An Empirical Look at Professional Selling From a Student Perspective

In this article, the authors examined students' perceptions of professional selling. They found significant differences between the perceptions of students who had completed personal selling courses and students who had not. The authors observed differences in students' perceptions of personal selling as a career, the contribution of personal selling classes to a salesperson's skill set, and students' interest in and likelihood of pursuing a sales career. Students considered salespeople to be perceived negatively by others and to be non-customer-oriented.