Welcome! I've been encouraged by many leaders to embrace the world of blogging, and this is going to be the first effort to create a community for members of the sales and marketing community to gather and share ideas about the profession. We will dialogue about benchmarking, ethics, competencies and many other topics that are related to professionalism in our chosen area.
I'm looking forward to your feedback in the form of comments as we build this community. This blog will be built by several leading authors who have become or are becoming authorities in the area of certification with emphasis on sales and marketing.
Now more than ever, companies and individuals are looking to credible third party organizations to validate their level of competency in a given field. Certification validates individual credentials.
Creating this blog will help to bring professional certification in sales and marketing into the public domain. For over 20 years, SMEI has developed some of the world's most credible certification programs. We're excited to see that in the past year, the diligence of SMEI's leaders has born fruit in the form of exponential growth in the number of newly certified members around the world.
I think the idea of a Certification Blog is outstanding. It will provide all individuals interested in Professional Sales & Marketing certification with up to date information and ideas. Our Toro group is spread out accross the U.S. and Canada and the blog will also be a great way for us to communicate with each other and help one another with the certification process. I would encourage all Toro SMEI members and soon to be certified sales professionals to use the blog to share your thoughts and ideas regarding the benefits of certification, what your customers think about you becoming a "certified" salesperson and how it has impacted your sales performance so far. See you at the blog. Great Selling!
Posted by: Steve Keating | January 19, 2005 at 07:20 AM