By Rory Dulock | Staff Writer
The Center for Professional Selling in the Hankamer School of Business is home to the ProSales program and major. As the first sales center in the U.S., it boasts 100% guaranteed job placement for its students after graduation.
“Baylor’s Center for Professional Selling was the first sales center in the country and is recognized annually as a top sales program,” the website reads. “To accomplish its mission and objectives, the center engages in educational, developmental and research functions — all focused on promoting excellence in the fields of professional selling and sales management.”
Dr. Andrea Dixon, executive director of the Center for Professional Selling, said ProSales is both a program and a major. The major requires a set of six courses — ProSales 1, ProSales 2, Sales Force Management, Marketing Channels, Professional Sales Internship and Global Account Management — as well as participation in the program.
“We have a set of activities that happen outside of the curriculum that our students — once admitted to the major — are also responsible for participating in,” Dixon said.
Austin junior Chloe Kelly said the ProSales program was a good fit for the skills she wants to use in her future career.
“I wanted a job where I could have personable relationships and be able to serve people,” Kelly said. “I wasn’t sure what that looked like, but as I watched through my classes freshman year [and] started meeting people who were older in the ProSales program, I started telling them about my heart for what my long-term goals looked like, [and] a lot of them were saying, ‘This sounds like sales really would be a great career for you.'”
Kelly said the ProSales program allows the practice of a variety of skills and will enable her to pursue multiple career options.
“I think one of my favorite parts about the sales program is that sales is very broad,” Kelly said. “I think people can say sales and throw that word around, but there’s so many different avenues that you could take, whether it be more consultative sales, more technology sales, more medical sales, insurance sales [or] anything like that.”
Austin senior Sydney Aguillon said she chose ProSales for multiple reasons, one of which was her inspiration from her parents.
“My parents are both in sales, and so I grew up seeing them do that as their career, but I actually wanted to try to do something different,” Aguillon said. “I started off as a health science major. I wanted to be a PA, and then I kind of realized that was not really the career path for me. I wanted something a little bit more creative, and I still really wanted to help people, and I found that sales had a lot of transferable skills. You’re still helping people, but you also get to problem-solve, and there’s a lot more growth in my mind for that and for my personality.”
Like Kelly, Aguillon said she was also inspired by a student in the ProSales program.
“I met someone who was in the ProSales program, and she really inspired me to want to do it because she was also in the PA program beforehand,” Aguillon said. “She was telling me about how awesome it was and how well she was able to transfer the skills over.”
Aguillon said she is happy she has had the opportunity to major in something that’s focused on the development of its students.
“Baylor has one of the top selling programs in the nation, and we were actually one of the first selling programs to really be developed,” Aguillon said. “So companies will come specifically to Baylor seeking out ProSales students, because they’ve seen the accomplishments of students from within our program.”
It is because of the leadership of Dixon that ProSales is successful and beneficial for students, Aguillon said.
“I think I’ve been so lucky to have [Dixon], and she has just pushed me in ways that I can’t even describe,” Aguillon said. “She is so driven and cares so much about her students’ development. Every single thing within the program has a purpose, and there’s never any busy work or anything like that. She has just designed this incredible program.”
