BC's sales representatives need better training, according to the 2012 third-quarter Business in Vancouver business outlook survey results.
The survey of 122 B.C. business leaders was conducted by Ipsos Reid between June 26 and July 3. In addition to surveying respondents about confidence in their businesses and industry sectors, the poll asked them for input on how well training organizations are outfitting students with skills needed to succeed in the current job market.
The executives proved to be a hard group to impress.
Survey respondents were more likely to rank those in professional occupations as having been well trained for their jobs (40%) than workers in any other profession.
Skilled trades was the next most positively perceived job category for training: 39% of executives said that training organizations had done a good job of preparing those workers for their jobs.
Training for those in technical professions was deemed good by 38% of executives.
Those in business and professional sales, however, were at the bottom of the heap. Only 22% of executives said that training organizations had adequately prepared workers with appropriate skills for that sector.
"There might be a tendency for people to think that there isn't a lot of sales training that is taken or necessary for sales positions," said Ipsos Reid west president Julie Winram.
"That's probably a combination of not being aware of what it takes to do sales and an assumption that salespeople are born and not made – that they just have DNA for the job."
Winram's survey also asked business leaders about sectors and job categories.
Respondents considered workers in the technology (50%) and tourism and hospitality (46%) sectors to be well trained but only 9% in the manufacturing sector.
Winram said executives' responses stemmed from their belief that B.C. has a leadership position in technology and tourism whereas the manufacturing sector is lagging.
"They probably believe that training must be good in those areas because they're the industries expected to be the new way forward for B.C.," Winram said.
Overall business confidence dipped slightly in 2012's third quarter compared with past surveys, but Winram chalked that up to seasonal weakness.
The tendency in past years has been for business confidence to dip in the summer before rising in fall or winter.
Fifty per cent of the business leaders surveyed in June and July said the prospect of higher sales is similar or higher than it was a year ago. That contrasts with 55% in a BIV-Ipsos Reid survey conducted between April 2 and 10.
Last summer's BIV-Ipsos Reid survey found that 48% of business leaders believed that the prospect for higher sales was likely, making the 2012 survey result this year slightly higher than a year ago.
The same trend appeared when executives were asked about the prospect for sales growth in their business sector. Respondents were slightly less confident than in April but more confident than a year ago.
