Baylor Wins Nafta Sales Contest

by Alan Hunt

A team from Baylor University's Center for Professional Selling beat teams from foreign universities in a unique contest to determine top selling skills.
The North American Sales Cup Competition, held in Monterrey, Mexico, attracted other teams from Instituto Technologico Y De Estudios Superiores De Monterrey and Ecole Des Hec, which is affiliated with the University of Montreal, Canada.
Baylor won the team championship and two Baylor students were named individual winners. Nikole Medlang of Colorado Springs, Co., received the first place individual award and Heidi Wade of Lee's Summit, Mo., won the second place individual prize. Nicole Williams of Copperas Cove was the other member of the winning Baylor team, which was coached by Dr. Bill Weeks, executive director of Baylor's Center for Professional Selling. Corporate sponsor of the Baylor team was Home Interiors & Gifts, Inc.
Weeks said the competing students had to sell in an imaginary industrial setting. "They sold corrugated cardboard pallets to a make-believe Mexican company that was currently using wood pallets to ship car dashboards to the international customers.
"The students role-played in selling to foreign buyers and were judged by foreign business people. The first day the students sold in English. The second day they sold through an interpreter to either a Spanish or French speaking buyer."
The next competition will be held in April 1997 at Baylor. "We will invite one or two other international universities to participate next year in addition to the regular three schools," said Weeks.
Weeks added that the contest, now in its fourth year, enables students to learn first-hand how to be successful in international selling. "If gives them a taste of what's in store under NAFTA."
For more information contact Weeks at 755-3523.