Engineers in the business world need to be quipped with both professional know-how an a marketing sense. With the support of Dr. Measure Hung, Chairman and Managing Director of Mobicon Group Ltd. (Mobicon), and Mr. Calvin Chui, Assistant General Manager of Array Electronics Ltd., the Centre has successfully launched the Sales Engineer Training Programme (SET) this summer.
SET is a three-phase programme under the Industrial Attachment Scheme (IAS), with an objective to instill in student inters practical sales techniques. In the first workshop of the programme, Dr, Hung and Mr. Chui spoke on the essential qualities of a professional sales engineer, and discussed the concepts of effective communication as well as techniques of making cold calls and closing orders. The students were encouraged to taste the life of a salesperson during their summer internship.
In summer, the students took part in a wine tasting function organized by Mobicon. In a relaxing atmosphere, the participants shared their thoughts about the three WHYs. Why do customers buy from you? Why do customers by from your company? Why can your products meet with customer needs? Dr. Hung and Mr. Chui also provided advice on how to cope with tough demands from customers.
In the last workshop cum dinner reception on 31 July, Dr. William Chan, Director of Membership Relations & Q Mark, Federation of Hong Kong Industries, was invited to deliver a speech to students. Dr. Chan shared with the audience the qualities of a distinguished and professional salesperson. At the opening of his speech, Dr. Chan emphasized, 'We are all doing selling every day!' He then introduced the attributes of a top salesperson, which include 'Commitment to be the Best', 'Ability to Convince', 'Good Presentation Skills', 'Ability to Build up Long-Term Relationship with Customers', 'Comprehensive Product & Market Knowledge', etc. The audience was very much impressed.
The first SET has gained strong support from industry and students surely benefited. We hope more talented sales engineers can be nurtured through this exercise.
Source: http://www.cityu.edu.hk/fse/cec/
