"So check who signs up!"

René Eugster, iQ Management Center, explains what makes a good salesperson.MK Mr. Eugster, you run a successful advertising and communications agency and offer sales training at the iQ Management Center. How well do you sell yourself?RENÉ EUGSTER What do you mean? As a trained sales manager and long-time lecturer and examination expert, I can hardly deny a certain knowledge.MK In the media-dominated world, the winner is often whoever can present themselves in the best light at the right time. Against this background, aren't people's effective skills all too often neglected?EUGSTER Certainly. On the other hand, this "best light" not only allows some protagonists to shine and shine, but also brings light into the darkness or reveals what is underexposed. What I mean by this is that the media often also relentlessly uncover unpalatable truths, which is a good thing. I'm thinking here of the economy as well as politics. And it's also clear that shining and shining is of no use in the long run if the substance behind it is missing.MK Given the success of both your companies, this is obviously present. Do you achieve synergy effects?EUGSTER Today, the school certainly benefits from the agency's know-how. It represents a uniqueness that the students are taught with us directly at the pulse of the action, in the middle of the premises of one of the leading dialog and B2B agencies in German-speaking Europe. In the past, we were often able to generate a client from the school. Today, it's more the case that the students are getting younger and we even provide them with a kind of start-up assistance on the agency side.MK What do you think contemporary and effective sales training entails today?EUGSTER A healthy mix of experience and topicality, of practice and theory. In short, everything that makes people economically fit.MK What do good salespeople absolutely have to be able to do?EUGSTER Oh, I'm probably not telling you anything new: Salespeople must basically like people, be able to listen, anticipate, create solutions, convince, inspire, and encourage. At the same time, virtues such as diligence, perseverance, cleverness in a positive sense, creativity, discipline and reliability are also the basis of sales success to this day.MK What has fundamentally changed about the sales industry in the last 20-30 years? Do people sell differently today than in the past? In what way?EUGSTER Yes and No. As just mentioned, success is based on the same, old-fashioned-sounding pillars. What is certainly added today are the rules that prevail in highly saturated markets. It needs more knowledge and skills, more information with the help of a solid CRM, a multi-layered approach in dialog as well as in selling to groups and certainly more lived efficiency and effectiveness in the sales process as in all other business disciplines.MK What are the most important tips and suggestions you give to young people who are interested in training and further education in sales?EUGSTER So check who signs up! Since most of these are continuing education courses in the sense of the dual education system, you should pay attention to efficiency and effectiveness as well as a pronounced practical relevance when choosing an institute and course. Short and intensive tends to be more effective than lengthy and superficial. Provided, of course, that you are prepared to forego a few months or a year of training. And most importantly, if you're going to consume continuing education, you should first take a close look at who's offering the instruction. 24-year-old strategy lecturers at a school or too much "Halligalli" with in-depth seminars in party cities, for example, should be perceived as warning signals.MK What does the iQ Management Center's sales training offer look like in concrete terms?EUGSTER In principle, we recommend a serious structure of the study. However, in the case of very experienced participants, the direct route may make sense in exceptional cases, even if it requires an enormous sacrifice of leisure activities for nine months. So: Sales specialists go to school with us for one year. We first prepare them for the Markom examination and then for the main examination for the federal certificate of proficiency. School days are a week evening at the beginning and Saturday mornings when the sales force is friendly. During the hard exam phase there is another week evening. Short but intense. Without any chance of sluggishness or a long slack period. The postgraduate course to become a certified sales manager lasts just nine months - the students bring with them the relevant previous education and/or a great deal of experience - and is conducted in block courses every 14 days on Fridays or Saturdays. The learning success stands and falls with the exceptional team of lecturers. With the agency at the airport, we can of course draw on a pool of highly trained C-level practitioners who teach at the iQ Management Center. We are enormously proud of this.MK To what extent do you always adapt the courses to current circumstances so as not to create a false routine?EUGSTER There is no routine with us, but unconditional practical relevance. Leadership is taught by someone who, on a day-to-day basis, manages a corporate division with over 40 companies and over 1,000 people. Marketing strategy is taught by someone who has already won around 250 national and international awards in the relevant disciplines and is still working on innovative concepts, sales information is taught by the sales director of a large Swiss brewery, and so on. All these lecturers form a sworn team and prove their skills every day in practice, where there is never a lack of topicality.Interview: Robert Wildi