Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, in collaboration with the UNS Innovation Hub of the UNS Directorate of Innovation and Downstream, hosted an Expert Lecture’ Sales Ethics: Look beyond what you can see,’ Thursday, October 5th, 2022. Inviting Dr. Colin Mackenzie from the Edinburgh Napier University, UK, the event was conducted at Konimex Hall, 3rd Floor of Bakhtiar Effendi Building FEB UNS and virtually through Zoom Cloud Meeting, was opened with Indonesia Raya.

In front of more than 130 participants, attending the event virtually and at Konimex Hall, Dr. Catur Sugiarto, as the Head of Start-ups and Incubation UNS Innovation Hub, delivered a welcoming remark and at the same time expressed his gratitude for Dr. Mackenzie’s visit to UNS. “Our gratitude goes to Dr. Collin for his willingness to visit UNS to share his knowledge, experience, and insights. FEB UNS has succeeded in hosting numerous interesting academic agendas at international and national levels, one of them being today’s guest lecture on Ethics in sales and B2B selling. We will learn a lot from Dr. Collin regarding the two topics, both in the global and Asia context. Once more, I would like to thank UNS Innovation Hub for the support and their hard work in organizing this event,” reveals Dr. Catur.

Currently, FEB UNS has become part of the SEASAC (South-East Asian Sales Competition) collaboration, co-funded by ERASMUS+, which aims to strengthen universities’ capability in South East Asia region, to prepare for highly-skilled B2B sales professionals for the developing global market. This information was delivered by the Moderator of the event, Lintang Ayuninggar, before the material dissemination from Dr. Mackenzie. The SEASAC collaboration involves 12 universities in South East Asia and Europe.

“This collaboration project becomes an excellent opportunity for students to obtain real experience, not only theoretical knowledge but also skills. This project provides the opportunity for students to apply those skills. Many students participating in the SEASAC competition admit that they learn something new about themselves,” said Dr. Collin Mackenzie, regarding his opinion on the SEASAC program.

The material presented started with an introduction from Dr. Mackenzie using a format commonly known as elevator pitch’ or a short introduction to introduce someone in various situations or activities. This introduction format usually covers three aspects that are name, occupation or status, and value or skills that can be offered to the other parties. Dr. Mackenzie also invites attending students to try using elevator pitch to introduce themself. “The core of selling is interaction or conversation, and the most difficult part of interaction is the introduction. This is why it is crucial for you to prepare an elevator pitching because you never know when you will need it,” explains Dr. Mackenzie.

Material dissemination went on with the definition of ethics, why ethics are important, problems surrounding ethics, and implementation of sales ethics in organizations. “Sales started with trust, without trust, there will be no sales.”

The expert lecture goes interactively, where Dr. Mackenzie led the participants in a critical discussion. The current guest lecture was attended by students from multiple study programs from FEB UNS and FISIP UNS.