Like any professional, getting to the top of your game takes years of learning, practice, support, coaching and experience. Most professions require licensure or certification. And "being a professional" often requires the attainment of minimum professional standards – today, selling requires the same dedication, focus, and professionalism -- UPSA can help.
We have had the pleasure to collaborate with individuals from all over United States (and even the world) on our approach. From them, we have gleaned best practices, understanding, and emerging trends. Leveraging the strength of leaders like you, UPSA has brought together a group of volunteers and created a vibrant global community of individual sales professionals, HR professionals, purchasing professionals, sales managers, and alliance partners. All of us have one goal -- to focus on the buyer-seller relationship within a consultative and ethical context -- while redefining the sales profession based on an open source selling framework.
Why does what we're doing matter?
Because results have never been more important. To get on the fast-track to achieving your desired results, you have to know where you're going. As a non profit membership based organization of Sales Professionals, we help you attain excellence in sales methods by providing you a framework for your complete customization. This allows you to leverage your strengths, minimize your weaknesses, and learn what it takes to succeed. Our FREE universal, inclusive, and open-source selling framework is found within our Compendium of Professional Selling.
< back to top
Because we collaboratively create and evolve standards for selling designed for customization by each unique salesperson and sales organization – we help each individual person and organization attain desired selling results. We also build sales confidence, trust, and impact with those "within the profession" and "outside the profession."
At the end of 2005, UPSA Membership is approaching 2,000 members in 9 different countries.
To date, people have contacted or joined UPSA from such countries as the United Kingdom, Poland, Lithuania, South Africa, Trinidad& Tobago, Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong China, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, Belgium, and Germany. Potential local chapter leaders have contacted UPSA from Great Britain, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia, a well as Oklahoma , Seattle, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, California, Idaho, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Ohio, and Arizona. Chapters are formed in Southern Africa, Belgium/Luxembourg/Netherlands and in the USA: Boston , Raleigh NC, and Washington DC .
The UPSA standards were begun in 1999. Since that time, we have authored the Compendium of Professional Selling through two major editions and more that 15 different versions with the next version scheduled for 2008. At the end of 2005, the UPSA Standards have been downloaded in 19 different countries. Also in 2005, the 2nd Edition of The CoPS was released (as the current testable version for certification) with professional editing accomplished and new artwork created. Also, a more global language was adopted.
Individuals in the following roles can leverage our standards (CoPS, pg 20).
Example of roles inside the profession:
- Individual sales representatives
- Account managers, account executives or others with a sales portfolio of accounts
- Sales Managers and other sales management
Example of roles outside the profession:
- Pre-sales professionals who support the selling cycle before the purchase of goods and/or services
- Post-sales professionals who support the selling cycle after the purchase of goods and/or services.
- Marketing professionals who want to understand how buyers buy and sellers sell.
- Product and service developers/marketers who want to understand what products/services to develop/market that are customer-centric.
- Senior level leaders and managers seeking to grow revenue through the selling of goods and/or services.
- CEO's of small, medium, and large corporations who want more out of their sales organizations.
- Educators teaching professional selling methodology or framework.
- Consultants and other specialists within, or consulting to those in, the sales profession.
- Trainers developing sales methodologies or selling strategies that seek to maximize the revenue brought in by the sales force.
- Individuals involved in corporate purchasing or buying
< back to top
By joining UPSA (for around $55.00/yr), and learning the same standards being leveraged throughout the world, we can help you grow your career through..
- Collaboration with other Sales Professionals
- Education on the Sales Standards , ethical code , and certification requirements that help you become better
- Sales Profession Leadership through our local chapters where you can prove your leadership potential by leading events
As a sales professional, sales manager, or practice leader rising to the challenge of an emerging new sales paradigm, could you use some solid grounding in sales principals that really work? Maybe you need a trusted resource to get more support and information than you can get from your company or your sales manager? Or maybe you're a business owner who's decided it's time to finally do something about driving more revenue?
If you are a buyer, HR professional, or sales trainer, isn't it about time to look for the key elements and requirements for successful selling? Would you like someone to tell you exactly what professional selling is? Maybe you have tried to find a great salesperson, and you are "beginning to wonder if there is even such a thing?"
To that end, it's about having the know-how and foundation of selling knowledge, skills, and abilities within a sales process that you can understand, leverage and optimize -- and even customize. To help you succeed, we provide you with an objective, research-based roadmap for sales effectiveness assessment, grounded in the universal competencies and standards of successful selling -- simply put, it's what professional selling is -- and you need to know it to succeed, that's why we give it away for free.
< back to top
“My sales numbers have gone up over 25% per year, for 3 years in a row, since
I started applying the UPSA model to my sales process.”
--- Jonathan Sper, EFX Media
The Challenge : Selling in a tough economy, in an unfamiliar industry, with a rising quota. Old methods weren't working as well as he would like.
The Solution : Mr. Sper implemented the UPSA Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Model to his existing sales process. He re-tooled his ACT! Database to reflect the 9 stages of the UPSA Buying Cycle and lined his sales efforts up to support the customer's buying processes.
The Result : Mr. Sper exceeded his yearly quota by 18% the first year using the UPSA CSLM. He was named EFX's Sales Person of the year for 2003 and is currently tracking to capture that award again in 2004. His earnings continue to rise every year.
“With the UPSA model I was able to understand what I needed to do to be successful in a new market segment, and stay motivated while helping to branch the company in a new direction.”
--- Kevin Taylor, Marketing General
The Challenge : Switching to a new company and focusing on finding business in an uncharted market segment.
The Solution : Mr. Taylor sat for, and attained, his CRSP certification. He used the principles he learned to re-model his sales processes. He paid special attention to the 9 UPSA knowledge areas to constantly analyze improve his sales abilities.
The Result : Since beginning to use the UPSA system Kevin has noticed a dramatic improvement in his sales efficiency. His close rate is up and his time spent prospecting has become significantly more efficient. Kevin firmly believes that UPSA has allowed him create a successful business practice in a minimum amount of time.
“The exchange of ideas and willingness of peers to assist me with my sales challenges has proved invaluable to me.”
--- Laura Zeff, Grafik
The Challenge : Laura was taking her fist pure outside job, with no local contacts, and was taking on the role of the only sales person in the company.
The Solution : Laura fully embraced the UPSA model. She obtained her CRSP and aligned her sales processes to support the buyer. In addition she became a regular attendee at the UPSA Coaching Groups.
The Result : Laura has built her business from scratch into a thriving sales practice, and is on track to exceed the all the expectations of her new company.
"I revamped my whole sales process to the UPSA standards, and focused my approach on the buyer process. I built my pipeline management tool leveraging the UPSA standards. I doubled my sales results in 6 months.
These results allowed me to move up into a new company, and take more of a leadership role"
--- John MacKinnon, SecDog
The Challenge : As a huge believer in networking John is always on the lookout for groups that will allow him to share and receive the best business contacts.
The Solution : UPSA membership provided John with access to the best lead source in the world – Other sales people. Through UPSA's constantly growing membership, John has been able to stay in font of some o the areas top sales people, sales managers and recruiters.
The Result : Leads given to or received from John have resulted in multiple new hires and over 1 million dollars in business.
< back to top
CASE STUDY #1: The VP and Operations Officer at EZGSA identified the need to implement a common language across the entire organization. Professional selling, marketing, and fulfillment team members didn't understand each other's points of view. The company needed a defined process throughout the entire buyer's experience. This meant putting more structure into managing the company's sales process.
-
 Find out how the UPSA framework helped achieve real-world results.
CASE STUDY #2: The Chief Recruiting Officer for Air Force ROTC had a problem. Recruiting numbers were the lowest they had been in decades. His workforce of 300 recruiters and sales professionals averaged 100% turn over every 3-4 years. With no comprehensive understanding of a recruiting (sales) process, the AF ROTC was falling short of meeting their officer production quota for the year.
- Find out how the UPSA framework helped achieve real-world results.
|
UPSA Impact to You