At the University of California-Irvine’s Division of Continuing Education, early- to mid-career professionals serve as account managers who help industry partners navigate the university and who work with individual employers over the entire life of the partnership. Account managers develop relationships that drive renewals: 70% of the division’s corporate training revenue comes from repeat business.
Without dedicated staff, employers would struggle to find contacts at the university and if employers engaged they would disappear afterward. With even the relatively low investment of an early-career account manager, professional and adult education units can reduce lost relationships and increase total revenue.
The University of Delaware’s Lerner College of Business and Economics created the menu above to engage different types of executives. For example, if representatives are meeting with a learning and development officer, they might emphasize executive education or custom training, since this position is primarily interested in employee skill development. In contrast, they could promote graduate student technology projects to a Chief Information Officer as a low-cost means to address existing IT challenges.