This is a special episode of the “Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged Podcast.” The show feature interviews with sales professors at universities with a sales excellence programs. Many of the universities are members of the University Sales Center Alliance.
Watch the interview on YouTube here.
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Today’s show is a special “Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged” episode featuring Semira Amirpour, Award-winning Marketing professor and Sales Coach at The University of Texas at Dallas.
Find Semira on LinkedIn.
SEMIRA’S TIP: “Take feedback as a gift. It’s one of the most valuable tools for lifelong success.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: I’m very excited. I’m talking to Semira Amirpour with the University of Texas at Dallas. We’re going to be talking about the curriculum that you have for programs, a little more about your university’s programs, your relationships with corporate organizations that are looking to support your programs. Now, I first met you at the National Collegiate Sales Competition at Kennesaw State University. We’re doing today’s interview in September of 2025. That was back in the spring of 2025. Semira, I was just blown away by the young adults, the students, how poised they were, how professional, how they presented themselves. It was great to meet you and see the professors who are helping these young adults prepare themselves for great careers.
Semira Amirpour: That really is a great competition. By the way, thank you so much for doing this. We love it. We take students to these sales competitions and it’s a life-changing experience for many of them. Yes, there is a lot of work that goes to it in order for them to be prepared for any of the competitions, but NCSC is one of the tougher ones, I would say.
Fred Diamond: It’s a great job what you’re doing because these young adults, they were better than actual selling professionals that I’ve been a customer to and that I’ve worked with. That’s why we’re really excited to launch this show, to get to know more about the universities that are working with corporate America to train these young adults for great careers in B2B.
Tell us a little more about yourself and tell us a little more about your journey to the Center for Professional Sales at the University of Texas in Dallas.
Semira Amirpour: Just like everybody else, no two journeys are exactly the same, and mine may be a little more different. I lived in multiple different countries before I actually made it here. UTD was not the first place that I was in. I actually lived in four different countries before I made it here. However, Texas is home for the past 30 some years and UTD is a very special place. It took me a little longer than other people maybe to finish up, but that was because of all the traveling, living in different places, which was in itself a fabulous opportunity to learn to make you who you are at the end of the day when you travel in different places, live in different places, learn different cultures, different languages. That has been a journey.
Then I worked in the industry before I decided to switch to academia, which has been an amazing place for me personally. You are able to see the impact of everything that you do every single day. It’s a very rewarding career to be in, especially teaching sales, given that many people don’t necessarily go to college to become a salesperson or to become a professional salesperson, and our students are no exceptions. That’s the first question I ask every time I go to class. I’m like, “Do you think you are going to be in sales?” and very few of them actually raise their hand, where at the end of the day, after graduation, many of them do end up in sales.
Fred Diamond: It’s interesting. I’ve been running the Institute for Effective Professional Selling for about 15 years, and people would always say to me, “There’s no programs at universities. Why is that?” There’s 5,000 marketing majors and SEF, Sales Education Foundation, has identified maybe 200 universities that even have a class or a lecture. Of course, we deal with a lot of the universities in the University Sales Center Alliance, which is more rigorous in what they offer. As I’ve been posting these Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged shows on places like LinkedIn and Instagram, people are reaching out and saying, “I had no idea there was even a school, let alone 60, 70 that are members of the USCA.” It’s great what you’re doing, and like I mentioned, the curriculum is right on target, and the discipline, and your school particularly. It’s interesting. You were telling me that your school at the university started out as a PhD school and then started offering master’s and then bachelor’s programs. It flipped what people might typically think. Give us a little bit of background on that.
Semira Amirpour: Back then, I guess the founders of Texas Instruments were looking for qualified candidates and they couldn’t find them so they founded the university. It started as a PhD, master’s, and then they added the undergrad. Yes, it is different than many other schools, which could be the other way around, but given where we are in the middle of a very, very large metroplex, this is a great school. We have a very large student body and we’ve only been around for 50 years, which life of many universities, that’s a very young school.
Fred Diamond: That’s fascinating. I worked part of my career at Compaq Computer in Houston, Texas, and they were founded by former Texas Instruments guys who wanted to create a more portable laptop. I knew some of the background, and when you had mentioned the history, I went back and did a little more research and that was great to see.
Well, with that background, obviously AI. It’s interesting, Semira, it’s taken us eight minutes to get to AI, which usually, sometimes we get there quicker, sometimes we take a little bit longer. AI, talk about that. How does it play into your curriculum, and what do the students expect?
Semira Amirpour: For one, we are trying to be on top of our game. Our school’s dean is really focusing on having our students be ready for AI, AI jobs, at least be able to use it and utilize it, all that stuff. We have started a new certification, a new track on AI for sales just this semester. We’re offering classes for that. Of course, that’s very AI focused, but even other classes. I teach the fundamental courses, I teach the advanced sales, and in every single one of those, we try to incorporate AI in some form, some shape, and it’s changing so quickly. If anybody thinks that they have the best AI tool or they’re utilizing to the fullest potential, I’m not sure if that’s necessarily accurate, because it’s just changing so quickly.
One of the things that I am really trying to emphasize in my classes is one, for them to not be afraid to use it, but then at the same time when they’re using it, to be very careful to say, “Is this giving me the right information?” Because to just rely on it and think that whatever AI is giving you is the absolute accurate information is not necessarily true. I try to incorporate it even in simple activities. We work on line of questions that we are going to use for role plays, for example. I have them put the case on AI and then get the questions, and then they’re so impressed by the questions that they think this is the best thing. Then I make them do role plays solely using those questions. Then very quickly they realize, “Maybe this is not necessarily the best thing I could have done.”
Then we go back on it, and then I have them review, revise, make it their own work, so that way they realize that this could be used as a tool, this could be used as an inspiration, as an assistant. Now, at this stage for that class, for that assignment, that’s what’s being used. In other stuff we try to utilize other forms of AI that could be available, the cases that we use that are written with our corporate partners and stuff that includes AI. Again, this is a topic that we cannot ignore. It is not going to go anywhere. It is here to stay. If that’s the case, we are going to make sure that the students are ready and at least comfortable talking about it and using it when they’re going to the employers.
Fred Diamond: Tell us a little more about the curriculum. Tell us about some of the classes that you offer and what is the expectation of students as they go through your program?
Semira Amirpour: We don’t have a major or a minor. That was done intentionally because we wanted it to make this inclusive for people to be able to earn their certification from any degree. We have engineers who do a sales certification, which of course there is a huge market for that. Especially in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we have a lot of computer information technology students that do that. We focus on a lot of tech companies, so that’s a really great path for them. We have a sales engineering track that they can get their courses through. That way it provides the opportunity, because if you have a major or a minor, it might be difficult for them to be able to fulfill all the courses that they have to take. That has worked well.
The courses we offer, we offer fundamentals in sales. We have advanced, we have what we call digital prospecting, which there is a lot of technology that gets used in that class. Then all the AI courses, we have sales negotiation. All of those courses prepare students for a career in professional sales.
Fred Diamond: I’m just curious, what do students expect? If there’s no major or minor, do they know? I ask this question a lot. How many of your students come to the University of Texas at Dallas knowing that they’re going to go into sales? I tell this too, I have a daughter who’s a physician assistant. She chose her major the last possible day of her sophomore class in biobehavioral medicine. She’s doing fantastic but that’s a whole separate thing. But I’m just curious, for the students, you mentioned this before a little bit, but give us a little bit of insight into when do they decide to start taking your classes?
Semira Amirpour: Our student body, very smart kids. We are very, very lucky to have such a group of smart students being on our campus. Now, the challenge with that is many of them do come to school with a lot of AP courses, a lot of dual credit. By the time they come in, even though they’re very young, they could be sophomores, juniors already, and that leaves very little room in order for them to be able to take other courses or elected courses. For them to take the fundamental course, they have to be the second semester after sophomore year. That’s the opportunity. But then sometimes I get them, and this is their very first semester at UTD, it’s because of all those credits that they bring. They could be only 18, but they’re taking a class that is meant to be for the second semester after sophomore year.
Yes, many of them may not come in thinking that they want to do sales, being exposed to the classes, to the material, the stuff that we do, the corporate partners that we have. That’s a big one. They see the opportunities. We try to expose them to those companies as much as possible through different events, guest speakers, stuff like that. For some of them, that’s where they realize, “Oh, maybe.” Again, that perception that they have of sales, that’s probably the first thing that I have to overcome day one. Because many times they have those perceptions out of the movies that they watched, so they may not necessarily think that that would be a field for them.
Fred Diamond: That’s interesting because as we’re talking about this, and as we know, sales is the most important position in most companies. I used to work for a CEO who said, “The last person I’m going to fire is our worst sales professional.” We know these companies that are out there, nothing happens until something gets sold. We don’t need accountants, we don’t need operations, we don’t need logistics, and we don’t need finance if we’re not able to sell things in the support. It’s good that a lot of the universities we talk to, that they’re opening the eyes to the students.
I’m just curious, how does the sales curriculum fit in with the rest of the university? Are they embracing, they must at some level, but how are they embracing what you’re doing?
Semira Amirpour: First of all, you stole my line. I always say nothing happens until somebody starts selling something. Then the other divisions have no funds to play with if the salespeople don’t sell something. But going back to the university, we’ve been lucky. The students, their eyes have been open. Then being able to provide different tracks, being able to do a sales concentration, being able to do a sales engineering track. We have almost every one of our business school majors, except maybe for accounting, that they have some sort of a track that they can take sales courses, because they can also see that it opens up doors. It provides a lot of different opportunities. That has been good and it is a good thing. I have colleagues that they always come to me and they say, “Your sales students are some of the best communicators, some of the best presenters.” I think it’s because of all the different activities and assignments that we make them do in our sales classes.
Fred Diamond: Let’s talk a little bit about the corporate relationships that you have. Almost every professor that I interview also has to be selling to corporate America to sponsor your programs. For people listening for the first time to one of our shows, the companies that are sponsoring these programs and are partnering, they want to hire great young adults. As we’ve mentioned a couple times, it could save them, if not tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, by hiring the right people so they don’t have to keep finding new people. Getting the right person on board is such a great thing.
Talk a little bit about the corporate relationships you’re trying to establish. What would you tell a business that they may not know that you’re trying to educate your students on?
Semira Amirpour: We have some great partners. We are very lucky in terms of the partners that we have that are helping us with the resources in order for us to be able to do what we do. One of the benefits, I call it a benefit, of our school is business students do not graduate until they have done an internship. To me, doing an internship or having a company provide an internship opportunity is one of the least expensive things that they could do for themselves, is because you’re getting somebody as an intern. Yes, you are paying them, yes, providing an opportunity, yes, they require management, but it’s one of the best way for you to see if that individual is the right fit for the organization and then also for them to figure out if the organization is the right place for them.
This generation is different. At least from my generation, the way we chose the places that we worked, we wanted to get a job. This generation is very sensitive to, “Is this the right environment for me? Do I like the corporate culture?” Doing an internship is one of the best ways for both parties to figure out and see if this is the right place for them. That said, because our students need to do internships, the companies that come to our campus, they have this pool of candidates that they want to do, they have to do this, and they want to join them and be part of the organization. At the same time, they go in, they learn what the company is like, what the position is like, so when they are making the decision to actually become a full-time employee, they make a wiser decision, more educated decision, rather than just going in. The same thing for the companies. They get to look at them and see if this is what they want to do.
Our students are intellectually very smart, very diverse in terms of the skills that they can bring to the table. We’ve been lucky, and that’s something I always tell the students. Another thing that we do differently a little, our students are the ones that are recruiting these companies. Part of the advanced sales class, one thing that we do, we have a live selling portion. Students have quotas, they have to bring companies, they have dollar value, they have to get sponsorships or scholarship money. That class by itself provides them an opportunity. We run it like a sales organization. We have coaches that help them out. They’re like sales managers that help them out in the process and they’re able to take that back to a job interview and say, “Look, these are the stuff that I have done, this was my quota.” Then they’re also looking at the company and saying, “Is this the company that I want to be a part of? Do my colleagues or my classmates want to be part of this company?” They are choosing it and then going from there in terms of the type of partnership that we have at school, and so far, so good.
Fred Diamond: I want to ask you a little bit of a deeper question to follow up on that. We’ve been posting the Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged, and whenever I meet a new company, because we’re so excited about what we see happening at the University of Texas at Dallas and the other universities that we’ve interviewed, it just fits in so perfectly with the mission of the Institute for Effective Professional Selling. What do you hear from students that they want from employers? You alluded to some of the things, you’re much younger than me, but a lot of people in my generation, it’s salary. “How much am I going to make?” That’s still a thing, of course, obviously, and then benefits maybe, but give a little bit of insight
I tell companies that we’re doing this, “Are you recruiting from universities?” A lot of them are like, “Not really,” or, “We’ve thought about it.” Now, some that are deep into it, like Gartner, Cvent, Schneider, and all those companies, but there are some that are like, “No, we really haven’t thought about it. But now that we see the Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged Podcast, Fred, tell us more about the opportunity.” Give a little bit of an insight to what are the students, the good ones, what are they looking for? Of course, it’s different based on where they come from, etc., but give a little bit of an insight into what you hear from students.
Semira Amirpour: Of course, I don’t have the solid data to give you, but just talking to students, you are right, salary matters, benefits matter. But I think the students also care about the work-life balance. Now, many times this job of somebody like me in the classroom to say, “Okay, let’s be realistic in terms of what that work-life balance means.” Working remote, that’s probably the number one thing that I hear. They like to have remote/hybrid, or at least the ability to choose. Now, I also advise them, and I’m like, “Look, at the beginning of your career, maybe that’s not the best thing for you to do, to actually be remote. It’s a good thing to be going to the office, learning from your coworkers, learning from your manager, and so on.” But of course, we are dealing with a generation that experienced COVID, and they’re comfortable working behind the screen and not necessarily being in the office, not everybody, but a large portion of them.
I think organizations that offer some sort of hybrid, some sort of remote, maybe they have an advantage because they care for, but they also care about what the company is doing for the society, for the community. “Do I get to do volunteer work and all that stuff?” Those are things that they care for. But then at the same time, they want to be in a place that the company invests in them. What I mean by that, training them properly, providing them an opportunity to move up the ladder, or maybe being able to choose different areas that they’re more comfortable with. I think those organizations that can do that, they can have better luck recruiting some of the younger generation, especially right out of college.
Fred Diamond: I get it. It’s the generation that grew up during COVID and pandemic and they’re used to being at home or in apartments, wherever it might be, and doing a lot of stuff here. I’ve noticed this a long time ago. One of the challenges with sales is a lot of it requires coaching, especially in your first couple of years. Hopefully you’re being managed and coached by someone who’s successful, who’s been there, done that. It’s tough sometimes just to do it over a screen. I remember when I was starting, we would meet in an office, you get to see the person move, and then you’ll go to lunch, and then it’s like, “Let’s come back.” I really believe, I hate to say this, that a lot of the young professionals who aren’t willing to spend more time in the office are losing out on some of that. I think it’s going to be a big dilemma.
Semira Amirpour: You are absolutely right. Even the energy when you are together with everybody else is a totally different dynamic than if you are sitting at home and things are going on in the background. However, I think also because of COVID, it made a lot of companies or managers be more comfortable to be able to do remote coaching, where before it wasn’t possible. Maybe that’s something that they’re thinking of, but I highly, highly encourage the younger generation to at least try, at the beginning of their career, to go to the office. Because sometimes also when you are out of sight, out of mind, so if there is an opportunity for promotion, opportunity for advancement, different positions, you may be forgotten if you’re not in the office.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great point. A lot of times you’re at the office, maybe the VP from your division happens to be there that day and you have an opportunity to talk to them. Before I ask you for your final action step, can you talk for a second or two about some of the trends that you’ve, again, we talked about AI in the beginning, of course. That’s a huge one. But maybe one or two trends that you see emerging in sales education that you’ve had to put into your curriculum because either your partners are asking, or your organization, your team has said, “This is something that we need to spend more time teaching.”
Semira Amirpour: I’m not sure if it’s necessarily a trend because we started it pretty early, but teaching a student how to use a CRM. It’s interesting because years ago I had students that I would come to class and I’m like, “Do you know what CRM stands for?” and they have no idea. Can you imagine going to a job interview and not knowing this as a business major? But now students that are taking our classes in every single class, we highly implement CRM, using Salesforce. Now, in the fundamental class, they’re not necessarily becoming an expert in using a CRM, but at least they’ve seen it, they’ve done things to it, and they come back to me all the time and they say, I get emails all the time, “You what? Thank you for doing that because I went for that job interview and that was the line of discussion. I was so happy that I knew stuff that I could talk about,” or, “I got a job and part of onboarding everybody was a struggling, and I had no problem being able to do stuff quickly. My manager was so impressed.”
I think CRM has been something that companies are asking for, and we do teach in our curriculum. We try to, even in my fundamental class, when it comes to prospecting for example, we try to include prospecting as much as possible using technology, picking up the phone, sending good emails, emphasizing on that. Those are skills that I think they’re never going to become outdated in a way. Yes, they evolve, they change, they take different forms, but then at the end of the day, you still have to be able to reach out to customers and not be afraid to do so.
Fred Diamond: Thank you so much, Semira Amirpour, for being on today’s Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged. Thanks for your insights. I appreciate it. You’ve given us so many ideas, so many thoughts on what companies can be doing to more effectively team with universities such as University of Texas at Dallas. Give us one final action step, something specific, you can even say to whomever you want to say it to, sales leaders, sales professionals, the students, who are hopefully listening. I’ve made a whole bunch of new LinkedIn connections, after the Office Hours has come out, with students who are at schools, and it’s been great to connect with them. Give us an action step, something people should do after listening to the show or reading the transcript right now.
Semira Amirpour: This is something I tell my students all the time, and this is also for all those maybe younger sales professionals that are out there, take feedback as a gift. Because if I think of feedback as a gift, then it doesn’t have that negative connotation that, “Somebody’s giving me feedback,” because feedbacks are not always positive. I tell students that, if I didn’t want you to be successful, I wouldn’t take the time to give you feedback. Take the feedback and actually do something with it, because that coachability part is probably by far one of the most important skill that you can develop for yourself, and it can serve you well for years to come. You never know, that one piece of feedback could be that gift that’s going to keep giving.
Fred Diamond: That is a great closing action step because sales, there’s probably other professions too, but it’s definitely a profession where you continually improve, where you have to continually improve. Things change, like the pandemic, and now AI, and other things. 30 years ago you were the sales professional, you were the expert, and now the customer can get information on social media or search engine, or now, the bots. You have to adjust, like, “How am I continuing to improve? How am I continuing to add value so that I can be successful in sales?” There’s no guarantee. The great sales professionals are the ones who are coachable.
It’s funny, before the pandemic, I used to interview VPs of sales a little bit differently. Now over Zoom it’s changed, but one of the questions I would ask is, “What is your superpower, or what are you great at?” The vast majority of people would say, “I’m a great listener.” Then I would say, “Okay, well how do you become a great listener?” “You ask better questions, you prepare more.” The sales professionals that I have seen continue to progress are the ones that, by being a better listener, you’re obviously going to be more coachable. I think that’s a great point.
Once again, I want to thank Semira Amirpour from University of Texas at Dallas for being on today’s Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged Podcast. My name is Fred Diamond.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo