Washington State University’s Center for Professional Sales provides students with a world-class sales education, facilitates practical sales training, and conducts research to empower the next generation of sales leaders to make an immediate impact at organizations in sales-related industries.
Students are prepared for exciting careers in professional sales and customer account management by collaborating with leading businesses that provide hands-on experience, helping students develop the skills needed for a successful sales career.
Professional Sales Certificate
The Professional Sales Certificate Program at WSU is open to all majors. This program prepares students for multiple forms of persuasive communication, creating and delivering value to business customers and effectively managing sales operations.
To complete the certificate, students must complete 15 credits consisting of three required courses and two additional electives with a 2.5 GPA or better.
Required core courses include:
- MKTG 360
- MKTG 379
- MKTG 478
Two additional electives should be drawn from:
- MKTG 450
- MKTG 479
- MKTG 480
- ENTRP 490
- HBM 480
- MGMT 485
Meet The Team
Director
Director
Pullman Campus
Pat Johnson is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Department of Marketing & International Business and the Director, WSU Center for Professional Sales, Pullman. He teaches professional sales and business courses grounded in real-world applications, helping students launch successful sales careers. Pat holds a J.D. From the University of Virginia School of Law, and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Washington. Originally from Spokane, Pat practiced Corporate Law for five years, lastly at Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle. Pat then spent the last 15 years working in various roles in LegalTech companies, marketing and selling software for legal applications, before coming to WSU. Pat lives in Pullman, and enjoys snowboarding, mountain biking, and spending time with his family and dog, Ike.
Vancouver Faculty
Faculty
Vancouver Faculty
Dr. Sa Vinhas is an associate professor in the Department of Marketing and International Business. He is based in our Vancouver campus, where he teaches the core MBA marketing class, and the Sales Management and Marketing Management electives in the undergraduate program. His primary research interests are in business-to-business marketing and the structure and management of distribution channels. He has published articles in many leading academic journals, including Marketing Science, Management Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Letters and the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management.
Pullman Faculty
Pullman Faculty
Prior to joining Washington State University as an Assistant Professor of Marketing, Bitty completed a PhD in Marketing at the University of Missouri. Her research interests are fueled by her professional experience in development and sales prior to joining academia and seek to enhance understanding of how sales interactions unfold and influence performance. Her research aims to provide practitioners with insights that would enable more effective sales training, management, and evaluation. To answer these questions, she uses unstructured data (acoustic, text) to explore sales interactions dyadically and dynamically through text mining, natural language processing, and acoustic analysis. In her down time, she likes to eat good food, travel anywhere and everywhere, and explore all the Palouse has to offer with her dog Kenai.