Online guest lecture: insight into the world of professional selling

As the semester is nearing its end, our International Business program students had an interesting guest lecturer who spoke about career development in sales. In Professional Selling Online Course, taught by our faculty Nina Antičić, the class welcomed Mr. Ivan Grabar from Mars Wrigley who connected from New York, USA to speak to our students. Mr. Grabar has immense professional working experience in sales working for global giant Masterfood, and then Mars, Inc., over the past decades.

Professional Selling course focuses on the sales process. Selling concepts, tools, strategies, and tactics are discussed as they apply to both external and internal customers. Students learn, through both didactic and experiential learning, about some of the issues faced as well as the rewards earned by those in professional sales. "Welcoming Mr. Grabar to our online class, the students had the opportunity to discuss cross-cultural development of sales relationships, sales ethics, inseparability and interdependence of marketing and sales, and other issues. It's impossible to count all the fantastic takeaways," says Nina Antičić.

A high-quality education will prepare students for the new post-COVID world

"A high-quality education at this very transformative time is the one that will prepare students for the new post-COVID world, which will undoubtedly emerge. I have high expectations from the students that are motivated to attend such a great educational institution and happy to engage in further interactions via email. I found the amount of questions, given the time we had and the medium we used (virtual vs. in-person), to be a proof of engagement, as well as curiosity, which is one of the most important characteristics of successful leaders," said Mr. Grabar.

Student Iris Grgurev said this was one of her favorite guest lecture classes: "I can honestly say that this was one of my favorite guest lectures in the time of my studies and I really enjoyed it. I believe it is always useful to hear real-life experiences from professionals in business areas because it can help us get an insight of how the business world functions, and provide us with a lot of helpful tips that will be useful in our future careers."

Helena Gadžo, also a student, shares this opinion: "Listening to Mr. Grabar's experience, two things I will surely remember is to role-up your sleeves (do the hard work, it will pay off!) and how to build successful relationships all over the world, which is nowadays undoubtedly fundamental for any business!"

Invest in widening your horizons beyond just business!

"While social distancing will continue to dominate our life for some time, I urge the students to invest the time in relationships above and beyond just the technology and form friendships and partnerships, during their studies, that will endure," says Mr. Grabar and adds: "With the extra time on students' disposal now, investing it in widening their horizons beyond just business will have a tremendous impact on their future, as explained in an outstanding book "Range" by David Epstein. I hope they see this tough situation as a call to their further development and they seize it by being part of the RIT's community!"