An aging sales force led machinery dealers and chemical companies to ask an Alberta college to consider training young people how to sell in agribusiness.
Larry Couture, co-ordinator of the Olds College two-year diploma in agricultural business, said the new course will be offered in September. He hopes 10 new students will be attracted to the sales major to add to the program’s other themes of finance and rural entrepreneurship. The college graduates 20-50 students each year in the ag business diploma course.
Couture said the sales course will be general at first to make students employable. He said the businesses told the college their ideal salespeople would be those who want to make a career at one company and be willing to move up through its structure into management.
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Some of the candidates they have been getting do not want to move or want only seasonal work, since they may combine a sales job with farming.
The new sales course will get $50,000 a year in support for five years from the Canada West Equipment Dealers Association, said the college in a News release
news.
Couture said Olds College’s new course appears to be unique in Canada.
