“There are damn few hunters… but everyone likes to eat meat.” – Jim Brown, NFL Hall of Fame
So begins the syllabus for Prof. Howard Anderson’s selling and sales leadership elective at Tuck. The rest of the class was no less emphatic.
In this week’s column (The Economist doesn’t make it to Hanover until Saturday!), Schumpeter laments the lack of focus on sales in the business community at large, and in MBA programs, in particular. “Most business schools do not teach sales as a separate subject in an MBA program.” Well, I’m pleased to report, Tuck is different.
Selling may not be considered a noble pursuit, nor academic in any traditional sense, but it is essential to success for any business and for any businessperson. Marketing can make the job easier, but without a sharp, focused sales team, all is lost. Similarly, talents and endeavor can support a person’s progression in an organization, but without the ability to sell internally and externally, they can forget about the C-suite.
Prof. Anderson is a practitioner who gives students a practical, real world perspective on how to sell and how to manage the sales function within an organization. He has founded multiple businesses, including Battery Ventures, where he helped many small and growing enterprises for whom sales means the difference between world-domination and obliteration. The class focuses on students role-playing scenarios with each other and in front of classmates, and the project is to find and interview a salesperson and sales manager from companies you’re interested in.
Schumpeter is right – sales is a crucial and overlooked discipline. If I had my way, it would be a core course. But Tuck stands out from the majority of business schools by giving all students who desire it access to a real-world, practical, dedicated sales class.
Read the full article: Hunters and meat eaters