Successful selling is a crucial business function for every industry and even professions like law, accounting, and architecture. While a degree may get you into the game, winning business is essential to advancing in your career. 

Yet, no other field is as simultaneously important and neglected as sales. The Successful Selling Certificate provides holders with the knowledge, skills, and tools to excel at the vital function of selling. 

There are two ten-hour courses. The first of two courses focus on establishing a replicable process consisting of milestones that form a pipeline and investigation skills like asking strategic questions and listening. The second course (Successful Selling II) leads to skills to deliver winning presentations. To earn the Certificate in Successful Selling, students will need to submit portfolio items marked with an asterisk under the Learning Outcomes listed below.  Derived from visual and performing arts, portfolios have been used increasingly in a wide variety of settings to evaluate skills and abilities.

Course One: Establishing a Replicable Sales Process & Conducting the Investigation

Learning Outcomes

• Establish a pipeline system consisting of milestones*.
• Segment your market by commodity and consultative buyers*.
• Plot your prospects on the Client Targeting Matrix which evaluates both business potential and relationship*.
• Conduct a Decision Criteria Analysis for three key prospects*.
• Plan powerful questions based on Rackham’s research.
• Learn and apply the Miller-Heiman Buyer Influence model.
• Complete and implement three Call Planners consisting of a milestone objective, questions, and buyer influences*.
• Practice and learn the listening skill of summarizing.

Successful Selling I  is written and facilitated by Arnold Tilden

In 1994, Dr. Arnold Tilden established Tilden & Associates, a firm that enables its clients to improve performance through corporate training and leadership development. In 1999, Tilden became a partner in PfP Consulting, Inc. a global sales and marketing practice specializing in financial services. Tilden has assisted many global and Fortune 1000 companies in improving performance including AccuWeather, Barclays Global Investors, Barnes & Noble, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Fortis Bank, ING, KPMG, Johnson Controls, Johns Hopkins University, Ogden Newspapers, Perkin Elmer, QlikTech, Penn State University (Smeal), Trane, United States Federal Reserve Bank and Wachovia. He has also consulted with regional firms in diverse industries including accounting, advertising, architecture, banking, engineering, higher education, information technology, insurance, logistics, statistical software, and manufacturing.

Tilden earned his doctorate from Temple University in educational psychology and has conducted landmark research in career development. He has taught psychology (Psychological Tests & Measurement) and management (Human Behavior in Organizations) while serving as a college dean and vice president.

Dr. Tilden is a specialist with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and has effectively used that model to advance leadership skills, career development, and teamwork. He is the founder and author of Successful Selling to Type: SST^® a sales model which improves communication effectiveness by applying MBTI principles and concepts.

Tilden's second book, Rainmakers, Closers and Other Sales Myths was published by Rowman Littlefield in 2007. In it, he debunks popular myths to which businesses subscribe and replaces sales mythology with his Strategy, Structure, and People System™.