Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER DECEMBER 2018 NEWS 7 ree sales designations introduced National association hopes new certifi cation will help with recruitment, retention BY JOHN DUJAY SALES specialists can now join the ranks of other accred- ited workers as the Canadian Professional Sales Association (CPSA) has created three new classifi cations. e idea had its genesis after the CPSA discovered there were challenges faced by its more than 20,000 members when it came to "recruitment, selection, onboard- ing and retention of sales profes- sionals," said Richard Louttet, vice-president of education certi- fi cation at the CPSA in Toronto, citing a survey it conducted. " e majority of respondents were indicating that it was either somewhat or very diffi cult to fi nd qualifi ed candidates to fi ll their open sales roles." is skills gap is being addressed by an infusion of $4 million over three years from the federal gov- ernment, which will help the CPSA roll out the new designations — Certifi ed Sales Associate (CSA), Certifi ed Sales Professional (CSP) and Certifi ed Sales Leader (CSL) — to make the profession better recognized, said Louttet. "Because of what individuals go through, from a path of study through to being tested and vali- dated, professional designations were a natural fi t to help over- come this challenge. Because once there's professional designations in the marketplace, then employ- ers have something that they can watch for when they're hiring their next round of candidates." The training regime is sorely needed to address the sales skills gap, said Karen Peesker, director of the Ted Rogers Sales Leadership Program at Ryerson University in Toronto, which partnered with the CPSA to design new curriculum. "Sales is a critical competency from a go-to-market strategy for every organization, and infusing these core capabilities into stu- dents is essential to get them job- ready. Companies and industry, they're asking us for this." While the idea is in its early stages in Canada, it is not new in the rest of the world, she said. "It's starting to happen here but, quite honestly, in America and other places of the world, it's been happening more quickly. In the last 10 years, sales education in universities and in colleges has grown fi ve times, from 27 schools that were started in 2007, to 134 universities and colleges teaching sales capabilities now in 2018." Competencies and training A framework created by the CPSA established competencies and training for each of the titles. "It starts with the core compe- tency area of professional sales conduct, being successful in a sales role, things like the ability to work as part of a team, under- standing the linkage between their personal brand and their ability to sell, acting with integrity, driving results, and engaging in continu- ous learning," said Louttet. " e outer ring of the frame- work covers what is generally the rhythm of the occupation: We understand that a multitude of organizations will engage a multitude of sales processes, and it's not the intention of any com- petency framework to prescribe a process — we'd rather want to be descriptive of what the skill sets for success are, and so the major groupings in that fi nal category are prospecting, fostering client relationships, developing client- focused solutions, negotiating, closing, engaging and followup." Ryerson students are able to get a business certificate from the CPSA for what they learned at the university because many of the competencies from the CPSA program were built into the sales course, said Peesker. e program focuses on both the hard and soft skills of selling, she said. "We try to teach them a lot about communication: I have my students presenting quite fre- quently and giving them a chance to develop their verbal communi- cation as well as the written." "Research skills are really es- sential because when you're in professional sales, you have to be able to research client and mar- ket intelligence, development and prospecting and negotiating skills. And in the soft skills, in- terpersonal skills of relationship development are critical," said Peesker. "Sales is a lot about those skills and listening, active listening when you're sitting down in meet- ings with customers, how to un- derstand their requirements and their needs, and how to best meet those needs really through many of these skills that can be practised and learned." The Ryerson program offers students "experiential" learning, according to Peesker. "I pretend I'm a CEO, and then the students are in the elevator, and they want to meet with me. And so they have to pitch their idea in a very short time as they go up and down the elevator and try to get a meeting. is is an ex- ample of teaching a really impor- tant sales skill in a diff erent and experiential type of environment for the students. It was actually a wonderful educational experience for them." Timely rollout e time is ripe for sales mavens to become more standardized and regulated, according to Mike Salveta, president of PIVOTAL Integrated HR Solutions in Mis- sissauga, Ont. 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