Is Accreditation Really Worth It For Salespeople?

by Ben Barton / January 25, 2022

In other industries, you’ll often see strings of letters come after somebody’s name in their email signature. Whether that’s IT, healthcare, education or accounting, publicly stating your certifications is common practice among a number of sectors.

However, within sales, there is no standardised method of certification, no specific, recognisable letter string to put on your CV. So is it still worth pursuing sales accreditation and certification?

 

Accreditation is a benchmark of dedication

For the other industries and sectors mentioned earlier, accreditation and certification serves as a signal that you’ve done the necessary work to get where you are; you’re qualified to do the job at hand.

It’s a benchmark of aptitude.

Within sales, accreditation serves primarily as a benchmark of dedication. Pursuing certification within sales and for specific sales skills clearly highlights to your employer and to your customer that you are fiercely dedicated to sales and to the products you’re selling.

You are sending a message that you are willing to go the extra mile to generate revenue for your business, and to get the best possible deal for your client.

This is a message that carries far more weight than most of us will realise.

 

Sales is still a people-driven business

Even as the first engagement arrives later and later in the sales cycle, sales is still a people-driven business.

Customers might want to get as much information as they can before they talk to a salesperson, but when they do talk to a salesperson, their focus is almost always on the person, not the sales.

They want to know that they are talking to a real person, who really cares about their needs and helping them plug the gaps in their organisation.

Being able to demonstrate to potential buyers and existing customers that every action you take is in pursuit of their best outcomes and is in their best interest is a key factor making early deals stick and driving mature deals further down your sales pipeline.

Of course, for your ‘average’ customer, they’re not going to know about your accreditations and what they mean – they’re not going to care about the negotiations course you went through, or the high value sales training you received.

They won’t ever see or know the process, but they will recognise the results.

 

The three layers of value

For the individual salesperson, the message of accreditation is important; you are dedicated to your craft and dedicated to your clients, and it shows both current and future employers that you are qualified and skilled.

For the customer, the results of accreditation are important; they benefit from interacting with a skilled, dedicated salesperson and feel both valued and listened to as a result.

But what about for the organisation? What value does accreditation add to your business?

The answer is simple; a motivated, skilled-up workforce that sells more often, for more money, faster than ever before.

For the business, the value of accreditation is not in the accreditation itself, but in the process their salespeople must go through to earn the accreditation. Each accreditation earned represents a new skillset, a fresh mindset, a unique toolset that can be leveraged into more revenue.

The incentive of accreditation fosters a culture of continuous, self-motivated learning that in turn builds a team of agile, determined, highly skilled sellers and sales managers that can adapt to any customer, scenario, or market.

What difference would it make to your business if your salespeople met their quotas more often? What difference would it make to your business if your salespeople were able to plug their knowledge and skill gaps of their own volition, without interruption to their normal working day?

 

What difference would it make to your business if you could build an elite sales team from the sellers already within your organisation?

The answer to all of those questions lies in the Sales Academy, Mentor Group’s turnkey training solution.

The Sales Academy is designed to accelerate your business growth by developing and empowering your sales team in a unique digital training environment that utilises Mentor Group’s proven expertise in sales leadership, coaching, sales team development and training across enterprise-level businesses.

Every Sales Academy module is supported by our partnership with the ISP to help you assess and measure the progress and capability of your teams, providing clear evidence of performance and growth.

Learn more information about the power of Sales Academy today by visiting the webpage here, or by watching the video below.

 

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Tags: Elite Selling

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Ben Barton

Ben Barton

Committed to expressing complex ideas in simple ways, driving the conversation around revenue enablement and sales performance.