By Howard F. Dover, Robert M. Peterson, and Gary L. Selden
Volume 15, Number 2
Networking is a quintessential task of every sales professional. The ability to connect with people, provide value to the relationship, and leverage that opportunity for the benefit of relevant stakeholders is a coveted skill. The purpose of this paper is to share an innovative approach to social capital development within a classroom activity. Using social networking sites (e.g., LinkedIn), students were asked to identify and develop their professional ties. Evidence shows social capital being developed via online social networking, informational interviews, and mentor development and that students far exceeded the demands/quotas laid out for them. The outcomes lead to positive effects for students (e.g., internship offers, mentoring), alumni (identification of the best graduates to hire), and the business field in general.
At the start of each semester, students file into many marketing courses and discuss their professional aspirations. Inevitably, some want to be pharmaceutical representatives; others want to enter sports marketing; still others want to work for a large advertising agency in a major city. As students progress through their undergraduate programs, interests change, but their experience and understanding of their target fields seems consistently deficient. As they explore their various professional interests, they naturally lack experience, knowledge, and connections within their target professions. With the advent of professional social networking websites, such as LinkedIn.com, the process of identifying and communicating with industry thought leaders, hiring firms, and appropriate alumni connections has never been more streamlined. However, the mere existence of these enhanced connections does not improve student networks without some action. In the current environment, where social media is so prevalent, the need for students to utilize networking tools and to develop their professional contacts could not be greater.
Howard F. Dover (Ph.D., University of Texas at Dallas),
Clinical Professor of Marketing, Jindall School of Management,
University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, howard.dover@ utdallas.edu
robert M. Peterson (Ph.D., University of Memphis), White
Lodging Professor of Sales, Department of Marketing,
Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL, peterson@niu.edu
Gary l. selden (Ed.D., University of Georgia), Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, Kennesaw State
University, Kennesaw, GA, gselden@kennesaw.edu
Experiential learning is a valuable method used to enhance student learning within the marketing and sales fields (Kolb and Boyatzis 1999). While many sales texts provide ample role-play scenarios as an effective learning tool (Ingram et al. 2013), a number of students struggle with them. Some professors may use client-based projects, or other live presentations, to help motivate the students to explore the sales process. Such live projects require students to attempt to complete the full sales process within a semester which may frustrate, rather than motivate, student participation (Elam and
Spotts 2004). These projects may be better suited for those students who express an actual interest in the sales profession (Dover and Ewing 2011). Finding an appropriate experiential learning activity for all the students remains a challenge.
In the current paper, we introduce “Build Your
Network,” an experiential learning activity introducing students to networking as it relates to the sales process, while they explore their current professional interests.
This project moves beyond strategy development, as students implement, evaluate, and adjust communication strategies to accomplish their assigned quota and obtain career mentors. We will show that students in an Introductory Professional Sales course were able to gain substantial personal benefit from completing this experiential exercise. The next section of this paper will outline the details of how this project is implemented. We then will show how this project provides outcomes that directly impact participating students’ social networks.
We will finish the paper by discussing potential obstacles and limitations of the current approach.
11

Journal of Selling tHeOreticAl BAcKGrOuND OF sOciAl cAPitAl
Social Capital Theory provides an underpinning for understanding the power and importance of groups of people bonding together. It refers to connections within and between social networks (Lin 2001). It helps to explain how human interaction creates opportunities which can be leveraged for improved outcomes for the stakeholders involved. People joining networks tend to see higher rates of return because they are informed of opportunities (Burt 1992). In short, social capital is “the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (Bourdieu and
Wacquant 1992, p. 119).
Social capital can engender mutual trust and help problem-solving, thus enhancing efficiency between parties (McEvily and Marcus 2005). Using a “buildyour-network-before-you-need-it” premise, individuals in networked relationships with potential hiring managers may find it easier to gain traction with firms by meeting through other means than “cold calls.”
Social capital in essence represents the goodwill available to individuals from their network of relationships (Adler and Kwon 2002).
Organizations – in this case universities – can encourage employees/students to network and thereby aggregate these interactions into a valuable resource. This type of rich interface can create opportunities for both sides of the dyad. For instance, a student that might have been overlooked in the normal selection process could now make it to the consideration set with the right connection. The “connection” in the hiring firm may help the student get the proper introduction to get to the next stage. Certainly, the student will need to stand on their own merit, but the ability to present to the decision maker is a desirable position for job seekers.
tHe eXPerieNtiAl eXercise: BuilD YOur
NetWOrK
The purpose of the “Build Your Network” project is to help students identify, expand, and deepen their connections within a professional network and thereby develop social capital. To accomplish these goals, students are assigned a quota of performing at least ten informational interviews with professionals in their field(s) of interest before the end of the semester. While the task is quite simply defined, the best results are achieved by breaking down the objective into logical sub-steps that lead to higher student success. The rest of this section will describe, in detail, the steps defined in Figure 1. identify Network
To help facilitate this project, we use three basic
LinkedIn.com assignments similar to Peterson and
Dover (2014). The first activity is to create a profile and connect to the professor. For the second activity, students update their LinkedIn profile with a professional photo, relevant work experience, and other items available in the profile tool of the website. Students are asked to submit screen shots of their profile as evidence that they have completed these activities. The third, and final, activity requires students to connect to at least twentyfive (25) new connections and at least ten (10) groups on LinkedIn. Since most students only connect with other students in the class or other people they already know at first, we encourage them to identify key people in their industry through additional exercises. Students are assigned to explore at least two industries that interest them professionally. A discussion board is set up for them to post key facts about those industries including trends, top companies, and trade associations.
The previous discussion provides valuable basic information to develop a prospecting strategy. Students are then assigned to develop a list of possible prospects for their informational interviews. They are encouraged to use LinkedIn.com’s search tools to identify potential candidates for their information interviews as well as seek family and friends who may hold key positions in their industries of interest. Students are then asked to provide significant feedback and insight to their peers by evaluating and contributing to each other’s prospecting lists. At the end of this process, most students have developed a sufficient list of potential prospects for their interviews. It is important to note that these assignments are augmented by course lectures where we discuss the sales funnel and the reality that the ability to connect with some prospects may be more
12 Northern Illinois University

Volume 15, Number 2
Figure 1
Build Your Network Steps
Identify Network
Establish LinkedIn Presence and Connections (Peterson and Dover 2014)
 Create Account
 Complete Profile
 Connect to 25 people and join 10 groups
Identify Industry Prospects
 Choose two industries to explore (Ex. Sales, Marketing, Event Planning, etc)
 Develop a Prospecting plan including a possible list of industry people to contact
 Contribute to Peer evaluation of prospecting strategies through the online discussion tool
Expand and Deepen Network
Develop a Sales Dialogue
 Develop scripts for initial communication
 Develop questions for actual interview
Deploy Developed Plans
 Contact list of prospects using sales dialogue
 Adjust strategy via prospect feedback and results
 Obtain and give peer feedback via online discussion
Engage prospects by completing Informational Interview
Develop mentors and obtain job opportunities difficult than others. We also discuss that the degree of difficulty is often directly related to the degree of influence that person may have in their desired industry
(Granovetter 1973, 1974).
expand and Deepen Network
Now that students have a list of potential contacts, they are eager to contact their prospects. However, prior to contacting their prospects, they are asked to develop a sales dialogue. (See Figure 1.) The dialogue contains both a script for their initial prospecting contact via phone or e-mail as well as the questions they plan to ask during their information interview. As with the prospecting strategy, students are assigned the task of providing feedback and making a substantial contribution to their peers’ sales dialogues via an online discussion.
With a list of prospects, a prospecting script, and a list of interview questions, the students are ready to deploy their strategy by contacting their prospects. As students contact their list of prospects, an online discussion board provides students an opportunity to share their successes and their challenges with other students. This the challenges experienced and learn from the successful outcomes of their peers. Students are encouraged to post weekly and provide feedback weekly on the outcomes discussion board. This group activity leads students to make appropriate modifications to both their prospect lists and their sales dialogue which in turn leads to a high rate of quota attainment.
13

Journal of Selling the Final report
Each student is asked to report on his or her project at the end of the semester. The written document contains three sections. The cover page includes key figures, including the number of contacts made, number of interviews completed, and other useful statistics. In the next two pages, the students are asked to reflect on the assignment. They are asked to report on changes made to their prospect or communication strategies, as well as what value the project provides them personally as an emerging professional. In the final two pages, they provide the names and contact information of the interviewees, indicating if the person has agreed to be a mentor. This mentoring relationship is an informal arrangement where the industry expert agrees to provide valuable information about his/her industry and how to pursue a career in it. The student also provides a brief overview of what was learned from the interview.
resources Needed for implementation
Since LinkedIn.com provides free accounts to all users, the financial cost to implement this project is zero.
However, since the project is assigned at the individual student level, there can be significant time required to develop and grade all the steps in a course management system. Use of peer evaluation, a technique suggested for many of the larger steps, is one method to reduce the amount of time needed to assess all assignments.
For larger sections, professors may find the innovation unmanageable without a teaching assistant. results
The goal of this project is to help students build a professional network in their field of interest. The results from this project have been consistently encouraging and motivating. Most students use this project as an opportunity to truly expand and deepen their professional network (Janasz and Forret 2008).
The results clearly show that students not only engage in this activity, but exceed expectations (quota) in many areas of network development as evidenced by both
Table 1 and 2.
On average, more than 40 percent of interviews were completed with new contacts, as shown in Table 2.
Many students chose to expand the size of their social networks, rather than only interview people they knew
– a daunting task for some students at this stage of their development. Students found the experience so valuable that almost 20 percent of students exceeded their quota of ten interviews in one semester. Also, a vast majority of the students choose to connect with more than the 25 people required by the assignment. The results clearly show that students are capable of expanding the size of their professional networks through this exercise.
14
Table 1
Fall Quota Attainment
43 Total Students
Mean St Dev >100% 100% 80 – 90% Quota
(10) Informational Interviews 9.37
(25) LinkedIn Connections
(10) LinkedIn Groups
45.89
10.69
2.28
10.33
3.21
3
43
24
Spring Quota Attainment
Quota
25
0
5
10
0
11
48 Total Students
Mean St Dev >100% 100% 80 – 90%
Below
80%
5
1
2
(10) Informational Interviews
(25) LinkedIn Connections
(10) LinkedIn Groups
Uncommon Connections
Number of Contacts
Mentors Obtained
Percent Known
E-mailed
Employment Opportunity
9.95
51.17
12.69
2.85
15.27
4.52
.
Table 2
23.73
1.99
9
45
23
Additional Performance Statistics
Fall
Mean
14.60
12.45
3.60
43.3%
1.95
28%
St Dev
8.76
4.34
2.53
19
0
6
Mean
17.13
14.59
2.95
41.6%
2.63
40%
10
2
8
Spring
Below
80%
10
1
11
Northern Illinois University
St Dev
10.53
7.78
2.21
30.5
2.55
11

Table 1
Fall Quota Attainment
43 Total Students
Mean St Dev >100% 100% 80 – 90% Quota
(10) Informational Interviews 9.37
(25) LinkedIn Connections
(10) LinkedIn Groups
45.89
10.69
2.28
10.33
3.21
3
43
24
Spring Quota Attainment
Quota
25
0
5
10
0
11
48 Total Students
Mean St Dev >100% 100% 80 – 90%
Below
80%
5
1
2
(10) Informational Interviews
(25) LinkedIn Connections
(10) LinkedIn Groups
Uncommon Connections
Number of Contacts
Mentors Obtained
Percent Known
E-mailed
Employment Opportunity
9.95
51.17
12.69
2.85
15.27
4.52
.
Table 2
23.73
1.99
9
45
23
Additional Performance Statistics
Fall
Mean
14.60
12.45
3.60
43.3%
1.95
28%
St Dev
8.76
4.34
2.53
19
0
6
Mean
17.13
14.59
2.95
41.6%
2.63
40%
10
2
8
Spring
Below
80%
10
1
11
Volume 15, Number 2
St Dev
10.53
7.78
2.21
30.5
2.55
The results also show that students are able to both deepen their social ties and extract resources from those connections they identify. As shown in Table
2, the average participant obtained three mentors by completing this project. We see that 28 percent of Fall students and 40 percent of Spring students reported obtaining employment opportunities through this process: an employment opportunity being measured as an internship offer or post-graduation job interview obtained. These figures indicate that some students were able to use new and existing connections’ resources in favorable ways.
challenge actually provides a valuable opportunity to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various communication strategies, given the target audience.
Portions of the data used for evaluation is self-reported, which could lead to students reporting more than they told that they obtain credit if they interview anyone.
Therefore, students have limited incentive to create false statistics in their reports.
cONclusiONs
The results from this project show that students can increase their social capital by engaging in this project.
Now that this exercise has been repeated over several semesters, our recent sales-and-marketing alumni are aware of the project and are more active in working with current students. We have seen three generations of employment offers with a major employer in the area and have heard from marketing executives that, due to our marketing students’ networking activities, our social presence on LinkedIn is very prominent.
In this experiential exercise, we moved beyond classroom activities as students developed social capital in the marketplace. This innovation should be a valuable activity beyond the current sample, students in a professional selling course. The activity may be easily modified for use in various marketing and business courses. It serves to encourage students to use professional social networking and other networking tools to develop their professional network.
OBstAcles AND reMeDies
In this project, students’ preference for e-mail or LinkedIn mail is evident. This reliance on asynchronous communication exposes students to a lack of response and often leads to delayed or negative outcomes. These negative outcomes actually provide a professor with the unique opportunity to reinforce the concept of individual preferences in communications.
Students often prefer asynchronous communication like Facebook, e-mail, and texting. However, not all professionals use each medium of communication for professional communications. Therefore, this
When used in an introductory sales class, the innovation led students to appreciate the relevance of the sales process in a real-world setting. In addition, students found the course to be more relevant and expressed in the course evaluations that they learned more from the sales class with this activity. Students who seized this opportunity were able to identify potential internship opportunities for the school’s mandatory internship program, which benefited both the current student as well as future students of the business school. This innovation also provided benefits to the business school through fostering appropriate alumni connections with current students. Further, the current students knew they would be the future alumni who can “give back” to the sales class/program by providing guidance and
15

Journal of Selling also may have the opportunity to hire a rising star for their company. This activity was a relevant tool that provided valuable outcomes to students, professors, and the business school.
reFereNces
Adler, Paul S. and Seok-Woo Kwon (2002), “Social
Capital: Prospects for a New Concept,” Academy of
Management Review , 27(1), 17-40.
Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic Wacquant (1992), An
Invitation to Reflexive Sociology , Cambridge, England:
Polity Press.
Burt, R. S. (1992), Structural holes: The Social
Structure of Competition . Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Dover, H. F., and S. R. Ewing (2011), “Moving Beyond
Consultation and Into Action with a Client Based
Project”, Forthcoming American Journal of Business
Education .
Elam, E. L. R. and Spotts, H. E. (2004), “Achieving
Marketing Curriculum Integration: A Live Case Study
Approach”, Journal of Marketing Education , 26, (1),
50-65.
Granovetter, M.S. (1973), “The Strength of Weak Ties.”
American Journal of Sociology . 78, 1360-1380.
Granovtter, M.S. (1974), Getting a job, A Study of
Contacts and Careers . Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Ingram, Thomas N., Raymond W. LaForge, Ramon
A. Avila, Charles W. Schwepker Jr., and Michael R.
Williams (2012), Sell 3, Mason, OH: South-Western
Cengage Learning.
Janasz, S. C. and M.L. Forret (2008), “Learning the Art of Networking: A Critical Skill for Enhancing Social
Capital and Career Success,” Journal of Management
Education , 32, (5), 629-650.
Kolb, D. A., R. E. Boyatzis,, and C. Mainemelis, (1999),
Experiential Learning Theory: Previous Research and
New Directions. In R. J. Sternberg & L. F. Zhang (Eds.),
Perspectives on Cognitive, Learning, and Thinking
Styles . NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000.
Lin, Nan (2001), Social Capital: A Theory of Social
Structure and Action , New York: Cambridge University
Press.
McEvily, Bill and Alfred Marcus (2005), “Embedded
Ties and the Acquisition of Competitive Capabilities,”
Strategic Management Journal , 26(11), 1033-1055.
Peterson, Robert and Howard Dover (2014), “Building
Student Networks with LinkedIn: The Potential for Connections, Internships, and Jobs,” Marketing
Education Review , 24 (1), 15-20.
16 Northern Illinois University