Aside from mentoring school leavers and aspiring personnel in all allied disciplines of the subject, SLIM, the driving force of the Sri Lankan marketing fraternity,also offers specific customized programs to enhance professionalism in the corporate sector.

SLIM recently entered into an agreement with the Gnanam Education Trust (GET) to facilitate the process of offering 25 potential sales professionalsscholarships in Professional Sales Management.

According to the agreementSLIM will train these students to sit the‘Certificate in Professional Sales Management’ course conducted by the SLIM Business school in Colombo.

The scholarship program MoU was signed between SLIM and GET at El-Toro Roofing Products Ltd.

Self-motivated young persons with good communication skills and the right aptitude, with at least two passes in the GCE (A/L) and credit passes for Maths and English inthe GCE (O/L), who are below 25 years of age can apply for the scholarship.

The two-module course includes the following segments; Introduction to Sales Management, Introduction to Personal Selling, The Selling Process, Sales Force Management, Sales Organization, Sales Territories and Time Management. The duration of the course will be approximately three months.

On thesuccessful completion of the ‘Certificate in Professional Sales Management’ program, which will becompletely free of charge, the candidates will have an opportunity to be absorbed for careers within the Rhino Group of Companies. 

In addition,they will be eligible to enrol in the National Diploma in Sales Management (NDSM) programme conducted by SLIM.NDSM is a one-year Diploma programme that caters to sales career-minded candidates seekingspecific competencies to differentiate themselves from conventional Sales personnel.

At the signing of the MoU the Chief Operating Officer of El Toro Roofing, Manoj Weeraman said,“The corporate sector in the country perceives SLIM as an invaluable mentoring entity.GET took an innovative turn to identify and train a set of potential sales persons via SLIM’s ‘Certificate in Professional Sales Management’ program and absorb them into the Rhino Group of Companies.I appreciate SLIM’s prowess and dynamism in offering customer-oriented Marketing and Sales programs.”

El Toro Roofing’s Marketing Manager, Kelum Hewawasam said, “There is a breed of young school leaving students who desire to build a career in Sales. Yet these individuals need proper grooming. GET partnered with SLIM to train them properly to be dynamic sales persons who could have an edge over their peers in the Sales arena. GET created a win-win situation here by offering these individuals job assurances and enhancing the dynamism of the sales force of the Rhino Group of Companies by recruiting these individuals to our group.”

He added, “We are confident that SLIM will groom a sales-oriented team who will think out-of-the-box and be proactive”.

The President of SLIM, Pradeep Edward said, “The corporate sector in Sri Lanka has confidence in SLIM’s programs since they effectively contribute towards enhancing the performance of employees. The education path created by SLIM programs takes employees to the helm of their careers. Experienced lecturers who are practitioners in the corporate sector for 10-15 years with exposure in B2B have added immense value to lectures at SLIM.”

“Individuals who participate in SLIM programs have demonstrated exceptional skills in selling and marketing to bring more revenue to their respective organizations. In addition, they have demonstrated the abilityto maintain healthier relationships with customers. With such positive experiences the corporate sector has endorsed the credibility of SLIM’s educational products. According to the referrals of these loyal customers, SLIM programs have become increasingly popular among the corporate sector. SLIM receives fresh requests from entities such as GET for programs to groom individuals who could spell success for their enterprises,” he added.

The CEO/ Executive Director of SLIM,Sanath Senanayake said, “SLIM has entered into agreements with top corporate entities over the years to contribute towards the development of the marketing profession. The initiative by GET was an innovative one, and could create a winning formula for its principals.The ‘Certificate in Professional Sales Management’ program blendsperfectly with boththeory and practical application, which is the need of the corporate sector.”

Opening new vistas in the Sri Lankan Marketing arena is the core aim of SLIM.