ASTD and the United Professional Sales Association Join Forces

Hot off the presses!

ASTD announced that it has formally acquired the United Professional Sales Association (UPSA). UPSA was created by a team of sales professionals with the goal of helping their colleagues in sales to collaborate, share best practices, and improve the buyer-seller relationship.

UPSA began in 1999 as a non-profit member based professional association. Through the expertise of volunteer leaders and global community of sales professionals, UPSA set standards for sales professionals, published sales content in its 2004 Compendium of Professional Selling, and grew

membership in 19 countries. To help the organization widen its reach into new markets, the UPSA board of directors and its members voted to transfer UPSA's assets and operations to ASTD. UPSA's content and research are now housed on ASTD's sales training portal.

"With the acquisition of UPSA, we are continuing to build a robust community dedicated to developing high performing sales professionals," said Tony Bingham, President and CEO of ASTD. "Expanding the body of knowledge will benefit the growing number of sales professionals around the world who are looking for professional standards, an established community of industry thought leaders, and how to accelerate sales team performance through learning."

With more than 65 years of content and expertise in the training field, ASTD's resources for sales training professionals are increasing. Salestrainingdrivers.com features webcasts on improving sales performance and developing sales professionals, articles on sales success from Training + Development (T+D) magazine, new research on the state of sales training, and focused content on communication skills, negotiation, time management, and more. Also included is information about World Class Selling: New Sales Competencies, a new publication from ASTD that provides a competency-based approach to sales team development.

From October 1st to 8th, ASTD will host a 7-day virtual conference experience and trade show, "Sales Training 20: Accelerating Sales Team Performance in a Down Economy."

Scott Santucci from Forrester Research and John Esposito from Amicas will be keynote speakers for the event. More information is available here.