ISM Diploma in Sales & Account Management (Level 5)

Building on your existing knowledge and experience the ISM Diploma in Sales & Account Management considers the Sales and Account Management roles and the responsibilities you have as a leader for selecting, recruiting and ensuring high performance from your sales team.

You will also gain an understanding of how to use marketing to understand your relationship with your customers and how to satisfy, plan and develop sales and marketing strategies to support their needs effectively and profitably through the sales process.

Who is the Level 5 ISM Diploma for?

The Diploma in Sales & Account Management is aimed at more experienced sales individuals with 5 or more years experience working in a sales role. More specifically at this level, the individual would either be a sales manager in charge of a sales team (Sales Management modules), a sales professional responsible for key account management (Account Management modules) or an experienced sales individual who works in these roles as a combined position.

The qualification is designed to help you expand on your theoretical knowledge giving you the skill and knowledge needed to work towards a more senior or strategic sales role.

Entry requirements

There are no formal entry requirements although we advise that students have either a degree or at least 4 years sales experience.

If English is not your first language, evidence of at least IELTS level 6.5 or Trinity ISE III/IV will also be required.

How long will it take?

We believe in a flexible approach and so you can start your studying as soon as you like.  Each module typically takes around 2 months to complete meaning:

  • the Award will take around 2 – 4 months
  • the Certificate will take around 6 – 9 months to complete
  • the Diploma will take around 12-15 months to complete

These time scales are only guides as you can choose to study at a faster or slower pace to suit your requirements.  We commit ourselves to support all our students for up to a maximum of two years.

Qualification module combinations

The ISM Diploma in Sales and/or Account Management can be studied as a Certificate qualification, a Diploma in Sales Management, a Diploma in Account Management or the more popular option of the full Diploma in Sales and Account Management. The table below explains which modules to study to gain each of the qualifications:

Module title Award in Sales & Account Management Certificate in Sales & Account Management Diploma in Sales and Account Management
Managing responsible selling ✔✔ ✔✔
Understanding and developing customer accounts ✔✔ ✔✔
Understanding the integrated functions of sales and marketing ✔✔ ✔✔
Sales forecasts and target setting ✔✔

Leading a team
Motivation and compensation for sales teams
Coaching and mentoring
Designing, planning and managing sales territories
Analysing the financial potential and performance of customer accounts
Relationship management for account management
Bid and tender management for account managers
Developing a product portfolio

1 - for an Award in Sales & Account Management you would choose ONE module from this column.
2 - for the Certificate in Sales & Account Management you would study ALL MODULES in this column as indicated

3 –for the Diploma in Sales & Account Management  the modules (marked with ✓ ✓) are MANDATORY, and then you would choose any FOUR of the remaining modules to a value of 24 credits (indicated with ✓)  making it SEVEN modules to study in total

What modules will you study?

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Assessment: Work-based Assignment

The aim of this unit is to ensure that sales and account managers have the skills to analyse and manage the financial performance of customer accounts.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

This unit aims to provide knowledge and skills for bid and tender management. Bid and tender management involves working to strict timescales, producing documentation to support the bid and tendering the bid.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

This unit aims to provide understanding of the principles of coaching and mentoring, and the skills for planning, delivering a coaching or mentoring programme and for evaluating own coaching or mentoring practice.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

In this unit students will develop knowledge and understanding of the design, planning and management of sales territories and the work of the sales team in those territories. Students will analyse the market, and appraise options for the definition of territories in order to establish the appropriate territory plan to optimise the sales effort.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

This unit aims to provide the knowledge and skills for determining selling priorities across a portfolio of products/services based upon an understanding of the current and potential profitability of the components of the portfolio.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

This unit aims to provide students with knowledge and understanding of transactional leadership: to share a vision and to set goals and define tasks that move people towards the vision. Leadership skills include building trust, focusing people on the right tasks, creating accountability and maintaining alignment.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

This unit aims to cover the knowledge involved in managing an organisation's operations in ways that are consistent with its social and ethical principles, and which fulfil legal and regulatory requirements.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

This unit will review and evaluate motivation and compensation for sales (or account) teams.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

This unit will focus and provide students with the knowledge and skills for relationship management in sales.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

This unit aims to develop knowledge and understanding of forecasting sales and setting sales targets for your own area of responsibility and includes how to collect and use information to develop a sales forecast, based on past and present sales data, factors which influence sales, sales trends, market conditions and product and service developments within your organisation.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

The aim of this unit is to support knowledge, understanding and skills necessary to establish how customer organisations select suppliers as part of their supply chain and to use information gathered on how organisations select suppliers to develop a customer accounts plan.

Assessment: Work-based Assignment

This unit aims to support knowledge and understanding in demonstrating the commercial importance of marketing to an organisation's success, both in the long term and also for the short/medium term.

It includes demonstrating the value of marketing analysis in leading an organisation to develop a strategy which focuses resources upon appropriate customers, with a clear positioning message and products/services addressing the specific requirements identified. It supports the clear interrelationship between sales and marketing.

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To find out more about the ISM, visit the ISM website today.

Why not download our ISM sales prospectus to learn more?

If you are unable to download a prospectus using this form, please contact one of the team either via the webchat, by emailing enquiries@professionalacademy.com, or by calling 01223 365 505, and a qualifications adviser will send you a prospectus.

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