Dear Professor,

Thank you for your feedback on how textbooks sales reps waste your time. When you say that you don’t have time for sales people, I completely understand. I don’t much care to be interrupted by the typical tactics of sales people.

One sales rep described his (or her) job by making comments about the need to make a certain number of calls. That is a micro perspective of the job. From a corporation perspective a publishing company wants to be the first company you consider when purchasing a new textbook, when you consider a books of quality and the accompany programs easy to use when supporting student learning and when you want to publish your own work.

What I question is your remarks that you don’t know anything about sales. My academics tell me they know nothing about sales. Sales come into play in your every day work. You sell yourself to your students to get quality feedback on their evaluations. You sell yourself when you write articles. You sell yourself when approach journals and when you want to your work published. If you published a magnificent article, yet it was not published wouldn’t that affect your job?

One of the main motivations for earning a doctorate was to approach others making scholarly contributions with levity. To understand better what it takes to earn such a degree. Today, I am just as impressed with those that have earned a terminal degree as I was when I did not have one. Yet, today, I better understand the characteristics and qualities that go into earning that degree and using it to write and gain tenure.

Professors that say I don’t know anything about selling are kidding themselves. The tactics it takes to teach, write, get published and earn tenure take sales. Putting up a wall that your role as an academic, a professor, a researcher does not require the qualities of a good sales person is hard to believe. You are actually sell yourself and your work to a wider market than most sales people. Your market includes students, colleagues, publishers, journal editors and those that site your work.

If you want to believe you not in sales, your secret is safe with me.