In the last several years there has been much hype and marketing related to certification training. Certifications are special designations attributed by numerous professional societies so that members get the opportunity to enhance particular skills. Exemplars include Residential Relocation Designation for those in the Real Estate Industry and Chartered Accountant for the Accounting Industry.

While there is a need for particular organizations and its members to have such designations, a plethora of these certifications have developed over the years. There is certification for Project Management, Selling, Speaking, Consulting and even Customer Service. At some point, the average professional must begin to question the worthiness of such programs.

Questions to ask must include:

1. Who are those the certify those they certify? What reporting procedures are in place to ensure legitamacy.

2. What is the value? Many associations provide the certification with little explanation as to member value

3. What is the ROI? It is vital for you to understand what returns you receive when you spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours. One must also understand if there is a track record of proof.

If you seek certification you might want to question:

1. What is the projected revenue stream upon certification? There are associations for both speaking and selling even training and yet no one is willing to take the bullet to illustrate the relevance to future revenue. If the certification does not lead to revenue growth do not do it!

2. Ego. Many individuals take certification simply because they devour seeking alphabet soup after their name. There are two issues to heed, 1) you are in business to create clients not to stroke your ego, 2) what is the benefit to the client? If you are in business for you and no one else, then eliminate the office and look at the bathroom mirror the remainder of the day since that is all you will sell to.

3. Education. If it is additional education you seek that is admirable. The advice here is to seek that education congruent with both your clients and your desire for knowledge as it relates to present and future clients. These can include CEU credits or additional degrees at the graduate and doctoral level. You might desire a two to three day seminar at many prestigous Executive Education Programs. Many of these alternatives provide a greater return in networking then certification will.

4. Accreditation. Seek education only from accrediting bodies.

5. Be mindful. There are many institutions today that seek to gain from student enrollment and shy from solid eduational practices. Many of these institutions can be found in your Spam filters or were previous good e-learning institutions however they now suffer from avarice. If you desire a solid education then find a solid learning institution.

Certification is not a bad concept however, you need to answer the imperative questions before embarking on this journey. Ensure you can obtain a return for your precious time and money. And do it to assist your clients, not you!

©2008. Drew Stevens Ph.D. All rights reserved.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Management, business development, marketing, sales and marketing, sales skills, sales techniques, small business techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.