ISP Training partner case study - Maple Associates

Maple Associates  provide training and consultancy services to businesses across a wide range of sectors around the world. Offering programmes in a variety of formats, Maple Associates focus on sales, leadership, coaching and change management. Their speciality is on helping individuals and teams to adopt tools and techniques that drive sustained performance improvement. 

Maple Associates recently achieved an ISP endorsement for their sales programmes. Here, in conversation with ISP’s Jennie Harnaman, Maple Associates MD, Simon Batty talks about the difference their ISP endorsement has made to their business and their learners. 

 Why did you initially want your programmes endorsed by the Institute of Sales Professionals? 

To compete and succeed as a small learning and development consultancy working with global clients, it is essential that our work is endorsed by professional bodies. That is what allows us to win clients who would normally only deal with much larger organisations. More importantly though, we care passionately that sales becomes a genuine profession and endorsement by The Institute of Sales Professionals is a critical element in helping client companies and individual sales professionals know that they are receiving professional development worthy of their time and investment. 

 How did you find the endorsement process? 

The endorsement process was simple, but not easy or automatic. ISP quite rightly needs to check that the content, methods of delivery, candidate support and business administration processes are all in place.  That is really the whole point of endorsement; it is a clear signal to a client organisation or learner that the training and development they are receiving has been reviewed and validated by a third-party professional body. 

 How has endorsement benefited your training company? 

When a major global equipment manufacturer asked us to develop a pilot sales management programme for their UK & Eire dealership network, they insisted that the programme had external endorsement. This enabled them to promote it to their independent dealers as a professional programme, that would genuinely help equip sales managers with the capabilities and confidence to lead their retail sales teams in a highly competitive market.  The pilot programme was so successful that it is now a regular part of their UK & Eire Dealership Academy.  We subsequently developed a subordinate programme at the request of the dealership sales managers, “The Territory Sales Foundation” for dealership sales staff and have run that programme several times with dealers across the UK, bringing us significant new clients in a very competitive market. For 2025 we have been asked to help the manufacturer roll-out the sales foundation programme in three international markets and potentially globally for the following year. 

 How has this benefited your clients/customers? 

The manufacturer has received exceptional feedback on the value of the endorsed training and it has improved the quality of partnership between the manufacturer and their independent retail partners.  Our dealership customers have found the endorsed training, based on repeatable processes and with evidence-based case studies has enabled them to improve sales performance. They are now taking a much more professional approach to market analysis, sales forecasting, customer retention, sales team management and individual sales skills development. 

 How has the certification been received by your customers and the learners/delegates? 

For both endorsed programmes the manufacturers, dealers and most importantly, the individual learners, have provided exceptionally strong feedback on the value of receiving a professionally endorsed certificate on successful completion of training. We set the bar pretty high by asking learners, whether they are Sales Directors, Managers or new Territory Sales Representatives, to attend a follow-up workshop and present their outcomes and learning prior to receiving their certificates. Many of our learners are professionals in their own right; with degrees or specialist qualifications in Engineering, Business Management, Agronomy,  Precision-Technology and Construction Technology, for example. They often remark that they didn’t see sales as a “profession” until they were shown what genuine sales training and development was like. 

 What value has this added to the programmes? 

One of our direct dealership clients is part of a larger group and when their machinery sales team completed their programme and received their certificates we got a spontaneous enquiry to deliver the same training tailored to two other teams; animal feeds and animal healthcare. The programme stands not just on content and delivery, but on external endorsement. That gave the client confidence to request a total of three programmes within three months, for three different sales teams. 

 Why did you add additional programmes to the endorsement? 

At the request of our clients.  The sales managers on the first three programmes recognised that they needed genuine help in developing the capabilities and confidence of the sales teams they were now managing more professionally. We were asked to develop a territory sales foundation because the managers used the tools on the programme and that helped them identify one very common problem. We don’t treat sales as a profession and we often start new salespeople with a ‘sink or swim’ attitude. That is not acceptable as a business practice and damages both the employer and the employee.  The provision of a territory sales foundation, endorsed by ISP, achieves two things. First, it raises the reputation of the company as an employer of choice for anyone wishing to pursue a career in professional sales. More importantly, it gives the candidates and learners on the programme a proven process to follow, equipping them with the confidence to go and build a career as a sales professional.  

 More information on Maple Associates can be found on their website: Maple Associates - Training and Consultancy Professionals 

 ISP endorsement has provided Maple Associates with: 

•  Enhanced credibility to secure global clients 
• Tools to create and scale new programmes based on client needs 

• Recognition that elevates sales as a profession 

 ISP endorsement is a robust process that evaluates your organisation, your training content and delivery against the ISP Capability Framework and training best practise. It provides learners and their employers with independent verification that they are investing in development that is aligned with nationally recognised standards. For training providers, it helps them to reinforce their status and establish a clear differentiation in an increasingly crowded and fragmented market for sales training.  

Join a growing list of training providers recognised by the Institute of Sales Professionals for delivering world-class sales training programmes. Full information on all ISP’s approved training partners can be found here: Approved training partners - Institute of Sales Professionals  

If you would like to find out more about how ISP Endorsement could help you grow your training business, contact Jennie Harnaman at Jennie.Harnaman@the-isp.org