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School of Journalism and New Media
University of Mississippi

New Course: Former UM student will teach students the psychology of sales in May

Posted on: March 30th, 2017 by ldrucker

Selling things involves psychology.

How do you get people to buy your product?

Why would they want to buy what you’re selling?

Those are two of the problems a new course offered by the Meek School of Journalism and New Media’s Integrated Marketing Communications Department will address in May.

IMC 362 Introduction to Sales will be taught by special guest Joe George, who has worked with Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc., a global media consulting firm.

George said he wants students to learn “that sales is an admirable profession, and that selling is a part of our everyday lives. Also, I want them to learn that no one wants to be ‘sold’ anything. But everyone loves to buy. What they buy is what the course is all about.”

George, according to his Facebook page, attended North Panola High School (in Mississippi) and the University of Mississippi. In the past, he was a lecturer at the Tippie School of Business at University of Iowa. 

“He taught during intersession a few years ago to rave reviews, and is coming back to Oxford in May to do it again,” said Scott Fiene, program director and assistant professor of integrated marketing communications.

Fiene said the course will cover the selling process.

“It will focus on identifying the real problems in a sales situation and review how to bring the right skills to bear on those problems at the right time,” he said. “It will cover the ‘how to’ and the ‘why to,’ and is based on information generated by the behavioral sciences.

“In other words, it looks at why people do the things they do, and how to use this knowledge to your advantage when placed in a selling situation.”

George once worked with Frank N. Magid Associates, a leading research-based strategic consulting firm that helps clients become profitable by solving problems and helping them take advantage of opportunities.

According to the company website, Magid strives to bring unique frameworks for solving problems and seizing opportunities to each engagement.

“We are unique because, for 53 years, we have carefully studied human behavior and how communication affects it,” the website reads. “We possess an uncanny understanding of what and how marketing and communication will motivate people to behave in certain ways. This understanding provides us with a unique consumer lens through which we approach each engagement.”

Magid leaders say they use their “expertise to help clients develop and market products and services and make investment decisions that align with consumer attitudes and expected behaviors.”

The company has offices in Minnesota, New York, Iowa, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Dallas.

George once worked as a lecturer at the Tippie College of Business at The University of Iowa. Tippie has 3,000 students and six academic departments, including accounting, economics, finance, marketing, management and organizations and management sciences. They have 48,000 alumni and are growing.

The Tippie College of Business was established eight years after the University of Iowa in 1847, according to the school website. The first “business” course offered there was Moral Philosophy, which examined the political economy, a subject that evolved to later include modern economics, finance, and commerce.

For more information about the IMC 362 Introduction to Sales course or other courses offered by the Meek School of Journalism and New Media, contact Fiene at safiene@olemiss.edu and visit the Meek School website at https://jnm.olemiss.edu for more information about our programs.

  • Story by LaReeca Rucker, adjunct journalism instructor
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