Partnership merges corporate sales coaching with academic coursework to equip students for careers in B2B selling
Mastering a structured sales approach gives students tools that serve them from their initial job through their entire professional journey.”— Matt Sunshine, CEO of The Center for Sales Strategy
The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS), a top provider of sales performance solutions and training, is teaming up with professors in SUNY Brockport’s School of Business and Management to integrate practical, industry-grade sales training into the university setting, enabling students to develop hands-on abilities they can apply immediately in their future roles.
CSS has established a tailored space for SUNY Brockport within its web-based Learning Lab, granting students entry to focused coursework from the Sales Accelerator. This initiative goes beyond theoretical sales education, concentrating instead on the execution of selling—converting sales ideas into concrete techniques and a systematic methodology utilized by seasoned sales experts.
The digital coursework is supplemented by on-campus sessions led by Michael Doyle, adjunct lecturer and former Interim Dean of SUNY Brockport’s School of Business and Management. Employing a flipped-classroom model, Doyle assigns CSS modules as homework and dedicates classroom time to deepening comprehension through real-world scenarios, hands-on activities, group conversations, and chances for students to rehearse the techniques they are acquiring.
“Standard coursework lays a solid groundwork in sales theory, but I aimed to place additional weight on skill-building,” said Doyle. “Thanks to CSS’s online modules, I can invert the classroom—utilizing the training as homework and reserving class sessions for case analysis and exercises that make those ideas tangible.”
Doyle contributes 35 years of expertise in media sales and leadership to his teaching role, having retired in 2020 as President of Sales Operations for Entercom, now known as Audacy. Throughout his career, he developed and delivered sales and management training programs and also participated in CSS training personally.
“I went through CSS training in the 1990s with their outstanding in-person sales and management courses, so I was confident the material would be top-notch,” Doyle said. “My role is to animate that material with in-person case studies that let these students practice the skills they are learning online.”
For over four decades, CSS has partnered with sales teams to transform sales knowledge into practical abilities, methodologies, and behaviors that boost performance. Integrating the Sales Accelerator into SUNY Brockport’s classrooms delivers that expertise to students at an earlier stage of their career growth, enhancing their academic learning with exposure to the functional skills required in a professional selling environment.
“Acquiring a repeatable sales process provides students with a toolkit that stays with them from their first position through their entire career,” said Matt Sunshine, CEO of The Center for Sales Strategy. “For decades, we’ve assisted professional salespeople in converting sales knowledge into actionable skills, and introducing this training into the college setting allows us to start that process even sooner. These students can enter the workforce knowing not just what sales entails, but how to sell in a manner that delivers meaningful value to customers.”
For Doyle, that early exposure can offer students a notable edge as they launch their careers. “Providing college students this early advantage in professional B2B sales gives them a competitive edge upon graduation and a strong launch into a sales career,” Doyle said.
EXTENDING PROFESSIONAL SALES TRAINING INTO ACADEMIA
The deployment of Sales Accelerator at SUNY Brockport highlights one illustration of how CSS’s professional sales training can enhance sales education within a university setting.
Building on this initiative, CSS identifies broader opportunities to collaborate with instructors and programs at other colleges and universities seeking to enrich sales education with practical skill development and familiarity with established professional sales techniques. For students, this translates to entering the workforce with increased confidence in the skills and expectations of professional sales roles. For employers, it opens the door to a new wave of sales professionals who start their careers with a more solid groundwork for achievement.
“We would be thrilled to see more universities teaching professional sales and giving students the chance to practice these skills prior to entering the job market,” Sunshine said. “There is significant potential to bridge what students learn in the classroom with what successful sales organizations demand from their teams. We view this as a chance to help cultivate the next generation of sales professionals while offering employers access to graduates who are more ready to make an impact from day one.”
The Center for Sales Strategy partners with organizations to enhance sales performance through talent, training, and tactics. Additional details about CSS and its sales training methodology can be found at TheCenterforSalesStrategy.com.
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR SALES STRATEGY
Established in 1983, The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS) has expanded to serve hundreds of clients each year across a wide range of industries. For more than 40 years, CSS has concentrated on boosting sales performance as it assists sales organizations in converting talent into results and cultivating top-performing sales professionals. Its focus on customer-centric selling and talent-driven management has remained, and continues to be, central to its clients' achievements and the organization's own success. CSS is accompanied by LeadG2, its revenue operations agency, Up Your Culture, its employee engagement and corporate culture division, and Robertson Lowstuter, its executive coaching firm, to support organizations in achieving comprehensive revenue performance. To discover more about The Center for Sales Strategy and its family of brands, visit TotalRevenuePerformance.com.
Shaye Smith
The Center for Sales Strategy
shayesmith@csscenter.com
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