How does it sound to be better, better than the rest? Sounds pretty good? Well, this past fall Dr. Kirkwood encouraged her students to rise to the top, in her Advanced Selling course. In the class, she offered two certifications that will enable her students to distinguish themselves in the job market. As an advocate for applied learning she offered a SuperBadge in Salesforce and an Inbound Sales certification in HubSpot. Dr. Kirkwood explained that these two platforms are “highly regarded and widely used customer relationship management platforms.”
These certifications allowed students to receive valuable information on the best marketing, customer relationship management, and inbound sales practices. They also peered a light into Salesforce and HubSpot’s’ specific platforms. As these fields are highly competitive, these certifications gave a leg up to their recipients when looking for positions, especially those who support this software in their own businesses.
In order to qualify, the students were required to participate in a 15-hour module where they listened to webinars, watched videos, and engaged in hands-on activities for each certification respectively. This enabled the students to absorb the information at an accelerated rate. At the conclusion of the semester, 98% of the students were HubSpot Inbound Sales certified and 87% of the students passed their Salesforce modules.
Student feedback from the course suggested that collectively the student had a positive experience in the class. They commented that it gave them a tangible real-life experience, that some were able to fold into their current positions. Dr. Kirkwood also received multiple requests to create additional sales based classes. Fall 2019 was the first class that Dr. Kirkwood, offered these certifications and evidently, this provided a great benefit to her student