Inside Seidman’s new lab bringing real-world business to campus

Students in the Seidman College of Business can now build professional skills in a wide range of real-world scenarios thanks to a new experiential lab the college unveiled this fall.

After years of planning, the Experiential Learning and Sales Lab opened on the second floor of the L. William Seidman Center. The space gives students hands-on experience with situations they are likely to encounter in their careers, including negotiations, presentations and sales pitches.

“What this does is allow us to really take things to the next level from a classroom experience to having students actually practice real-world sales, scenarios, presentations in various environments,” said Mark Kubik, chair of Seidman’s marketing department. 

Walking into the space on the Seidman Center’s second floor even recreates the appearance of a corporate office, with a welcome center, a reception area, a conference room/boardroom and several smaller breakout rooms. 

Students can move through a variety of exercises that are recorded not only for their verbal responses but also for body language and visual cues, Kubik said.

“They might work on an elevator pitch, that first 90 seconds to grab attention,” Kubik said. “Then we’ll go into the needs identification/discovery piece of the sales call, when they are asking questions with depth and breadth to understand the buyer’s needs.

“Finally, they’ll get to the product presentation where they will then tie the features and benefits of the product or company to solve those needs of the buyer.”

The goal is to prepare GVSU students to make an immediate impact with future employers, said Kubik. Earlier classroom-based experiential learning has already shown strong results that the new lab will amplify with support from partners such as Fifth Wheel Freight.

“Our students who have participated in this type of experiential learning have a 50% faster ramp-up with their employer, and become more productive,” said Kubik.

“They are 50% faster than their peers who have not participated in something like this just because of that familiarity with the process.”

If the controls in the learning and sales lab sound familiar, it’s because it shares similar software as the Interprofessional Simulation Center in the Kirkhof College of Nursing, where students are gauged on their interaction with life-like mannequins. In Seidman’s version, the technology captures professional communication skills instead of clinical ones.

“The reaction from students has been overwhelmingly positive,” Kubik said. “These are all skills that they want to develop. What’s really interesting is that the components of a sales call or presentation are really nothing more than personal soft skills that people would need in business. 

“As they perfect these soft skills, they realize that they can apply them to any industry or any profession that they go into.”