Professional Development

SLMA Members Receive A 15% Discount From The Business Marketing Institute On Any Educational Materials/Programs. 

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Discounts are a courtesy of Business Marketing Institute, LLC. Questions about courses, delivery, discounts, etc., should be directed to the Business Marketing Institute.  The Business Marketing Institute LLC is a separate company and not owned by the Sales Lead Management Association or affiliated companies.

The Business Marketing Institute (BMI) was established to build new training and certification systems in response to a greater demand on the part of management in business-to-business companies to hold marketing managers accountable for producing measurable sales results from their company's marketing programs. The new programs developed by the BMI help assess, train, and certify the practical skills and performance required of company marketing managers, product managers, and marketing staff.

One of the major goals of BMI is to re-connect the sales and marketing departments, and to make company marketing programs more responsive to the company's sales effort.

According to BMI Managing Director Rick Kean, recent trends show that B2B company marketing functions are now being re-integrated into sales departments, with marketing staff now reporting to company sales executives. Kean says this trend has emerged because "CEOs are now questioning the contribution of their company's marketing programs to the company's tangible sales results."

Further, Kean says that "what we are now seeing is a return to marketing that serves the company's sales efforts. For marketing managers, this means a greater emphasis on the basic skills and competence required to perform the daily tasks essential to B2B sales success, such as how to produce effective advertising, or how to execute sales-oriented direct mail programs and trade shows. These are the practical skills marketing managers need to drive the content and execution of the company's marketing program, to increase their company's sales."  Both the CRM-FM and MSA/B/C systems also utilize comprehensive print study guides which serve as a self-contained training reference marketing professionals can use to prepare for the CRM-FM or MSA/B/C training and certification programs; these print study guides are included with both training and certification products.

Current Programs:

The MSA/B/C™ System: Assessing, Training, and Certifying the Marketing Skills that Generate Sales and New Business for Your Company

The CRM Field Marketing System™: Aligning Marketing to On-Demand CRM: More Effective, Measurable B2B Marketing Programs: Make It Happen With On-Demand CRM and the CRM-FM System

Get Our Newest e-Book: On-Demand CRM and The New Marketing Model™: Keys to optimizing lead generation and lead development with your marketing program (39 pages, PDF format). 

Get your free copy of On-Demand CRM and The New Marketing Model: Integrating an On-Demand CRM Systems Into Your Company's B2B Marketing Program, our 39-page eBook highlighting the major elements required to integrate on-demand CRM into your marketing program.

Featuring content excerpted from the BMI CRM Field Marketing (CRM-FM) System, On-Demand CRM and The New Marketing Model describes the new marketing processes required to optimize B2B marketing programs for better, more measurable lead generation and lead development using on-demand CRM systems.

Program One: 

The MSA/B/C™ System: Assessing, Training, and Certifying the Marketing Skills that Generate Sales and New Business for Your Company

Effective execution of critical marketing programs is often the difference between success or failure in highly-competitive business-to-business markets.

The MSA/B/C System helps marketing, sales, and product management professionals in companies of all sizes build and certify the essential skills they need to plan, execute, and manage the marketing programs that generate measurable sales response, providing marketing professionals with the practical and proven training they need to run successful business-to-business marketing programs.

For corporate marketing professionals, the MSA/B/C System trains and reinforces the proven skills of marketing execution for the critical marketing projects that build sales and new business for your company.

For product managers, engineers, field sales reps, or IT professionals without prior marketing experience, the MSA/B/C System is an invaluable tool for rapid training of your company's professional non-marketing staff selected for advancement to marketing management positions. MSA/B/C accelerated training and certification provides these staff members with a rapid, comprehensive way to learn the skills they need to perform competently and effectively in your company's marketing program.

For corporate HR or training professionals, the MSA/B/C System is an excellent tool for assessing the level of practical marketing knowledge held by applicants for key marketing positions, and provides your company with a ready path to training your company's valued marketing staff in the skills and principles of successful marketing execution.

The MSA/B/C System is an effective, industry-recognized tool for assessing, training, and certifying the level of professional business-to-business marketing knowledge of the core marketing practices and skills required to develop and execute marketing programs that generate sales leads and open new business opportunities for your company.

MSA/B/C System Contents

The BMI MSA/B/C system consists of three parts:

• The Marketing Skills Assessment (MSA), an initial assessment of basic business-to-business marketing knowledge;

• The Marketing Skills Builder (MSB), a comprehensive training program, with study guide, that tests, corrects, and develops the range of knowledge required for competence in marketing management;

• Marketing Skills Certification (MSC), the BMI's industry-recognized professional certification credential for business marketing professionals

BMI Marketing Skills Assessment: How Much Do Your Company's Marketing Managers Know?

The first module of the BMI professional development system, the BMI Marketing Skills Assessment (MSA) , measures the marketing manager's background knowledge, skill levels, and overall competency in the broad spectrum of marketing-related planning, development, execution, and management of virtually all of the most commonly-used projects and procedures used in business-to-business marketing.

The MSA module combines comprehensive, in-depth "best practices" marketing-related learning content in a Web-based training system to assess the respondent's background knowledge and essential skills required for on-the-job competency and success in business-to-business marketing.

The BMI MSA module measures specific, real-world knowledge that is valuable , relevant, and essential to business-to-business marketers, not generalized textbook marketing theories or principles. Marketing managers who take the MSA are tested for their knowledge and understanding of the practical marketing skills they must possess to adequately plan, execute, and manage marketing programs for companies selling their products to other companies in high technology, industrial, manufacturing, services, and other business-to-business markets.

BMI Marketing Skills Builder (MSB)

The BMI Marketing Skills Builder (MSB) is a comprehensive training program for marketing managers, product managers, and others who must develop, execute, and manage business-to-business marketing programs.

With the MSB, marketing managers receive a practical training program that helps them significantly improve their marketing execution and real-world marketing management skills, while requiring a minimum amount of time away from their essential day-to-day responsibilities.

Topics covered in the MSB include:

• Marketing plan evaluation and development;
• Print advertising programs;
• Marketing deliverables: Copy, layout, and execution;
• Direct mail: Planning, testing, development and execution;
• Trade show planning, promotion, and execution;
• Web site development;
• Public relations;
• Market testing;
• Video and multimedia;
• New product launches, start-ups, and sales turnaround situations

When using the MSB, marketing managers can work quickly to build their marketing-related knowledge at the question/answer level, or the broader topic level, or they can move sequentially through the content like a course, at their own speed: They decide when they are ready to move on, or they can repeat the process to build their knowledge in specific topic areas.

Unlike other training programs, the BMI Marketing Skills Builder focuses on improving the skills of marketing execution which is often the most important factor in the success of B2B marketing programs.

BMI Marketing Skills Certification (MSC)

The third module, Marketing Skills Certification (MSC), is the professional certification examination of the Business Marketing Institute, the business-to-business marketing profession's most recognized professional certification standard for marketing managers.

MSC tests the marketing manager's background knowledge and skills assessed and developed by their use of the MSA and MSB modules in the MSA/B/C system. MSC tests for knowledge of the core "mission critical" skills required for professional-level competency in planning, development, and execution of business-to-business marketing programs.

A test-taker's passing-level test score (90%) on the MSC examination awards MSC certification, an industry-recognized credential for business-to-business marketing professionals.

While both the Marketing Skills Assessment (MSA) and Marketing Skills Builder (MSB) are study and practice tools used in preparation for the MSC examination, test-takers may elect to take the MSC examination without prior use of the MSA/MSB tools.

The BMI Marketing Skills Assessment and Marketing Skills Builder are based on the Business Marketing Institute's printed study guide, The Marketing Manager's Handbook , the source content courseware for BMI's assessment, training, and certification programs. This study guide is a comprehensive 512-page desktop reference covering the practical, proven methods required for sales success in every type of marketing activity required in business-to-business marketing programs for companies in industrial, technology, and service markets.

The Marketing Manager's Handbook is included with the combined MSA/MSB skills assessment and skill-building program available from the Business Marketing Institute.

On-Site Training

One- and two-day comprehensive MSA/B/C training courses are also available for corporate users and groups. Please contact us for further information.

There is No Substitute for Knowledge

The cost of having your marketing managers receive the best available assessment and training to measure their knowledge and improve their marketing skills is far less than the cost of running marketing programs that fail to generate sales response. The Business Marketing Institute's MSA and MSB assessment and training programs are your least expensive tools for insuring the best possible training for your company's marketing staff.

In today's competitive markets, successful marketers are valued and rewarded by their knowledge rather than by their seniority or pedigree. And more than ever, they need the knowledge and tools to create and implement programs that will dramatically affect their company's bottom line. Companies must insure their marketing managers possess the specialized business-to-business marketing knowledge and execution skills required to implement successful, sales-generating marketing programs, and to prevent knowledge-related problems in marketing programs before they occur.

Knowledge and skill mean the difference between sales success and failure in your company's marketing program. And essential, relevant, targeted assessment and training can make a good marketing manager even more skilled, productive and successful in executing your company's marketing activities. The more useful, applied marketing knowledge and skills held by your marketing staff, the greater the chances they will develop and execute marketing programs that increase your company's sales, open new markets, and build your company's market share.

And there is no better way to build this knowledge and skill than by using BMI's knowledge assessment and skill building tools, the industry's first and only standardized assessment, training, and certification system for business-to-business marketing professionals.

Program Two:

More Effective, Measurable B2B Marketing Programs: Make It Happen With On-Demand CRM and the CRM-FM System 

The Business Marketing Institute's CRM Field Marketing (CRM-FM) Assessment, Skill Building, and Certification program is a Web-based system that trains and certifies the important hands-on principles, skills, and techniques marketing professionals need to utilize on-demand CRM to run proven, effective, business-to-business lead generation, lead development, and sales support marketing programs.

The CRM-FM system provides in-depth training and certification in the critical skills required to execute all of the major marketing activities which comprise business-to-business marketing programs today: Execution of targeted direct mail testing for lead generation; developing print advertising campaigns that generate sales response; planning and executing trade shows, developing Google AdWords keyword search programs, and more.

The CRM-FM system: Integrating B2B marketing programs with the power of on-demand CRM

The CRM-FM system is a complete, comprehensive online training and certification program that addresses all of the major marketing activities that are a part of B2B marketing programs, and, most important—the critical areas where these marketing activities are integrated, executed, managed, and measured, using on-demand CRM.

Content and courseware in the CRM-FM system is compatible with, and applies to, the major application areas utilized in all on-demand CRM systems for lead generation and lead development offered by the most popular CRM vendors, including Oracle (Siebel CRM On Demand), SAP, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and salesforce.com.*

Utilizing On-Demand CRM Campaigns for Effective Lead Generation and Lead Development

The CRM-FM system provides extensive coverage of the major functional practice areas where business-to-business marketing programs utilize on-demand CRM to execute, measure, and improve the efficiency of the marketing and sales process.

From development and execution of key lead generation marketing activities (on-demand CRM campaigns), to ongoing measurement, lead development, and critical sales team support during your company's sales process, the CRM-FM system gets marketing, product, and sales professionals up to speed and using on-demand CRM to boost lead generation and conversions by developing marketing programs specifically designed to utilize the powerful communication, execution, and measurement capabilities in on-demand CRM.

Content covered in the CRM-FM system (above, right) addresses the major types of marketing activities executed as campaigns in on-demand CRM (above, left), and their integration with on-demand CRM

Who Can Benefit from CRM-FM Online Training and Certification?

Marketing managers, product managers, sales professionals, and sales support staff—any marketing professional involved in planning and hands-on execution of business-to-business marketing programs, sales support, and business development in your company—can utilize the CRM-FM system to learn and master the skills required to utilize on-demand CRM for executing more effective marketing and lead development programs.

How It Works

The CRM Field Marketing System consists of three Web-based modules:

• CRM Field Marketing Assessment (FM-A) assesses baseline knowledge of the background principles and skill required to plan, develop, and execute effective, sales-oriented business-to-business marketing programs, and sets a benchmark for the user's current level of knowledge and familiarity with principles required for success utilizing on-demand CRM.
• FM-A provides a snapshot view of each users' initial, "Day One" knowledge and skill level, and is a useful benchmark for measuring improvement developed by completing the CRM-FM skill-building (FM-B) and certification (FM-C) modules (see below);
• CRM Field Marketing Skill-Builder (FM-B) is a comprehensive, 15-part Web-based training program covering the wide range of practical, proven marketing areas for business-to-business lead generation and lead development, utilizing on-demand CRM. The FM-B module builds practical skills for marketing, sales, and product management professionals at all experience levels in the application of on-demand CRM to each of these critical marketing areas in your company:

(For a detailed listing of content covered in the CRM-FM system, click here)

Printed study guide: The CRM-FM System includes a 510-page printed workbook, The CRM Field Marketing Handbook, a comprehensive study guide which documents the training content of the online CRM-FM System. This study guide workbook is provided to each CRM-FM user and is each CRM-FM users' essential print desktop reference for planning, developing, and executing every type of on-demand CRM marketing campaign for your company.

CRM Field Marketing Certification (FM-C) tests and certifies the critical knowledge required to utilize on-demand CRM in business-to-business marketing programs. Containing courseware content based on the BMI's MSA/B/C System and endorsed by the Business Marketing Association (BMA), the industry's largest trade association for B2B marketing professionals, on-demand CRM FM-C certifies the user's knowledge of the principles, skills, and techniques developed using the CRM-FM System.

FM-C certification in the CRM Field Marketing system, which requires a 90% or higher completion score for certification, is management's assurance in your company that marketing, sales and product management professionals have attained a solid understanding of the content, principles, and skills required for success in utilizing on-demand CRM for effective execution of business-to-business marketing programs.

Web-Based Training to Meet the Needs of Busy Marketing Professionals in Companies Using On-Demand CRM Systems

All three modules of the CRM-FM system are taken in a Web-based BMI training account established for each user, and can be completed according to each user's own time schedule to meet the needs of busy marketing, product, and sales support professionals. A typical CRM-FM user should be able to study, assess, practice and certify in the CRM-FM system in 2-3 weeks. Each user's training account is activated for 90 days to allow sufficient time for completion and certification.

For a comprehensive listing of content and topics covered in the CRM-FM system, click here;

To download the Table of Contents of The CRM Field Marketing Handbook (.PDF format), click here;

* Courseware and content provided in CRM-FM training does not provide in-depth user-level training or certification in specific functions or features of any single CRM system, and is not intended to replace training or certification provided by your CRM vendor. For information on user training for these systems, check with your CRM vendor.