Business Schools Are Failing Business

A friend of mine, Julie Edge, has just accepted a position with Washington University. Wash U is establishing an outpost in Kansas City for their MBA program. http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/20037.aspx Julie is on the ground floor working to pull in resources and buy-in from the community. As I reviewed my own MBA experience at Rockhurst University and looked at KU's program, I see a glaring ommission. No where in my program did I learn anything about specifically about sales. My focus was management since I knew I wanted to run my own station one day. Curriculum included everything from accounting to operations to marketing. Sales is a function of marketing, but little attention was given to the topic. How many MBAers out there do you suppose are responsible for sales within their organization? I would venture to guesss it is an extremely high number either in a management role or in an actual day-to-day sales person role. Why aren't our business school teaching the topic? I teach a course in sales at the University of Kansas but in the journalism school. Our budding journalists are smart enough to know sales drive both the news and advertising business. I often get b-schoolers who venture over to Stauffer-Flint for a 5 month sales training course I offer. Sales is a process. It isn't about being "good with people" or putting up a fabulous Web site you hope potential customers discover. It's about understanding a client's needs and how your product helps them to achieve their goals. The concept and process is simple, but it is a process! Please feel free to pass this along to all you know!