ABC's of Relationship Selling through Service

Charles M. Futrell is the federated professor of marketingat Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Hehas a B.B.A., M.B.A., and Ph.D. in marketing. Dr. Futrell is a former salesperson turned professor. Before beginning his academic career, he worked in sales and marketing capacities for eight years with the Colgate Company, the Upjohn Company, and Ayerst Laboratories.Dr. Futrell serves as a frequent reviewer for several academic journals. He is on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. His research in personal selling, sales management, research methodology, and marketing management has appeared in numerous national and international journals, such as the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Marketing Research. An article in the summer 1991 issue of the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management ranked Charles as one of the top three sales researchers in America. He was also recognized in Marketing Education, Summer 1997, as one of the top 100 best researchersin the marketing discipline.Professor Futrell served as the American Marketing Association as Chair of the Sales and Sales Management Special Interest Group (SIG) for the 1996–97 academic year. He was the first person elected to this position. Charles was elected Finance Chair for the Sales SIG's 1998–99 term. In 2005, this AMA group presented Charles with its Lifetime Achievement Award for commitment to excellence and service in the area of sales. Mu Kappa Tau, the National Marketing Honor Society, recognized Charles for exceptional scholarly contributions to the sales profession in 2000. This is only the fourth time this recognition has been bestowed since its creation in 1988.Dr. Futrell has written or cowritten eight successful booksfor the college and professional audience. Two of the mostpopular books are Fundamentals of Selling: Customers forLife, Sixth Edition, and ABC's of Relationship Selling through Service, Ninth Edition, both published by McGraw Hill LLC. These books are used in hundreds of U.S. and international schools. More than 300,000 students worldwide have benefited from Professor Futrell's books. In 1997 Dr. Futrell began using his website and group e-mails in his sales classes, which often have 100 students in each section. Students sign up for both a lecture period and lab time. In each semester's six labs, students are videotaped in activities such as making a joint sales call, panel interview, selling oneself on a job interview, product sales presentations, and various experiential exercises. TAMU's College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Business is one of the largest business programs in the U.S., with more than 6,000 full-time business majors. Approximately 50 percent of the marketing department's 800 majors are in Charles's personal selling and/or sales management classes at various times. He has worked with close to 10,000 students in sales-related classes.Professor Futrell's books, research, and teaching are basedon his extensive work with sales organizations of all types and sizes. This broad and rich background has resulted in his being invited to be a frequent speaker, researcher, and consultant to industry.

Dr. Raj Agnihotri is the dean’s  fellow in marketing and the  director of sales initiative at Ivy College of Business, Iowa State University. Previously, Raj held the first John Merrill Endowed Professorship in Consultative Sales at the University of Texas at Arlington and Robert H. Freeman Professor of Sales Leadership and Marketing chair at Ohio University. Before entering academia, Raj held a number of sales and marketing positions with start-up ventures for major global corporations. He currently serves on the advisory boards of several technology startups based in the US and Europe. Raj is also involved in executive education and has given sales seminars to industry professionals from North America, Brazil, Europe, and India. He served on the faculty of Samson Global Leadership Program  at  Cleveland  Clinic  from  2014  to  2017  and  taught  health administrators from across the world.Raj has published over 35 articles in leading scholarly journals and has presented papers at over 50 national and international conferences. He serves on   the editorial review board of Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, and Marketing Management Journal. A recipient of the prestigious 2011 James M. Comer Award for the best contribution to selling and sales management theory, Raj’s dissertation on salesperson competitive intelligence won the 2010 Best Dissertation Award from American Marketing Association. Raj has also received the 2017 Citation of Excellence Award from Emerald, the 2012 Bright Idea Award from NJPRO Foundation, the 2012 Stanley Hollander Award from  Academy  of  the  2017  Doctoral  Students’  Mentor  of  the  Year  award  from College  of  Business  at  UT  Arlington,  the  2012  Advisor  of  the  Year  Award  from William Paterson University, and the 2008 Marketing Science, the 2010 McGraw Hill/Steven J. Shaw Award from Society for Marketing Advances, and the 2008 Next Gen Award from AMA Sales SIG and University of Houston.Raj is a passionate teacher and he was awarded the 2014 Hormel Excellence in Teaching Award for his innovative teaching practices. He has also received Golden M Teaching Award in marketing at Kent State University. A firm believer   in experiential learning, Raj launched Maverick Sales Club at UT-Arlington, Consumer Research Center at Ohio University, Professional Sales Club at William Paterson University of New Jersey, among other initiatives.

Mike Krush, PhD (University of Nebraska–Lincoln) serves  on  the  College of Business Administration faculty at Kansas State University and is associated with its National Strategic Selling Institute (NSSI).Dr. Krush has taught sales and a range of marketing classes at the undergraduate and graduate level at multiple universities including North Dakota State University, St. Cloud State University, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.In terms of sales education, Dr. Krush championed and initiated the Center    for Professional Selling Sales Technology at North Dakota State University―the only academic center dedicated to developing the sales skills of college students within the North Dakota University System. The Sales Education Foundation consistently recognized NDSU on its list of  top  universities  for  sales  education. When serving as its director, Dr. Krush championed the application of The Center for Professional Selling and Sales Technology for full membership within the University Sales Center Alliance, a consortium of sales centers dedicated to advancing the sales profession via teaching, research, and outreach.Prior to his academic career, Dr. Krush served as a brand manager at the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, one of America’s largest publicly  held  corporations. His responsibilities included areas of strategic marketing for a $600 mil-    lion brand. In addition, he has conducted marketing and sales operations in the financial services domain, consulted with start-up and existing firms, and written   a  book  on  career preparation.From a research perspective, Dr. Krush was one of three national award winners of the Institute for the Study of Business Market’s Doctoral Support Award  for his dissertation in business-to-business marketing. Dr. Agnihotri, Dr.  Krush, and their colleagues were also recognized by Industrial Marketing Management in 2016 for the Best Article Award.Dr. Krush’s research has been published in a variety of journals, including the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of  Personal  Selling  and  Sales  Management,  the  European  Journal of Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, The Journal of Business Ethics, and the Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing.