Sales Management and Personal Selling Certificate
More and more, high-performing professionals are turning to ongoing sales training to support their careers.
For example: the professional who graduated with a degree in accounting and has passed the CPA exam will suddenly be faced with the concept of building billable hours and the requirement of landing new business as a path to partner. Here’s the problem: historically, what part of an accounting degree plan covers business development and sales conversations?
In the past, few business colleges have offered dedicated and specific courses that dive deep into the mindset, actions, and techniques of a professional salesperson. And that’s a tragedy, because many sales positions have uncapped commission potential… meaning that for those willing to put in the work and get outside their comfort zones, the sky’s the limit.
Is There a Future Career in Sales? Are There Jobs Waiting for Me?
The Wall Street Journal quotes data from Zip Recruiter saying that open sales positions have risen 65% over the past year. Nationwide, that’s 700,000 open jobs—largely because of the effects of Covid on the job market. (Thomas, 2021)
With so much potential on the line, we are thrilled to bring you a brand-new partnership that will provide an opportunity for select students to learn a time-tested system for selling that produces consistent, measurable results, used by leading organizations of all sizes to increase win ratios and identify quality opportunities to grow revenue.
We believe so strongly in the potential for students to enter the job market in sales that UM-Dearborn/COB has teamed up with internationally renowned Sandler Training Systems here in Michigan to create a sales track for you, leading to a certificate from the College of Business, and possibly also official certification from Sandler.
What to Expect
- Trade/industrial salesperson (finding & closing new business)
- Institutional salesperson (i.e., sales to physicians, municipalities, higher education, etc.)
- Account manager (keeping & growing existing customers)
- Sales engineers (highly technical but also selling to customers)
- Professional service providers who still have to sell (accountants, lawyers, financial advisors, doctors, dentists)
- Entrepreneurs – most people who start a company find that their primary responsibility is to sell the idea as well as the product/service
- Business leaders – frequently must make a business case for a strategic initiative, and also must understand the inner workings of sales
In addition, many other significant conversations require selling skills – including, but not limited to:
- Interviewing for a new job
- Asking for a promotion/raise
- Fundraising – pitching an idea for a new product or service to investors
- Why have a system for sales? How traditional approaches no longer work in today’s markets.
- How to bond with prospects, building trust and credibility
- Understanding behavior profiles and personality styles
- Creating mutual agreement and maintaining control through Up-Front Contracts
- The difference between problems and “Pain” and how the latter drives immediate action and buying decisions
- Powerful questioning techniques as a means of learning customer needs
- How to have straightforward and open conversations about budgets for investment (time, money and resources)
- Mastering the Decision-Making Process (for yourself and others)
- Fulfillment—what to say & do (and what not to) in order to close business
- Post-selling--ensuring that deals closed stay closed, addressing buyer’s remorse
- Networking that actually works
- Setting and achieving sales targets based upon personal goals
- Crafting and executing low-pressure discovery conversations, even with strangers
What You Need to Qualify for the Sales Training Track
Current UM-Dearborn undergraduate students:
- Open to anyone with a GPA of at least 2.0.
- Students must declare their intent to pursue the Sales certificate by submitting the Declaration of Certificate to their academic unit office.
- MKT 352 Marketing Principles and Policies (Sophomore Standing)
- MKT 434 Sales Management and Personal Selling (PreReq MKT 352)
- MKT 435 Advanced Sales Management & Personal Selling 1 (PreReq MKT 434)
- MKT 440 Advanced Sales Management & Personal Selling 2 (PreReq MKT 435)
What Does It Cost to Earn This Certificate?
- All COB (and many non-COB) students already take MKT 352 as part of their BBA or Business minor curriculum. No added cost.
- Many COB students, especially marketing majors, already take MKT 434 as part of major requirements. No added cost.
- MKT 435 and MKT 440 may count towards your degree requirements, especially for marketing majors. Please check with your advisor. If so, no added tuition cost.
- In lieu of textbooks for MKT 435 and MKT 440, you will need to purchase digital access to the Sandler Sales Training material from Sandler Training Systems (directly from them). This material normally costs over $10,000 Sandler’s corporate customers. As a special incentive for UM-Dearborn students, Sandler is discounting these materials to only $3,000 per student (payable as $1,500 per course for MKT 435 and MKT 440).
- As a further special incentive, thanks to COB’s generous donors who are very interested in seeing this program benefit a great many of our students, the first 16 students to sign up for the program will receive a scholarship of $1,000 from COB making your net cost only $2,000 (or $1,000 per course).