Assessing students’ exercise in sales pitching: A preliminary study

Experiential learning is learning that comes from doing, and provides advantages over the traditional delivery of lectures.The hands-on learning approach and the experience of carrying out (for example, through role play) an assigned exercise can help students internalize concepts they learn in class.Many students find experiential learning a fun exercise that enhances their classroom experience.This paper details the nature of an experiential exercise examined in two courses in an undergraduate degree program, namely, Salesmanship, and Industrial Marketing. During the semester, the experiential exercise involved every student in an assignment, carried out individually, that gave them the experience of attempting to sell a product or service to potential customers through a sales pitching. Assessment was divided into two separate parts, for: (i) the sales pitching, and (ii) oral presentation. For the sales pitching, students were assessed on whether he/she was able to match certain features of the product to the customer’s advantage. While for the oral presentation, a rubric was utilized to assess students on eight criteria: organization, subject knowledge, visual aids, eye contact, pronunciation, clarity of voice, confidence, and attire.Students were scored on four levels of performance, with a score of 1 (Below basic), 2 (Basic), 3 (Proficient), and 4 (Advanced). The study showed that students who were taught and discussed, as part of their syllabus, the topic of salesmanship, performed better than their counterpart who were only given a little guidance.Results of the sales pitching provide evidence that selling can be learnt.