I recently graduated from a prestigious business program where I had a concentration in sales and marketing. In my various sales classes we looked at how to make a sale, the necessary follow-up service, and how to manage a sales force. However, a topic that was completely overlooked was how to generate sales leads. At a recent class reunion, I asked several of my fellow grads that are working in sales how they go about finding their sales leads. Not surprisingly, everyone had their own technique of generating sales leads, often dictated by the company they are working for. However, the one thing everyone had in common was the difficulty they all encountered finding good sales leads, even using the tested methods of their employer.
While I lack the experience or expertise to provide advice on finding sales leads that will work in most industries, I would like to urge business schools to better prepare their students for this aspect of the workforce. Based on the discussions I had I chose to further research this topic among recruiters, where I was told repeatedly that most graduates from business programs, not just my alma mater, were extremely weak at finding sales leads. The irony of this is that business schools that do adequately prepare their students to find sales leads, could use that as a selling point to both prospective recruiters and prospective students – using sales to generate sales! For now, unfortunately, it seems as though people will have to learn this skill out of necessity when they are thrown into the job. Hopefully the business schools in this country will see this hole in their program and begin to train their students on finding sales leads as soon as possible.
|
