SEI is sponsored by over 25 corporations including 3M, State Farm, Ecolab, Liberty Mutual, Edward Jones and many others. These partners not only help fund SEI and its subsidiary organization the Program for Excellence in Selling, but also contribute to the professional development of our students by volunteering their time speaking to classes, mentoring students, and attending events/meetings.
SEI blends a combination of executive professors who have at least two decades of Fortune 500 sales executive management experience and Ph.D. research professors who are today’s leading, most widely published authors in the sales discipline. Most recently, SEI has developed a comprehensive benchmarking knowledge base of sales and sales management competencies for Ecolab – the global leader in cleaning, sanitizing, food safety and infection control products and services. SEI trained over 300 Ecolab managers, a makeup of front-line district managers, area managers, regional VPs and high-potential upper-level managers.
In 2009-2010, researchers at SEI published more sales-related articles in top marketing journals (i.e., Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research) than any other university worldwide.
SEI is unique in its emphasis on doctoral education and research. Our organization provides support for doctoral student sales research in two ways: (1) by providing funding and (2) by providing data access. Doctoral students working with SEI are in high demand with universities aspiring to start sales programs. Recent doctoral graduates affiliated with the SEI have received between three and five job offers and have accepted positions at schools like: Michigan State, University of Georgia, Washington State, Clemson, Kent State and Iowa State.
In recent years, over 40 universities have visited SEI in order to learn about how to establish their own sales institutes. These universities which recognize SEI as the leader in this field include: Michigan State, University of Arizona, Arizona State, University of Georgia, Georgia State, University of Washington, University of Kansas, University of Iowa, University of North Carolina, University of Connecticut and University of Alabama.
The SEI hosts the Houston Conference in Selling and Sales Management every other year. In 2009, the conference welcomed presenters from 75 universities including: Harvard, Duke, Chicago, Northwestern and Yale. Attendees from both academia and industry came from as far as Europe and Asia.
SEI is partnered with the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) at Penn State University. This partnership is driving knowledge generation regarding business-to-business and business-to-consumer selling.
