By: Sophie Wang, Senior, Marketing
About Professor Ragland
Professor Charlie Ragland is the Executive Director of the Center for Global Sales Leadership, a Clinical Associate of Marketing and a Fettig/Whirlpool Faculty Fellow. His expertise is in sales and marketing, with an emphasis in international sales management, B2B marketing and strategy. He has been with Indiana University since 2014. Before teaching in academia, Charlie spent his career in sales and sales leadership with international work experience in Asian areas like Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, and Singapore as well areas in Europe. Having obtained his academic degrees in Georgia, Ohio, and North Carolina along with being passionate about the intersection of sales and marketing, Charlie brings regional diverse perspectives to the Kelley Marketing Department. He also recognizes and promotes the values of diversity in his classes and workshops like the Global Sales Workshop (GSW).
The Global Sales Workshop
For those who are not already familiar with the GSW, it is a multi-semester experience open to all majors and students. With around 60 members, the workshop meets bi-weekly, engages in competitions like the National Team Selling Competition, and bridges the students to sales professionals and corporate partners.
The Global Sales Workshop’s recruitment process includes two information nights, an application, two rounds of interviews, and an optional sales competition. The applications are “blinded” to minimize bias by removing names, contact information, residency, and gender. This process was implemented in 2019 to offer workshop membership away from “who people know” to “what people know”.
“It is important to have creative thoughts and opinions, which need a diverse group of people sharing them”.
In terms of current GSW members, there is diversity present through student hometowns, activities and interests. The application is open to majors from Marketing all the way to Operations, Finance, Business Management (SPEA), and more. This year, the GSW hosted “Q&A Experiences” every week for members to learn about each other’s unique experiences as well as “Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace” panels with corporate partners.
“Regional diversity (people from different states across the U.S. for example), offers values and norms that are all slightly different. Marketing and Sales brings all of these people together”.
The National Team Selling Competition
The National Team Selling Competition is very important to Indiana University and therefore takes a significant amount of time. The students put in roughly 36 hours of prep for the 2020 competition. The team has had great success in the past two years, placing 1st overall in 2019, and 1st in room in 2020, the same time the blind application process was introduced. The 2020 four-person team included representation from Marketing, Economic Consulting, Business Analytics, Accounting, Finance, Health Care Management and Policy, Entrepreneurship and Corporate Innovation and Professional Sales. These different backgrounds and majors were considered a strong factor in the team’s success and in fully understanding the case.
The leading universities that participated in the competition are also diverse. They have ranged from being public to private, large and small, coed and single sex, religious and non-religious, and historically black and integrated. Two examples of these universities are Morehouse College, an all-male and historically black college, and St Catherine University, an all-female university.
Charlie has had opportunities to teach and lead the Global Sales Workshop and National Team Selling Competition. He believes in promoting diversity within teams for all the positive advantages that it brings.
Learn more about the Global Sales Workshop, the National Team Selling Competition, and Professor Ragland here!
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