Sales Management Association
About
The Sales Management Association is a cross-industry professional association for managers focused on sales force effectiveness, including professionals in sales operations, sales enablement, commercial effectiveness and sales leadership. It promotes professional development, peer networking, best-practice research and thought leadership through webcasts, research reports, online courses and a resource library. The association runs virtual and regional events and the annual Sales Force Productivity Conference, held each fall in Atlanta. It offers professional certifications in sales management (CSMP) and sales operations (CSOP), Business Development Representative certification for groups, and memberships for individuals and companies. It also provides sales force effectiveness advisory services.
Sales Management Association’s Story
Robert J. Kelly founded the Sales Management Association in 2008, after serving as vice president of sales operations and strategy at Genuine Parts Company. The association promotes professional development, peer networking, best-practice research and thought leadership for people who support, manage, coach and lead sales organizations.
It has staged the Sales Force Productivity Conference each year since 2011 and sponsors and helps produce the Thought Leadership on the Sales Profession Conference, held with business schools including Harvard Business School, Columbia Business School, HEC Paris and Stanford Graduate School of Business.
What members get
- All webcasts, about 50 a year, plus slides and archives of more than 700 webcasts since 2010
- Research reports, slide decks and briefings benchmarking sales management practice
- Free access to all online short course modules for individual members
- Discounted registration for the Sales Force Productivity Conference, held each fall in Atlanta
- Discounted fees on CSMP and CSOP professional certification
TopCloserR Perspective
What we’d expect selling here to look like
The Sales Management Association sells individual and corporate memberships, certifications, conference registrations and advisory services to sales operations, enablement and sales leadership professionals. Corporate memberships, custom certification programs and advisory work imply a consultative sale to heads of sales operations and sales leaders, alongside self-serve individual memberships.
What it builds, by career stage
- Breaking in
- For SDRs, BDRs and those aiming for a first SDR role, the business implies converting free subscribers and webcast attendees into paid members and booking calls with companies interested in group plans.
- Building
- For account executives and those working toward the title, it implies selling corporate memberships, custom certification programs and conference sponsorship or underwriting to sales operations and enablement leaders.
- Leading
- For sales managers, directors and heads of sales, it implies selling to peers who run sales operations and sales effectiveness functions, where fluency in compensation, territories and sales process matters.
Where it can take you
The experience transfers to professional associations, research and advisory firms, and sales performance management software companies that sell to sales operations leaders.
Questions worth asking
Considering a sales role at Sales Management Association? Ask these in your interview.
- How do free subscribers and webcast attendees convert into paid individual or corporate memberships?
- How are corporate memberships, certifications and advisory work sold together?
- Who sells conference sponsorship and underwriting, and how is it priced?
Recommendations
More Communities / Events businesses