Waterloo’s Kiite has publicly launched Uvaro, a new sales training curriculum designed to be more accessible and to drive a more diverse applicant pool.
With no upfront tuition cost to participants, Uvaro provides an accelerated on-ramp to a sales career with leading companies.
Kiite is a software company focused on helping sales teams capture, organize and share their documented and tribal knowledge.
Uvaro is a combination of intensive online, self-directed learning and online live learning. It also includes an optional paid internship.
The 12-week program flips the classroom experience on its head, letting students consume lecture content on their own and spend time in virtual classes for practice and coaching — blending theory with application. It is accompanied by one-on-one mentoring and agency services to help with job placement in a variety of tech sales jobs.
Uvaro students only begin to pay for the sales training post-graduation, once they have secured a full-time job with a minimum base salary. Uvaro takes 10 percent of the base salary for two years in payment for the training program.
Uvaro also works with employers to customize the training for their future headcount needs, and makes the employment connection within the program for the newly trained talent.
The aim of the school is to bridge the gap that exists today with sales training specifically targeted at people confident in their accomplishments, but looking to transform themselves and apply their skills to sales. Sample participants include:
- Amateur or professional athletes who have had a change in circumstances and can no longer compete (e.g. retirement or injury)
- Veterans who understand team dynamics are a transferable skill
- Liberal Arts graduates seeking a change of career who have a strong desire to help people
- Sales professionals in different industries looking to transfer or strengthen their sales skills into the technology industry
Kiite and Uvaro co-founder Joseph Fung was previously the founder of TribeHR, which was acquired by NetSuite: “We fundamentally believe that there is a gap in technology sales. We’ve seen it time and again through our core Kiite business, where we realized from talking to sales enablement leaders that they’re not focused on the fundamentals of how to sell in the context of sales processes,” said Fung.
“The goal of our program is to take the current median salary of the first cohort — $31,000 — and shift that to potential earnings of more than $90,000 upon Uvaro program completion. A new cohort will begin each month.”