University of Derby partnership equips future field sales stars

The University of Derby has partnered with FieldStar to create the Certificate in Professional Field Sales – the first university accredited learning and development programme for front-line field sales professionals and their managers.

This new programme is available to any organisation looking to improve the effectiveness of their field sales team, with places now available on the 2015 open programme starting in June.

The 20-week programme aims to improve time management, enhance objective setting, help employees build more productive relationships, and make sales conversations more effective. Training is delivered using online and flexible work-based learning, ensuring little disruption to existing work patterns, with students attending two 1-day workshops and receiving full support from a University tutor throughout.

Ben Cope, Business Development Manager from the Corporate Learning team at the University of Derby, said: “This is an important partnership between Derby and FieldStar. It’s a great opportunity to work with some leading brands and engage with a wide range of high street names, and demonstrate how important professional sales skills are in this sector.”

Steve Radford, Managing Director at FieldStar, added: “It was a clear choice to partner with The University of Derby for their obvious experience in online and flexible work-based learning.”

Warburtons, the family baker, has already benefited, with their Area Managers completing the training as an in-company programme. Every member of the Warburtons team successfully gained their University Certificate - for some this was their first experience of higher-education. All agreed that the programme had increased their motivation, their performance and the return on investment they deliver.

Mark Jones, Sales Development Controller at Warburtons, said: “I’m really comfortable that, as a consequence, not only will we end up with better line managers and more capable leaders in the business, we’ll also benefit by having better and more skilful sales teams.”