Over the course of the last two weeks, our business BTEC pupils attended workshops delivered by the Institute of Sales Professionals. Led by Mr Chris Whyatt, through his pilot workshop Inspiring and Engaging Future Sales Talent, the pupils heard from experienced sales professionals about their work in sales and, additionally, had the opportunity to complete a sales-related task.
The first workshop took place on Thursday 6 October, and was delivered by Ms Emily Fowler, a Sales Director who works at Totara Learning. Heavily experienced in sales, Ms Fowler has previously worked at giants such as Microsoft, IBM, and Sitecore; and in this session, talked to the pupils about her positive (and negative) experiences in sales. There was also an opportunity for a Q&A session in which the pupils were quick to ask a number of questions on Ms Fowler's career, and routes into sales. The questioning was not just one-way however, as Ms Fowler also had the chance to quiz our pupils on their knowledge of business and sales!
On Thursday 13 October. Ms Lucie Sharp delivered the second workshop. Ms Sharp is currently a Client Manager at Virgin Media O2 Business and, in 2019, won WISA's (Women in Sales Awards) Best Sales Newcomer of the Year. During the workshop, Ms Sharp spoke to the pupils about her experience in sales and was also on hand to give out lots of tips and advice to those considering a career in sales. As well as promoting graduate schemes, she highlighted how every position will have transferrable skills that will be relevant for future jobs. She also emphasised the importance of trying different things and, perhaps even more significantly, choosing a job that will give you satisfaction.
During the second workshop, the pupils also had the opportunity to present on the task they had been given in the first workshop. The task was to find a professional sales role on the Career Map website that they would like to be doing before they were 30. Mr Whyatt provided the following feedback:
"Everyone did a great job in completing the task, but one student in particular did a fantastic job. She talked about her target job, and why she chose it, and what qualifications, skills and experience she would need to get it. She then told us about the job she found that would give her those, and what qualifications, skills and experience she would need to get it. Finally, she told us about the job that would give her those, and what she had to do educationally to get that first sales role, which was in outbound telesales."
Head of Business, Mr Ed Olhausen, said this following the first workshop, "Chris and Emily delivered an interactive and engaging session that allowed the students to explore different roles in sales and the pathways to those different sales jobs. Emily shared her experiences (both good and bad) from her career in sales which the students were clearly interested to hear about. The students were also able to ask lots of questions which made the workshop even more relevant to their needs."
It was also great to hear from the students present with O Parkin saying that she found the workshop "much more interactive than I thought it would be. I thought we would just be listening to a talk but it was good that we could ask questions about what we wanted to know about sales.”
A big thank you must go to Mr Olhausen and Mr Richard Curtis for making these workshops happen. And additionally, thank you to Mr Whyatt, Ms Fowler, and Ms Sharp for taking the time to come and inspire our pupils. We are grateful to participate in this pilot workshop and we wish you all the best going forward!
