http://tbe.taleo.net/NA7/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=WORLDSTRIDES&cws=1&rid=110

Job Title: Performing Arts Sales Representative

West Valley City, Utah
WorldStrides Heritage Performance Mission: Enriching Students’ Lives Through Experiential Travel
Heritage Performance has openings for high energy, self-motivated sales professionals to recruit high school/middle school music or dance directors via phone throughout the United States to bring their students on our music festivals or bowl game half-time events. This is a base plus commission position with unlimited earning potential and excellent benefits.

Come be a part in enriching lives of students as they have the unforgettable opportunity to perform with their friends in exciting venues. Heritage Performance operates over 90 music festivals to thousands of high school and middle school music students per year. Bowl Games of America operates the half time shows for 8 college bowl games annually as well as various parades throughout the year. We have had over one million students travel with us since our inception in 1980. Come play a part in this exciting opportunity!

Success is contingent upon candidates who:
- Are highly motivated self starters
- Have a strong work ethic
- Are proficient with talking on the phone with educators and building relationships with them
- Are coachable and have a positive attitude
- Have proven sales experience
- 4-year college degree highly preferred
-Ability to travel during festival or bowl game season
- Working knowledge of the computer

Although the sales representative is required to target his or her relationship marketing to the directors of dance and music programs at various high schools, it would be helpful for the seller to pitch the event participation to the students participating in those programs. Why? A director must keep his or her operating costs under budget, whereas program participants generally seek to enhance the scope of their audience. It becomes more difficult for a director to decline purchasing a slot in the bowl game half-time show, music festival, parade, etc. when the children of influential community members pester him or her about how the trip will be the credential to put them into contention for Ivy League schools. I’m sure that many parents also henpeck these directors to boost their children’s exposure.

Again, requiring vague “working knowledge of the computer” indicates the job poster knows little, if anything, about exactly which computer skills are necessary to use the hardware and software to perform duties. I imagine that a customer relations management (CRM) application of one type or another displays potential clients and how recently they were contacted with an offer. The most questionable KSA is possession of a baccalaureate degree: This accomplishment has virtually nothing to do with sales performance because only sales experience confers the knowledge and timing necessary to establish effective sales habits.

You don’t need college experience to use with great effect the familiar spiel, “Your child needs these expensive, time-consuming activities to get into a good college and not work food service the rest of his/her life.” The truth is that such an outcome might occur anyway, and so it’s better to focus on directly relevant occupational experience in case Johnny or Susie does not get into the conservatory or become hired by the philharmonic.