Sales Trailblazer

C. T. Bauer College of Business Professor Michael Ahearne is an internationally regarded leader in sales education research, recognized as a pioneer in the field for more than 20 years and recently honored as the most cited sales scholar globally by ScholarGPS.

In addition to teaching in the college’s Department of Marketing & Entrepreneurship, Ahearne is the Research Director of the college’s Stephen Stagner Sales Excellence Institute and was previously honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Marketing.

With artificial intelligence and other shifts in the marketing landscape, Ahearne shares his experience with sales and how the institute continues to lead the way in scholarly research.

Untraditional Introduction

After finishing a career as a pitcher for the Montreal Expos in the 80s, Ahearne was unsure of what to study at university. Deciding to follow his academic strengths, Ahearne enrolled in a dual math and business degree program.

Through this early coursework, his passion for research was born.

“I loved my market research class,” Ahearne said. “It was fantastic because I got to apply math and statistics to actual marketing problems. My professor really encouraged me to do my Ph.D.”

Once accepted into a Ph.D. program at Indiana University, Ahearne dove in headfirst, doing math modeling problems and developing new research methods. After a faculty member approached Ahearne about helping a partner pharmaceutical company evaluate their consumer data set, he hit a turning point in his career.

“I took some time off from my Ph.D., which was very unusual at that time, and I absolutely fell in love with using data to solve sales-related problems,” he said. “I started to think that there were all kinds of great research problems that I could be solving.”

Shaped by his motivation for marketing, Ahearne returned to school and completed his Ph.D. program. He went on to start a career in academia.

Focus on Research

When Ahearne joined the Bauer College faculty in 2004, he said the sales program was focused on student education. In the years to come, the institute added two additional priorities to its structure — research and executive development.

Ahearne spent his time focused on conducting research in top academic journals and working with doctoral students studying sales.

“When I first came here, there were only about 12 to 15 schools in the country who had sales-related programs,” Ahearne said. “Now there are hundreds. Among those, many of them have the faculty that came out of the University of Houston who run their programs, which is awesome.”

Ahearne said more and more data has become available over time, and his research has evolved drastically.

Academic Community

Outside of the University of Houston campus, Ahearne is a leader among sales colleagues. After meeting a Harvard Business School professor, they jointly decided to host a conference to bridge academia and industry, bringing 60 sales academics together with industry executives in the first year.

“I had the vision to bring together sales leaders with top academics to feature what sales research is and explain to academics what the real problems are in industry,” he said.

Titled “Thought Leadership in the Sales Profession,” the conference has continued for years and has been held at Harvard University, Columbia University, Stanford University, the University of California, Los Angeles and other schools.

In recent years, Bauer Associate Professor Johannes Habel became involved with the conference as well.

Looking Ahead

Concurrently with rapid changes to technology and artificial intelligence, Ahearne says sales education is as popular as it's ever been, with companies seeking employees to fill sales roles.

“If you learn how to sell, that insulates your career because AI can't do a good job of selling,” he said. “People are going to be around for a long time, so managing relationships makes our area important.”

Read more about Bauer sales research here.