Rick Ridnour
by Joe King
Students who enroll in NIU’s nationally respected Professional Sales Program had better not be camera-shy.
Ever since Rick Ridnour joined the program 20 years ago, he has required students to participate in videotaped role-playing exercises that simulate the interaction between salespersons and customers.
No other tool, he says, better teaches students about the dynamics of that complex communication.
“It can be very stressful, but it’s a great exercise in creative problem-solving, critical thinking and communication skills,” says Ridnour, who has won numerous teaching awards, including the Presidential Teaching Professor in 2004. “In many ways it is the embodiment of the NIU College of Business motto: ‘Where the classroom meets the business world.’ ”
Ridnour will discuss the importance of that practice Wednesday, March 18, when he presents a Presidential Teaching Professor Seminar in the Heritage Room of the Holmes Student Center.
Wednesday’s session begins with refreshments at 11:30 a.m., followed by the noon presentation and a question-and-answer session. Sponsors are the Office of the Provost and the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center.
“The recipients of that award are our most outstanding teachers, and these sessions provide an opportunity for anyone who teaches students to learn about their methods and improve their own instruction and engagement with students,” Vice Provost Earl “Gip” Seaver says. “Every one of these sessions offers something that others can incorporate into their own teaching.”
Ridnour was a pioneer in the use of video cameras in the classroom, introducing them when they were still relatively large, quiet expensive and hardly the common household item they are today.
Back then, Ridnour set up a desk and chairs in the front of the classroom, pointed the camera at two students, one playing the part of salesperson and the other playing a customer. The duo acted out an initial sales meeting, with the salesperson attempting to close the sale or, at the very least, secure a second meeting. Along with the unblinking eye of the camera, classmates also looked on and later critiqued the performance.
The interactions, while staged, often create some very real stage fright for students, he says. But they also teach useful lessons – about sales and about themselves.
The point of the exercise remains the same today, but the technology has advanced by quantum leaps. The Professional Sales Program now has a mock office, separate from the classroom, with three remotely controlled cameras to monitor the transaction.
Instead of being recorded on video tape, the sessions now can be stored on a hard drive or recorded to DVD, allowing for easier and faster playback and review of the sessions. Ridnour plays each DVD privately for the featured students and again in front of the class.
The sales program’s facilities, incorporated into Barsema Hall during its construction, have helped cement the program’s reputation as one of the top business-to-business sales programs in the country. However, Ridnour says the lessons learned from the sessions could benefit students in nearly every discipline.
“At some point in life everybody interviews for jobs, scholarships, raises, etc., and those sessions aren’t unlike what our students go through in the sales program,” he says. “My objective is to teach students not just that they can make a sale, but to convince them that they can be assertive and creative, and that they can create value in a 20-minute meeting. The skills they learn in this process are transferable to many different situations, not just sales.”