Skip to main content
 
  1. Home
  2. News
  3. PSMG’s new marketing and BD skills programme: have your say
 

PSMG’s new marketing and BD skills programme: have your say

The PSMG together with its education partner, Cambridge Marketing College, is launching a new marketing and BD skills programme – and we want to hear your views. With your input, we want to create the benchmark programme in our sector for marketing and BD specialists.

For a number of years, the PSMG and Cambridge Marketing College (CMC) have offered marketing and BD specialists the only Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) accredited qualification in professional services marketing. The Professional Services Pathway to the CIM Diploma in Professional Marketing is a unique offer, and has been successfully pursued through either evening class or distance learning study by many marketers in our sector.

We now want to build on that success, and offer a revised marketing and BD skills programme that provides a more flexible and modular path to developing new skills. The new programme will continue to offer a route to the CIM qualification, if that is your goal. However, it will also now also be possible to study anything from a single module to the entire programme, without any obligation to take the full CIM qualification. The programme will also be broader than the core learning required by the CIM. This will allow marketing and BD specialists to gain wider insights and additional, sector-specific, skills than would be gained by following the CIM scheme alone. 

Alongside the new programme’s content and flexible – modular – approach, we will also offer a new way to study. We recognise that evening classes are increasingly hard to fit into a busy working week. We also recognise that, without the valuable classroom interaction offered by peers and tutors, distance learning can be a solitary path for many candidates to take. 

This new programme will run over three residential weekends, and will be hosted at the prestigious Møller Centre at Churchill College in Cambridge. Each module’s content will be covered in a single weekend, with a delegate dinner and guest speakers included. Those guest speakers will offer their views on future trends and development in professional services marketing and BD. This programme will include the following core modules: 

Module 1 - Marketing and BD (MBD) strategy. Strategy is our starting point, and we will explore how to develop and design a MBD strategy to meet your firm’s objectives. This module will build on, and enhance, the CIM module ‘strategic marketing’.

Module 2 - MBD metrics and performance. Metrics and performance are fundamental for driving action aligned with strategy. We will cover how you set KPIs in marketing and BD, analyse data and drive performance to achieve your strategy. The CIM module is ‘mastering metrics’. 

Module 3 - Driving innovation in professional services. Innovation in professional services, and the role that MBD specialists can play, is of increasing importance to firms. This module explores how MBD can nurture and drive innovation and cultural change. The CIM module is ‘driving innovation’. 

Each module can be taken as a standalone course, with a certificate of attainment offered for all delegates. Full attendance at each module will lead to recognition of programme achievement from both the PSMG and CMC. If any delegate wishes to go the final mile, and take the full CIM Professional Diploma, the CMC will then offer additional advice and guidance on taking the necessary exams and assignments. 

The new programme will be available to individual delegates on weekend course dates through 2017. Dates and prices for those courses will be published by both the PSMG and CMC in early 2017. 

If individual firms are interested in running modules – or the full programme – for their MBD teams, then we would be interested in talking to them. We would be happy to develop a bespoke programme that meets any firm’s precise needs. Prices and dates can then be agreed as part of the bespoke programme design. 

So this is where readers of The PSMG Magazine come in. We have designed this new programme around the feedback we’ve received from delegates on the existing programme. We believe we can now offer a programme that is more flexible and modular, while still offering a route to the CIM qualification. We believe the weekend study option also fits better into people’s busy work schedule. 

But you may have other ideas. We want our offering to become the benchmark programme for marketing and BD skills in professional services. We therefore need your feedback and participation to make this happen. 

If you have ideas about what would improve this programme further, and match what you’re looking for in developing your career, then we want to hear from you. Equally, if you’re interested in being part of the first cohort to study for this programme, then please let us know. 

Please send your feedback, ideas and expressions of interest to lauren@marketingcollege.com  

Nigel Clark is a non-executive director of PSMG and the editor and lead author of the Professional Service Marketing Handbook. He has held senior marketing and business development roles in financial services, management consulting, legal, environmental, business services, engineering and project management firms. Follow Nigel on Twitter @nigelgclark

Email: nigelgclark1@gmail.com

 
  Back to list

More from this section: