How the UNBSJ MBA Program Is Training The Sales Leaders Of The Future
When University of New Brunswick MBA instructor Matthew Nicolle was hiring salespeople at his previous job, there was one thing he’d look for if everything was equal between two potential hires.
“If I have two candidates that have a similar education and background, but one has a CSP [certified sales professional designation] and has actually gone through the formal process of getting certified, I’m going to go for the candidate with a CSP,” says Nicolle.
“It shows that they have gone through a national framework and they’ve been accredited by a governing body.”
Now, Nicolle’s students at the UNB will have a streamlined opportunity to earn that accreditation thanks to a new partnership.
The University of New Brunswick announced that it’s an Accredited Partner of the Canadian Professional Sales Association (CPSA), the national governing body for sales professionals.
Under the new partnership, the university’s MBA in Business Development and Sales program is accredited by the CPSA Institute for providing all the required pre-requisite education toward the Certified Sales Professional (CSP) designation.
But not only will the partnership streamline a student’s path to CPSA accreditation, a process that takes extra education, time (up to two years) and money otherwise, they get other benefits too. They will become CPSA student members and will have access to an abundance of extra professional development opportunities and connections to potential employers.
“That gives them access to a library of different courses specifically in the selling profession, different training opportunities for them,” says Nicolle. “It also gives them exposure to the employer communities that are seeking specifically certified sales professionals to hire post-graduation. There are also tons of materials in terms of industry best practice, white papers and so on that students will have the ability to access.”
When a lot of people think of sales, they think of a pushy used car salesman who just wants to sell as many cars as possible. But this approach to sales is quite dated, and not the one that’s used in modern business. Today, sales efforts are focused on learning a customer’s pain points, and how your product can help relieve them.
Kola Oshundiya, a recent graduate of the business development and professional sales program, went on to complete his CPSA designation. Back home in Nigeria, he gained lots of experience doing business-to-customer sales. But he now works for New Brunswick startup Procedureflow and says the UNB and the CPSA programs taught him the skills he needed to sell business-to-business.
“What UNB has been able to do is understand that it’s very important to be proficient at selling software and selling to other businesses,” says Oshundiya. ”I had a b-to-c (business to customer) experience before I did my MBA. The UNB program taught us how to lead conversations, how to approach people, how to understand people’s personalities…”
Like most fields, professional sales is constantly evolving. There will always be new skills and best practices to learn. Oshundiya says UNB’s partnership with the CPSA helps set their students up for success long after they graduate.
“After you graduate, you still need constant training. How do you do this? You do this by moving into the CPSA, get a designation, and continue ahead,” he says.
“Just like nurturing a child, you teach a child how to walk, learn their ABC’s … but at a point in time, they need to leave their home and become their own and grow into system, and that’s what UNB has been able to do. They will give you the basic knowledge you need, but after you graduate, they want you to continue learning.”
For years, Atlantic Canadian business leaders like Gerry Pond, co-founder of Mariner and East Valley Ventures, advocated for one of the region’s universities to develop a professional sales program, arguing that more professional salespeople were needed to help grow Atlantic Canada’s economy.
In 2018, UNB introduced its business development and professional sales graduate program, the first of its kind in Canada. The program answered Pond’s challenge by focusing on strong data-driven problem solving with a customer-centric approach, making a partnership with the CPSA a natural fit.
“I know enough to know that lack of sales skills is what is inhibiting Canadian companies, Atlantic Canadian companies, from scaling,” said Pond when the program was launched.
UNB is now the only Atlantic Canadian University with a formal partnership with the CPSA. Nicholas Crowe, the CPSA vice-president of learning solutions, says the MBA program’s commitment and leadership in professional sales made them a good fit.
“They have a real commitment to sales as a profession … with a mission to help raise the standard of the sales profession and help fill a labour market skill gap,” says Crowe.
UNB wanted to partner with CPSA because many graduates land in roles that involve sales in some capacity, yet many university programs don’t include any sales education.
“Over 50 percent of graduates end up finishing university with no exposure to sales in an education context. A lot of people end up selling or supporting selling, but don’t have any formal education,” says Nicolle.
“That’s one of the things UNB Saint John’s MBA solves with their specialization in professional selling, but also with the relationship with the CPSA, it provides another level of opportunity for students where they can actually become certified.”
UNB’s partnership with the CPSA can help give graduates an edge in the job market, but it will also benefit Atlantic Canada’s business community. According to Nicolle, there are more than a million salespeople in Canada and about 86 percent of them are in the larger provinces like B.C., Ontario, Quebec and Alberta.
“Atlantic Canada is very under–represented when it comes to the selling profession broadly,” he says. “This is going to bring some expertise around professional sales right here in Atlantic Canada. This is a huge opportunity and a huge recognition to some of the access we’re going to have in Atlantic with the CPSA relationship.”
CPSA partners with universities like UNB to help close that labour gap of sales professionals in Canada.
“This is a partnership in the truest sense of the term where we’re both working together towards that same goal and working to raise the standard of the sales profession,” says Crowe.
“The goal of partnerships like this is to create a class of designated sales professionals and having more educational options for those people looking to enter a sales career.”
The partnership is a huge win for UNB’s MBA program, but there’s still more to come. The university is continuing discussions with the CPSA about ways they can broaden their partnership.
“I know there are conversations going on between the CEO of the CPSA and leadership at UNB about what the other broader opportunities for the business community are going forward,” says Nicolle. “So, I think there will be some additional things to share in the coming months.”
This story is sponsored by the University of New Brunswick Saint John MBA program.