Education & Professional Development
Certified Sales Professional Certification

The Institute for Professional Advancement, the educational subsidiary of MRERF, has established a partnership with the Canadian Professional Sales Association to bring the CSP sales designation, established in Canada in 1994, to the United States. The CSP marks a sales professional as possessing expert sales competencies and a thorough commitment to professional development and self-improvement.

Companies with CSP-certified sales personnel enjoy a measurable performance benchmark, set a hiring standard for new staff, increase their credibility with customers and principals, differentiate themselves from competition, and decrease sales staff turnover.

The Certified Sales Professional program provides a comprehensive curriculum outlining the consultative sales process. Prior to attending the session participants receive the text book in order to prepare for the class and examination process. 

Sales Certification Process
The CSP program is a 3 day seminar covering the fundamental skills of effective selling. Participants benefit by learning to master the key sales competencies, including:

• The consultative selling process
• Relationship building
• Communications
• Strategic sales planning
• Local and regional marketing strategies
• Time and territory management
• Self managementPersonal development techniques
• Business acumen

The CSP program is preparatory for the written and oral examination leading to earning the Certified Sales Professional (CSP) designation.

CSP Program Curriculum

Understanding and Managing Yourself

Personality Traits For Sales Success

• How personality style impacts outcomes
• The four traits for sales effectiveness:
  Empathy & Focus; Ego-Drive; Optimism; Attitude towards responsibility
  
• How to recognize and shape your personality stylings

Attitude Maintenance - I Can Close This Sale!

• The Challenge: Balancing the highs of sales success against the lows of sales disappointment
• Coping with negativity as the key to high performance selling
• Specific tools to manage your attitude

Personal Goal Setting

• Why people tend not to set goals
• Developing a superior goal-oriented attitude
• The SMART model for developing goals
• Writing your detailed personal goal plan

Time Management

• Understanding and calculating the Value of Time
• Good and poor time management principles
• Identifying your time management weaknesses
• Prioritization strategies that work
• Evaluating time management tools including appointment books, software aids & call organizers

Stress Management

• Negative Stress: The silent productivity killer
• Evaluating the amount of work-related and personal stress in your life
• How to control positive and negative stressors

The Selling Process

The Art of Influencing Buying Decisions

• Introduction to Compliance Theory
• Why compliance tactics are critical in the selling process
• 5 proven tools to influence buyers
• Applying these tools during communications

New Business Prospecting

• Steps to effective new business creation
• The 5 critical prospecting rules
• How to develop specific approaches for different prospects
• Record keeping strategies for success

Managing Client Meetings

• Principles of face-to-face selling
• How to plan and conduct potent sales meetings
• Applying the powerful Consultative Selling Process
• Call organization
• Keys to rapport building, questioning, benefit selling, objection handling, and closing

Developing Your Presentation Skills

• Conducting boardroom-style presentations
• Conducting informal sit-down presentations
• Two components to every sales presentation - Content & Form
• Creating presentations that identify with your audience 

Negotiation Skills and Techniques

• Underlying behaviors of customers during negotiations
• Sales Negotiation Rules of Thumb
• Using pre-planned objection responses and concessions to ensure negotiation succes

Keeping Customers and Building Business

Strategic Territory Planning

• The key steps to effective territory planning
• Geographical planning using The Planning Pyramid
• The relationship between sales plans, territory plans and account plans
• Applying models to your current situation
• Calculating sales Returns On Territory Investment (R.O.T.I.)

The Account Management Process

• Steps to effective account planning and management
• The Account Management Model
• Creating goals and account plans for each customer
• Linking account management to territory management
• Segmenting and classifying your accounts

Business Acumen

• How general knowledge and experience creates a 'comfort' level with customers and prospects
• Evaluating your acumen in key areas:

  * Product, service, and technical knowledge
  * Customer organizations
  * Customer's competitors
  * Industry outlook
  * Administrative
  * Regulatory and legal issues

   

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