Faculty Profile for Vicki L West

profile photo for Vicki L West
Vicki L West
Senior Lecturer — Department of Marketing
MCOY 419
phone: (512) 245-3224

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Teaching - Active at the local, regional, and national levels, Vicki West currently teaches Professional Selling and serves as the Founding Director of the Center for Professional Sales. The Center is a fully accredited member of the University Sales Center Alliance, one of only 38 fully accredited sales centers in the world. Since 2003, she has annually coached winning professional sales teams at the National Collegiate Sales Competition & other private competitions. The sales teams hold multiple undergraduate and graduate division national titles in sales role playing, team selling, maintenance calls, and speed selling. The titles include a national undergraduate sales role play championship, nine national graduate sales role play championships, and one national speed selling championship. She won the teaching award in McCoy College in 1994 and 2014. In 1999, she won the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching at the university level.

For 23 years, West also taught Studies in Free Enterprise and coached the SIFE/Enactus free enterprise team. She has served on the free enterprise advisory board at the national level, and she and the team have been featured in USA Today and Entrepreneur Magazine. The team ranked in the Top 20 teams in the United States for 18 out of 23 years, serving as the USA national champion in 2000, 2011, and 2014. The team was named World Champion in 2000. As the USA national champion, the free enterprise teams represented the USA in both Malaysia in 2011 and in China in 2014.

Research - Her research includes articles on articles on Professional Sales coaching, Entrepreneurship Teaching in Action, Teaching Written Communication Skills in Professional Selling and more. She has contributed to professional selling textbooks on product cross-selling, dressing for success, and other topics. Her work appears in the European Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Education, the Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship, the Journal for the Advancement of Marketing Education, and other publications.

Service - Active at multiple levels, Vicki West has served on the Students in Free Enterprise National Board of Directors and received international recognition for her free enterprise service work in Central America. She also won the Leavey Award, the National Champion of SIFE award, and was inducted into the SIFE Hall of Fame. She was named a finalist for the Texas State Service Award in multiple years. She founded the Center for Professional Sales, raised significant funding and recruited more than 20 corporate partners, including DOW components, S&P 500 companies, and private companies. She helped the Center grow in teaching, research, and service capabilities over a period of many years.

Teaching Interests

Professional Selling and Free Enterprise

Research Interests

Sales, including coaching, writing, making corporate presentations, disruptions in the sales cycle caused by new technology, and following sales trends. Free enterprise areas of interest continue to include the worldwide markets, profitability, and investments.

Selected Scholarly/Creative Work

  • West, V. L. (2022). Waves of disruption: Professional selling. Retrieved from https://digital.library.txstate.edu/handle/10877/15205
  • Agnihotri, R., Bonney, L., Dixon, A. L., Erffmeyer, R., Pullins, E. B., Sojka, J. Z., & West, V. (2014). Attracting Talent from University Sales Programs to Grow Your Real Estate Agency. Keller Center for Research Report, 7(2), 5. Retrieved from http://www.baylor.edu/business/kellercenter/news.php?action=story&story=142982
  • Mueller, J., West, V., Nurrudin, N., Min, R., & Thornton, J. (2008). Entrepreneurship Teaching In Action – The Effects of Early Empowerment. Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship, 20(1), 81–92.
  • West, V., & Minifie, J. (1997). Who Should Pay for Healthcare? - The Fortune 500 on Health Care. Marketing Health Services, 17(3), 4–11.
  • Badrinarayanan, V., Dixon, A., West, V., & Zank, G. (2015). Professional Sales Coaching:  An Integrative Review and Research Agenda. European Journal of Marketing, 49(7/8), 1087–1113.

Selected Awards

  • Award / Honor Recipient: Paul R. Gowens Excellence in Business Administration Endowed Professorship. 2015 - 2018
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Best Professor - McCoy College of Business, McCoy College - Advisory Board. August 2014
  • Award / Honor Recipient: 2014 U.S.A. National Champion, Enactus. May 2014
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Undergraduate National Champion, National Collegiate Sales Competition. April 2013
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Sam Walton Fellow International Award, Students in Free Enterprise. 2002

Selected Grants

  • West, Vicki L. RGK Foundation, $309662. (Funded: 2007). Grant.
  • West, Vicki (Principal). 3M Frontline Program - Sales Labs, 3M, Private / Foundation / Corporate, $75000. (Funded: 2017). Grant.
  • West, Vicki. Students in Free Enterprise (Enactus) Grant, 3M, Private / Foundation / Corporate, $8000. (Funded: January 2017 - Present). Grant.
  • West, Vicki L. Free enterprise room, Family Foundation, $25000. (Funded: 2016). Grant.
  • West, Vicki. Mobile Sales Labs, Liberty Mutual, Local, $50000. (Submitted: 2011, Funded: 2011). Grant.

Selected Service Activities

Director
Center for Professional Selling
2012-Present
Organizer
SIfE, Professional Sales, and Founding Sales Alumni Advisory Boards
January 2008-Present
Organizer
Hosted USCA Worldwide Conference
January 1, 2021-October 20, 2021
Organizer
Enactus-International Bee Project
July 2019-2020
Organizer
Center for Professional Sales/Director/Re-accreditation of Center
May 2020-November 2020