Stefanie Boyer, Ph.D.,’s first time in a burning house was nearly her last.  

A licensed firefighter at 18 years old, Boyer was searching a cluttered bedroom when she got separated from her partner and found herself alone and blinded by smoke, a low-oxygen warning ringing in her ears.  

Following her training, Boyer moved to her right, felt around the edge of the room, found a door, and was able to get herself to safety.  

“When you start hearing that beeping noise and you know you only have so much time left, then you have to really get back to your basics of training,” she says. “You can't start to panic.” 

Sales calls aren’t life or death, but that early brush with mortality is one of many life lessons that Boyer, a Bryant Marketing professor who just was named one of the top 50 undergraduate professors in the United States by Poets and Quants, builds into her coursework. 

When things go wrong in a sales pitch, “nobody else is going to come in and rescue you; you have to save yourself and the deal by following your training, and creating your outcome,” she says. “If you follow your process, you're going to do better than if you're just winging it.” 

Boyer’s own path from firefighting to earning her MBA and a Ph.D. to a nearly 16-year career at Bryant was similarly marked by decisiveness in the face of adversity.

A San Diego native and former competitive cheerleader, beauty queen, and undergraduate track and field athlete at the University of South Florida (USF), Boyer suffered a serious back injury in college that derailed her Olympic dream of competing in the javelin throw. USF marketing professor Paul Solomon, Ph.D., was one of several mentors who encouraged Boyer to pursue an advanced degree. But after failing at her first attempt to pass the GMAT, she thought that her next step as a graduate student had also been dashed. 

That's when another mentor, Marvin Karlins, Ph.D., a professor at the USF School of Information Systems and Management who had seen great potential in Boyer and encouraged her to go to graduate school for sales, stepped in.

“He called me right before the Fourth of July and asked if I was going to be his graduate assistant, and I told him I didn’t get into the grad school at USF because my scores were too low,” Boyer recalls. “He told me to take the test again, and that he would talk to the dean."

That conversation would have a life-changing impact.  

“I had given up on myself, but he said, ‘Stop what you’re doing and let’s do this,'” says Boyer. “I was on my way to Orlando, and I remember thinking that I can go see my friends, I’m 10 minutes away, or I can turn around right now and put everything I have into making this happen.

“At that moment, I knew my life was going to go in one of two directions, so I immediately took the exit and turned around. I went back home and called my mom and told her I needed to schedule the test,” Boyer says. 

This time she scored a 500 — exactly what she needed to qualify for grad school.  

Boyer has paid forward the mentorship she received both in the classroom and as executive director of the annual Northeast Intercollegiate Sales Competition (NISC), which brings dozens of schools and hundreds of students to Bryant to test their sales skills using the university’s new Frank '81 and Marion '81 Hauck Sales Performance Lab.  
 

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In addition to in-person role-playing and practice sales calls, both Boyer’s students and the members of the Bryant Sales Team she coaches train extensively with RNMKRS, an AI-enabled tool that simulates the interaction between salespeople and prospects. Boyer co-founded the company and serves as chief science officer and head of education.  

“Students get to come in and practice talking to the bot in a very safe environment, so it's creating psychological safety — the students know that they're having the conversation, they're getting feedback, and they're building up their confidence,” she explains.  

Boyer likens the bot to a flight simulator providing invaluable hands-on experience. The comparison is rooted in Boyer's real-life flying experience with Steven Craffey ’86, MBA ’21.  a licensed pilot who had previously done a TED talk with her. Taking Boyer up for a flight, Craffey gave her control of the aircraft while he interviewed her for his podcast, “Conversations in Cockpits.” 

“The skills that you learn that make you a great seller will also make you a better spouse, friend, and family member, and improve any kind of relationship at work. You’ll be better equipped to ask for a promotion or resources that you need, or even convince your kids to eat their vegetables."

“He’s asking me about sales and how it's related to business and life. And I'm just trying to answer the questions and fly the plane,” Boyer recalls. “It was so scary.” 

But the on-the-fly multitasking was also uplifting. “It was empowering for me, and I think it's really similar to what my students are doing,” she says. “When they come into the class, a lot of them think, ‘There is no way I'm going to be able to do this.’ But by using the app, then going into the lab and being able to practice with their peers, they’re able to do it at the right time with the right words in the moment, under stress.” 

The confidence gained by learning to sell a product or idea is vital for students’ future careers whether they go into sales or not, Boyer believes.     

“The skills that you learn that make you a great seller will also make you a better spouse, friend, and family member, and improve any kind of relationship at work,” she says. "You’ll be better equipped to ask for a promotion or resources that you need, or even convince your kids to eat their vegetables."

As she looks back at her time at the university, Boyer recalls a conversation she had with Bryant Marketing Professor Sukki Yoon, Ph.D., as he was driving her back to the airport after her first interview for a teaching position at the school. 

“He pointed out his success in founding the Marketing Behavioral Research Lab and told me, ‘You know, Stefanie, when I came here, I didn't know Bryant either, but you have the autonomy to create something really special,’” she recalls. 

“At first, I just discounted it because I was like, what business do I have in Rhode Island? I had never even visited here,” Boyer says. “But here I am at Bryant almost 16 years later. It's such a great environment, I have really good colleagues, and the students are fabulous. I’m in it for the long run.”