Baylor University Professional Selling Team Takes Third at National Sales Competition

Armed with their knowledge of the product and superior sales skills, Baylor students Cara Wilson, Richard Matney, Brian Chao, Jonathon Fry, Gregg Francis, and Aaron Hill travelled to Atlanta, Georgia with Professors Chuck Fifield and Chris Pullig for the 2008 National Collegiate Sales Competition (NCSC) at Kennesaw State University. They competed against the best sales students from 51 universities across the nation and for the second year in a row claimed the third place spot, with both Wilson and Matney advancing to the semi-finals. Though the competition lasted from March 13-15, 2008, preparations began months before with deliberate fine-tuning to groom the students for the national competition.

As part of their Professional Selling I class, 30 students initially competed in Baylor's Fall 2007 Sell-Off Competition, which serves a qualification round for NCSC. Even in this competition they were promoting the official product of the 2008 NCSC, NetSuite software which integrates customer relationship management (CRM), e-commerce, and accounting. "Our sell-offs are organized to match/mirror the NCSC Competition process in terms of skills and overall presentation," said Professor Fifield. The participants were judged using the seven NCSC criteria: approach (5%), needs identification (25%), product presentation (25%), overcoming objections (15%), close (10%), communication skills (15%), and overall performance (5%). Judges comprised of corporate partners and faculty watched the students' every move from the initial knock on the door to the close of the sale with the mock buyer. "At first I was a bit wary of the competition, but my friend told me 'we should do it - it's a really good opportunity', so we did and I wound up doing really well," said Wilson, a senior marketing and management major. She had, in fact, done very well - winning the Fall 2007 Sell-Off Competition. "It was fun. It's that adrenaline rush, going in there not knowing what to expect or what they will throw at you and having to figure it all out," she said.

The top ten students from the fall sell-off were invited to compete in the 2008 Spring Sell-Off Competition to determine the pecking order of competitors and alternates for NCSC. Matney and Wilson were chosen as the two students who would compete, with Chao, Francis, Fry and Hill chosen as alternates. Moving quickly, the team was immersed in concentrated training for the NCSC competition. "The training was more intense than I thought it would be. We met two or three times a week, usually about eight hours a week," commented Fry, a senior professional selling major graduating. "In those sessions we'd generally have an hour and a half of coaching and then we would all participate in role plays or even just specific parts of the role play: the approach, the closing."

The students took a collaborative approach to their training, each sitting in as each other's mock buyers and offering critiques of one another's performances. "In the 10 weeks we had to prepare we spent a lot of time brainstorming. What would the buyer's needs be? What objections would the buyers have?" said Chao, a senior Professional Selling and Finance double major. "We got experience with real business owners too, each being assigned to go practice selling our product to three local business owners. This was a special arrangement made through the Waco Chamber of Commerce."

In mid-March, the team traveled to Kennesaw State University for the competition. Matney and Wilson began competing on Friday morning. "It was exciting," said Wilson. "In the first round there were eight different offices with six to eight people competing in each office. We only competed against the others in our office." A row of eight doors in front of them, one participant poised in front of each door, they stood anxiously waiting for the red light signal to give them the go ahead to knock on their buyer's door. "It was pretty competitive," said Matney. "There were 98 competitors to start with only two moving on from each office in each round." Matney and Wilson made it to the semi-final round, cinching Baylor's overall third place spot.

The NCSC Career Fair was another highlight of the event. "It is a great venue for the sales-minded student to challenge his/her skills while simultaneously interacting face-to-face with dozens of hiring-hungry companies seeking to most effectively and efficiently bolster their sales force resources," commented Professor Fifield. The team had the opportunity to meet representatives from over 30 companies at the career fair. The students were all approached with requests for interviews for potential employment. "As I walked through the career fair, there were recruiters stopping me at every turn to tell me about their companies," said Fry.

With the success of Baylor's team at the 2008 NCSC, the intensive sales training has been made into a lab taught by Professor Fifield beginning fall 2007. "All sales-majoring students will be required to enroll in order to sharpen their sales skills over the course of a semester before their required participation in the Fall 2008 Sell-Off Competition, which will ultimately determine our 2009 NCSC Sales Team," said Fifield. "This should not only make the local competition more intense, but it will enable all participating students to have many important B2B selling experiences and hands-on value-adding feedback." The impact of concentrated coaching and participation in the NCSC event is far-reaching. "Baylor's Professional Selling Program has consistently worked to achieve a systems-oriented approach to the goal of offering sales-minded students the highest quality sales education curriculum and the NCSC experience is an integral piece of our learning and growth strategy," said Fifield. "It offers students, universities and employers a unique forum to collaborate in the shaping of tomorrow's sales and business leaders."

Baylor University's Keller Center for Professional Selling is dedicated to excellence in sales education. Based in the university's Hankamer School of Business, the sales center is recognized as one of the premier information and leadership resources for collegiate students and sales professionals in the nation.

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