Member Article

Software leader Sage launches programme to nurture UK’s top sales talent

Newcastle-headquartered software giant Sage has launched a sales programme with the Association of Professional Sales (APS) to train more than 400 employees to be certified sales professionals.

The market leader in accounting, payroll and payment systems has partnered with the professional sales body APS and sales training organisation Silent Edge to introduce the sales accreditation at Sage, in a bid to build the country’s leading and highest performing sales teams

Training will be delivered for more than 400 colleagues across Sage’s North Park site in Newcastle and Central Park in Dublin.

The individual has three levels to reach as part of the APS journey: ‘APS Affiliate’, ‘APS Member’ and then the highest level ‘APS Certified’

Instead of using a competency framework to assess progress, coaches will use the Belief Platform, which is coaching software created by Silent Edge. This will be used by managers to observe their teams and the benchmarking is based on the skills and behaviours displayed in live customer calls.

Gary Boyes, Head of Sales at Sage, explained: “At Sage, we are all about creating a high performance, customer obsessed culture that is underpinned with fantastic sales coaching, the support to deliver a great customer experience and a learning structure that empowers people to succeed.

“Our APS accreditation and work with Silent Edge is the ideal way to do just this as these are also organisations that are focussed on advancing people and promoting excellence in the sales profession. We want to be at the forefront of helping to build a global level of professionalism within this sector.

“By increasing the standards in sales and educating our staff to the highest levels we hope to employ the best, happiest and most empowered sales people in the UK and Ireland. We have brilliant people at Sage and this programme is all about nurturing this talent.”

Ian Helps, APS Director in Sales Professionalism and a visiting fellow at Cranfield University, commented: “It’s very gratifying that Sage have seen the value of the APS code of conduct and our professional registration.

“We believe that rapid learning and development of their sales teams will benefit their customers, their company and their performance.”