Miller College of Business Distinguished Professor Lecture Series

Sales Profession 2030: What’s the Future Hold?

5:00 p.m., Wednesday, April 23, 2014
L.A. Pittenger Student Center, Cardinal Hall A
Discussion and reception to follow, Music Lounge

Ramon A. Avila
George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Marketing

Ramon A. Avila, George and Francis Ball Distinguished Professor of Marketing, presents, "Sales Profession 2030: What’s the Future Hold?” as part of the Miller College of Business Distinguished Professor Lecture Series. Free and open to the public.

Change is inevitable. Similar to other professions, the sales profession has evolved in the last few decades and will continue to do so. The type of education that precedes a profession in sales is becoming more important and competitive. The trend is that colleges and universities are putting more focus on sales education.

In 2006, only 30 schools had formal sales programs. In 2012, this number more than doubled to 73. Employers have been fast to embrace graduates who have gone through a formal sales program.
Credit toward the Miller College of Business Advanced Professionalism Certificate will be given.


About Ramon A, Avila
Ramon A. Avila is the George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Marketing and the founding director of the H.H. Gregg Center for Professional Selling. He earned his bachelor’s degree in marketing in 1977 and MBA in 1979 from Ball State University. He completed his PhD at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and joined the Ball State faculty in 1984.

Before coming to Ball State, he worked in sales with the Burroughs Corporation. He taught as a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii (1990–1991) and the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University (2002). He also directed Ball State’s Australia Center in spring semester 2011.

In 2008, Avila was named the Hormel Foods Master Teacher of the Year, sponsored by the Marketing and Management Association in Chicago. In April 2002, Avila received a Leavey Award from the Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge for innovation in the classroom with his advanced professional selling class. He was named the 1999 Mu Kappa Tau Outstanding Contributor to the Sales Profession.

Avila also received Ball State’s Outstanding Faculty Award (2003), Outstanding Service Award (1998), Outstanding Junior Faculty Award (1989), and Miller College Professor of the Year Award (1989). In 2011, he was bestowed with Ball State’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Avila has published more than 30 refereed journal articles and is the coauthor of two textbooks, Professional Selling and Sales Management. He has been the program chair and the director for the National Conference in Sales Management. A frequent consultant, he has worked with major corporations.

• The session is open to the public. Question and answer session to follow.
• Credit will be given for the Advanced Professionalism Certificate and proof of attendance will be available to students.

For more information, contact business@bsu.edu or 765-285-8192.

The Miller College Distinguished Professor Lecture Series is made possible by support from London Witte Group.

The summit is sponsored in part by the Northeast Indiana Area Health Education Center (NEI-AHEC), housed in Building Better Communities at Ball State.