’ve discovered what universities have, and the program that you do at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. We’ll talk a little more about that. I’m curious, we’re LinkedIn connected, and I went to your LinkedIn description where it says, “Teaching others to Serve, Advance, Listen, Excel, and Succeed.” Talk about that for a few minutes.
Dr. Lenita Davis: It spells SALES.
Fred Diamond: I did not even notice that. Good for you.
Dr. Lenita Davis: It spells SALES. To me, sales is about giving and serving. You succeed by giving and serving others. I always tell in advance, you should always be getting better. You never get satisfied with status quo. You’re always working to get better. Listening, I always teach my students that the number one desire of almost any human being is to be seen. If you can listen and really let people know that you see them, you’re always going to do well. The bigger your impact and the better you differentiate yourself and go above and beyond, that’s the excel part.
Fred Diamond: We talk about, especially at the level of the companies where people are working at that are participating in your program, that are members of the IEPS, they know that it’s about service. We talk about listening all the time. Matter of fact, I just did a show on the fact that you have two ears and one mouth, use them in that order. I used to ask a question, early days of the Sales Game Changers Podcast, and I would ask VPs of sales, what is your biggest strength? They all said listening. Listening, listening, listening. Then eventually I said, well, how do you listen better? Tell us some techniques that listeners to the podcast can implement. That is great. It’s truly all about service, especially at the levels where we’re training kids and the companies that we’re working for.
Give us some of the insights into the curriculum that your students go through. What are some of the things that you teach and who teaches these classes?
Dr. Lenita Davis: We have Melaney Barba, and she’s really great at the intro classes, getting the students excited about sales. She teaches our professional sales class. She works them through the sales process and that kind of thing. That’s her typical class. We teach them the SPIN selling. We teach them how to overcome objections and things of that nature.
Then they take sales management. In that class, there’s some controversy on that. Do you really teach student sales management when they’re not going to be managers for a few years? We take a different point of view, and that is helping them understand how their organization makes decisions, how they plan their strategy, how their strategy aligns with their mission statement and vision. We put them in the shoes of their boss and give them an insider’s view on what it’s like to sell for an organization, different types of sales jobs, et cetera.
Then we have key account management, which we are launching this fall. That’s about mentorship, ride along with the salesperson, how they strategically plan. We have a negotiations class where you negotiate, without giving the farm away. Melaney teaches that one. I teach sales management. Then I also teach advanced sales, which is my most trying, but also my most favorite, because in there, we teach the students that sales is giving. They raise money for a nonprofit by selling the value of a sponsorship in a golf tournament. I started the class, we’re not going to break out our 10 cups and beg and say, “You get a good feeling.” No, there’s value for the business. Let’s come up with a value proposition.
They’re given a quota. There’s a quota for the different grades. Part of that is entering things in CRM and actually closing deals. I do my own version of Glengarry Glen Ross, in that warm prospects are only for closers. They have to close a certain amount of business before I give them warm leads. Last year they raised, I’m still bragging about this, they raised $80,000, 24 students.
Fred Diamond: Wow. That is amazing. I like the way you described the sales management class. We have so many sales professionals who have participated in IEPS programs over the years. I get a lot of people who are newer, younger, starting their career, and of course, they come to me and ask me for advice. I always tell them, I say, “Get your boss promoted.” That is one of the clearest strategies for success. I love the way you’d explained it, is but you got to understand what he or she is responsible for. I said, “Yeah, they’re responsible for eight of you succeeding. If five of you succeed, well, they’re going to get promoted. If four, then they’re going to keep their job for another year.” You have to understand what goes into that. I love the fact, and especially the way you described it.
I mentioned in the beginning of the show that as part of the Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged, we’re interviewing a lot of the leaders at the University Sales Center Alliance. What’s the purpose of the USCA, for people who don’t know? What is the value that it provides to the companies that are looking to recruit top sales talent from colleges?
Dr. Lenita Davis: University Sales Center Alliance, it’s almost like an accrediting board. USCA was started to make sure that quality sales education is going out. Because many, many moons ago, there’s all kinds of types of selling, not all of it was ethical. Not all of it helped you get ahead. We review university sales programs to check the quality of what they’re presenting to students. We also mentor them, because sales changes. COVID, sales changed. We provide resources to help our programs be leading edge.
We have a research arm, we have an industrial relationship arm, we have a curriculum arm, we have accreditation and membership engagement. Really for businesses, if you want to recruit those sales students that know SPIN, know how to use a CRM, have been well educated in sales, you want to look at USCA accredited schools, because we have done the work for you. We’ve looked at their syllabi, we’ve visited their campus and certified that they’re teaching great stuff in sales.
Fred Diamond: It’s pretty amazing. We’ve gotten to know a bunch of the USCA universities, and we’ve gotten to look at the curriculum as well. All these universities are really preparing the students to hit the ground running. It’s going to save companies, maybe, someone estimated to me, 180,000 per student. Someone said 120,000. That’s a lot of money. There’s a lot of risk in bringing in somebody, the kids who are going through these programs. I use the example. I went to a role play, it was a competition where the students were selling a particular service that I have purchased, me, Fred Diamond, in my life, my corporate life. These kids were better than the professionals who were trying to sell to me. That is a great overview on the USCA.
I’m excited to talk about your competition, the Great Northwoods Sales Warm-Up. We’re doing today’s interview in June. The show is going to post in July. Your competition is on October 9th through the 11th. I heard where many student competitors describe the event as the greatest decision of their college career. Tell us about that, and why would a student say that?
Dr. Lenita Davis: Because we’re unique. Here’s what’s different about our sales competition, and you’ve been to a couple. You rent a room, you judge the students, they get a score, they get written feedback, which is great, and the best one wins. We’re more about increasing interaction and helping students improve. One of the unique things we do is after a student competes twice, so they have two role plays that they do, but after they complete a role play, they meet with the judges who scored them, and they get the feedback face to face, and they get a chance to correct that before they do their second role play.
From the company side, you get to meet these students face to face, have a conversation with them. You can also see if they’re coachable. Did they respond to the feedback that we gave them, or did they just do the same old thing? From the student standpoint, it’s one thing to hear from your teacher, and even though an executive might say the same exact thing their professor’s been saying all along, to hear from an industry professional really sticks in their brain and can be life changing.
On top of that, we have companies that may not come to their campus. I’m going to give a big shout out to Hormel. They’re our biggest sponsor, and they’re always selling a Hormel product. We’re trying to get more consumer product people to come in, but they get to meet with those sponsors. At the career fair, we have contests to increase the engagement of students with our sponsors. We have Golden Ticket, whoever’s the best person to visit the booth. We’ve given away smart glasses, we’ve given away speakers. They’re really big prizes.
I think the students interacting with each other helps. Usually, most competitions, you have one winner. There’s only one. But we also do a school champion, so that helps keep them engaged. I might not be the top, but maybe I could be the top for my university. We have three students who come from each university, and we have a waiting list of universities that want to attend. But if you’re a company and you really want to meet top sales students, give me a call.
Fred Diamond: I’ve attended a bunch of competitions. By the way, someone who I spoke to said that your competition was definitely the best for the food. Obviously, that’s tied to Hormel, I presume.
Dr. Lenita Davis: It’s true. We do have the best food. We have brisket in the morning. I could go on and on. We have a beer and wine bar the first night. The food is over-the-top good.
Fred Diamond: I’ve attended a couple of competitions. I’ve judged a couple of competitions, and I’ve said this before, even the lowest-performing kid is great in most of these competitions because, as we’ll talk about in a second, the preparation. But sometimes I’ll watch a kid and I’ll be like, “I wouldn’t say that,” but then you’re watching on video and you don’t see them again. You want to go up to them and say, “I understand why you did that, but maybe you shouldn’t for this particular reason.” I like the feedback. Talk about the preparation it takes for a student to effectively compete in a competition like yours.
Dr. Lenita Davis: Students hate when I say this, but nothing beats repetition. Nothing beats it. Repetition, make sure you cover every angle. If you think of whatever objection you can think of, having the ability to answer those objections, repetition again, because repetition builds confidence. If you don’t go in there with confidence, you’re not going to win. I always say, they’re going to judge you in the first two seconds. I’ve been in some of those rooms and they go, “I think that kid’s going to win.” He hasn’t even said a word. It’s how they come into the room. It’s how they handle objections. They get nervous or they’re very confident when they handle objections. Do they know the product well? Because knowing the product well feeds into the confidence. Practice a lot. Think of every objection possible. Understand the product. It’s really simple.
Fred Diamond: You’ve worked with a lot of companies that want to recruit your kids. That is one of the cool things that I’ve learned about this, is a lot of these companies that hire a lot of kids that are in these professional sales programs, they’ll even start noticing some of these kids when they’re in their junior year, and they want to talk about them because it’s a big risk in hiring somebody for sales. It’s not like, no disrespect to accounting or finance, but you learn your skills, you get to do it. But in sales, there’s a lot more that you need to know. What do employers look for when they’re hiring a college student with a sales degree?
Dr. Lenita Davis: They look for interpersonal skills. Do they listen? Do they connect? I’ve even had some say, do they have a presence when they walk into the room? I would say the other thing is grit. Are they going to fall apart at the first no? Or are they going to keep on going? They don’t really look at grades. It’s a lot of leadership. My students underplay the fact that many of them are paying their way through school. They’re working 30, 40 hours a week, they’re in extracurricular activities, and they keep a great GPA and it won’t even occur to them to brag on that. I would brag all day on that, but they’re like, “It’s not unusual.” I said, “No, older people really love the fact that a kid is paying bills, being responsible.” They look for that. Are they mature? Are they a hard worker? Are they going to put in the hours and do they have initiative? Or am I going to have to tell them what to do?
Fred Diamond: Some of the things you just mentioned, grit is something that we’ve been talking about for years, and self-starter. We all know that you’re probably going to get nine nos before you get to a yes. Even at the enterprise level, just scheduling a meeting is a big win. A lot of people think getting the deal is the win. Getting a meeting, getting a return phone call, those are all things that play into it.
I’m just curious, how many students come to your university knowing that they want to go into this program? Or do they just pick the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire because that’s where they want to go to school, and they’re undecided, and then they learn about this program at a major fair or something? I’m just curious, do kids come to your school knowing they want to go this route? Or do they discover it mainly as they’re going through the program?
Dr. Lenita Davis: We get a good combination of both, believe it or not. We’re known for sales. We’re starting to get, and it’s increasing in number, a lot of freshmen who say, “Hey, I came here just for sales.” I can think of several, but they’ll say, “Hey, I’m good at sales. My father’s a sales executive. I want to do sales.” We have opened up a lot of our classes, one of the few where freshmen can come in and take a professional sales class, or they can come join the sales team. We’re surprised at the talent that we’re getting at the freshman level, and more and more are coming, “Oh, my friend,” now you get the friend thing, word of mouth, “My friend, so and so, said I should come here.” Sales is a great career if they find out how much money you can make in sales.
Fred Diamond: I like what you just said also that some of them have parents in sales. We’ve done a couple of Sales Game Changers Podcasts, the couple cases we’ve done them, it’s been a father who’s had a 30-year career at big brands. In the two cases we’ve done this, there’ve been daughters. One of them actually came through a USCA school, Florida State University, and she went to work at Dell, and then a company called NVIDIA. The other show that we did, the young lady went to a different school that’s not part of USCA as an engineer, but she came out and she followed her father. It’s just fascinating to see that.
Before I ask you for your final action step, your final tip, is there anything else that you want to share that we might not have discussed?
Dr. Lenita Davis: I get a lot about AI. That’s been a big bugaboo of people, my undergrads in engineering, and we use AI role plays, believe it or not. We use a bot and students can interview with the bot, they can do sales role plays with the bot. What I’ve found is that it really helps students to, it’s kind of a safety net. They feel safe talking to the bot, they get their role playing, figure out what they’re going to say, and then they talk to a human. It has really accelerated the learning curve and the students are really doing great. I think this use of technology to help us get better, I don’t want to just focus on AI, but there’s a lot of technology out there that academics and corporate should consider with sales training and getting people ready for that.
Fred Diamond: Dr. Lenita Davis, this was great. Congratulations on your success. That acronym that you have on your LinkedIn post, SALES, and just the impact that you’re making on lives. Again, I run the Institute for Effective Professional Selling. We do programs where people have come to me and said, “This didn’t only make me a better sales professional. The program made me a better father,” or, “It made me a better spouse.”
A lot of it goes to some of those skills that sales professionals need to be good at, listening, asking the right questions, preparation, service, emotional intelligence, all the hard skills, of course, and even the soft skills. I don’t call them soft anymore. Being able to have the empathy. We did a survey of all the words that have been uttered in the history of the Sales Game Changers Podcast and empathy was number one, and listening was number two. Besides the, and is, and all those things. It was good to hear that.
It is great to see you, and it’s great to get to learn more about how you’re really impacting lives and the companies that are employing these kids for more success. Give us a final action step. You’ve given us a lot of great ideas. Give us something specific that our listeners should do right now after either listening to the show or reading the transcript to take their sales career to the next level.
Dr. Lenita Davis: I was going to say recruiting, I would definitely go to the USCA website. To take your sales career to the next level, I always say read good sales books. I like Lee Salz’s book Sales Differentiation because it’s how to differentiate yourself. But my shortcut is when you go on a sales call, find out how you can serve that person. Then once you find out how you could serve that person, then look for ways to increase your impact. Because those are the two things that will help you move forward.
For example, your customers that you meet one-on-one, find out how you can serve that person and really connect with them. We always talk about build relationships, but find out how you can serve them. Go above and beyond. Then beyond that, I like to use LinkedIn, but whatever, find out how you can expand your impact. How can I expand what I have to give to other people? Those two things will take you anywhere.
Fred Diamond: I love that last point. I tell people all the time, another tip I give is, you want to be known for something. You’re the AI guy for the insurance industry in the Mid-Atlantic. Or you’re the whatever it might be. Maybe you’re the philanthropic guy who helps companies and individuals who own companies grow.
I just want to mention a quick thing. Lee Salz is a good friend of ours. Matter of fact, we do an award at the IEPS called Sales Speaker of the Year. He was our sales speaker of the year in 2022. I’ve read all of his books and I’m glad that you mentioned him.
Once again, Dr. Lenita Davis with the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, I want to thank you very much for being on today’s Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged. My name is Fred Diamond.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo