John B. and Lillian E. Neff College of Business and Innovation

• Hardworking and engaged students who know how to balance priorities.  Almost 60% of ESSPS students work 15 or more hours a week to finance their educations (over 70% have a job while in school), and over 50% of ESSPS students are involved with campus organizations.
• Pi Sigma Epsilon (PSE) chapter offers additional opportunities for students to collaborate on sales and marketing professional development and fun
• Between our ESSPS professional sales majors and the UToledo Invitational Sales Competition (UTISC) students, ESSPS has helped to launch the professional sales careers of 2,500+ students who have gone on to serve almost 221,500 customers!

Grow Skills

• Integrated, hands-on, curricula with role plays (individual, team, virtual), simulations, and more.  Taught by faculty who have sales experience and multiple national/international research awards including Fulbright, best papers, and more.
• Only university with a 360 degree, cohesive curricula between classes on sales, purchasing, and sales leadership
• Only university to require a purchasing class to ensure students understand customer perspective.  Understanding customer perspective is the number one skillset of a top performing sales professional.
• Sales interns from just 4 ESSPS/UTISC corporate partners/sponsors generated over $28 million in revenue in 2024.  Most of those sales interns are from ESSPS/UToledo.  Some sales interns were outperforming regular full-time reps.  

Develop Confidence

• 1st AACSB university with a professional sales major
• 1st endowed professional sales program
• 1st and only national sales competition to focus exclusively on the non-senior, UToledo Invitational Sales Competition (UTISC)
• 1st national sales competition to be certified by University Sales Center Alliance (USCA) for running a quality and best practices based competition, UTISC
• Founding member of University Sales Center Alliance (USCA)
• Founding member of Global Sales Science Institute (GSSI)
• Top-10 lifetime sales research impact according to ScholarGPS
• Only university out of 157 professional sales programs in the country to have a professional sales major, minor, some other undergraduate degree designation and a graduate degree designation
  Strategic alignment with an active advisory board comprised of businesses, alumni, and students

Cultivate Relationships

• Over a decade of 95% career placement
• Coaching in person and online from faculty, peers, and industry professionals
• Compete and engage at national and regional competitions making friends and meeting employers across the country.  Join a supportive team that has a top 10 track record for over two decades.
• 700+ small group corporate interactions for ESSPS students and 1,700+ for UTISC students each year between coaching, role plays, development blocks, exclusive engagements, and more

External Support Makes Excellence Possible

Time, talent, and treasure from Ed Schmidt, the business community and individuals combined with ESSPS faculty/staff make our collaborative impact possible. 

ESSPS faculty, staff, and operations are 40% externally funded.  Staff and operations are nearly 100% externally funded.  Corporate partners/sponsors provide 80%, and the Schmidt endowments provide 20%.

We are grateful for Ed Schmidt, our ESSPS Corporate Partners, UTISC Sponsors, Sales Leaders Round Table, Sales Student Experience Support Club, and others who give to support ESSPS staff and operations (fund 2-400-880).

History

The professional sales concentration was first established in 1990.  A pivotal moment came in 2000, when a generous gift from Edward H. Schmidt enabled the roll out of a professional sales major.  Edward deepened his commitment in 2002 by endowing the Edward H. Schmidt School of Professional Sales, providing essential seed funding.

Recognizing that seeds need nurturing, we launched the Corporate Partnership Program in 2006.  This initiative allowed us to co-create a student experience that remained closely aligned with the evolving needs of the business community.

In 2010, we moved into the new Savage Business Complex.  Thanks to the continued support of our corporate partners, our sales suites were outfitted with cutting-edge technology and learning environments designed for student success.  That same year, we introduced our Internal Sales Competition, which reinforced a critical gap in talent development and recruitment for both companies and universities.

To address this need on a national scale and broaden our funding base, we created the UToledo Invitational Sales Competition (UTISC) and its associated Sponsorship Program in 2016. 

In 2024, we took another step forward by forming the Sales Student Experience Support Club.  This initiative was designed to include alumni and individual donors in meaningful ways, while honoring our existing donors and ensuring the sustainability of the student experience.

Learn more about the ESSPS' history.