Sales Centre Offers Fall Sales Workshop for Students

Contact: George Mauzy Jr., Media Specialist, (740) 597-1794

ATHENS, Ohio (October 27, 2000) -- Ohio University's Sales Centre, an academic program within the College of Business, will host its annual Fall Sales Workshop on Friday, Nov. 3, at the Ohio University Inn. The workshop is a professional development event designed to allow students to network with sales professionals and attend presentations about sales techniques and principles.

This year's special guest is Eureka Ranch, a Cincinnati-based consulting firm that teaches employees how to be creative at work.

The Sales Centre was created to prepare students for professional sales jobs through academic and sales training. To receive a sales certificate from the two-year program, students must complete 28 cross-disciplinary hours and any student, regardless of major, can apply.

Sales Centre Director and Assistant Professor of Marketing Barbara Dyer headed up a team of academic and business professionals that developed the program in 1995. Ohio University's Board of Trustees approved the center in 1997 and its sales certificate in 1998.

"Teaching sales was popular until the 1800s when it fell out of favor," Dyer said. "Ohio is one of about 15 schools throughout the nation that is enjoying the resurgence of sales being taught at the university level."

Members of the Professional Sales Advisory Board, a group of about 60 active and retired sales professionals, serve as mentors to students and make recommendations to the Sales Centre staff.

"Sales is about problem solving," Dyer said. "Good sales people find out the customer's problem and solve it. No matter what profession you are in -- lawyer, preacher, etc. -- you will have to sell something during your career."

The center hosts its annual Spring Sales Symposium during spring quarter.

For more information on the Fall Sales Workshop or the Sales Centre, call Barbara Dyer at (740) 593-9328 or e-mail her at dyerb@ohio.edu.