Learn To Sell the Right Way!
Bemidji State University’s business administration department houses the Professional Selling Team which is a competitive selling team that travels the country to compete in some of the largest and most prestigious sales competitions that the country offers. You will have the opportunity to utilize tools and practices such as a dedicated professional selling lab to train and study in, training with field professionals in many different industries, extensive role-play exercises, and many other tools to sharpen you sales skills and abilities. Our aim is to prepare you to become a future sales leader in any sales arena such as consumer goods, technology, healthcare, insurance/financial services and many more.
If you are interested in joining the team, reach out to Angie Kovarik and include a short essay on yourself and why you are interested in sales.
Competition Summary
November 1-6th the Bemidji State Professional Selling team travelled to Orlando, FL to compete in the Florida State International Collegiate Sales Competition. This competition hosted over 400 students from 80 colleges throughout the nation. Four Bemidji State students and their coach attended the event. The event started with a kickoff to announce the start of the event, and to honor the recently passed, “Godfather of Sales” Pat Pallentino. Pat was the founder of the event and was very passionate about student growth and success. After the kickoff, Claire Witte and Jack Lundgren competed in a speed sell competition where they had 90 seconds to showcase their professional speaking and presentation skills. In advance they selected four sponsor companies that they would present to. They were then seated at a table with other participants and the sponsor and asked to give their pitch.
The next morning kicked off the sales role play competition where 80 students have 15 minutes with a buyer to convince them to close on a second meeting. The students were representing DLL and were selling a service to Galati Yachts. Much time and practice goes into preparing for this type of competition. Jack Lundgren and Mitchell Nemec participated in this competition, Round 1 and Wildcard. In round 1, you must earn 1st or 2nd place to advance to round 2. Mitchell placed 3rd, and Jack 4th. This meant they moved to the Wildcard round later that afternoon. In the WC round, you must place 1st in your room to advance. Jack and Mitchell both placed 2nd in their rooms so barely missed the opportunity to advance.
The third competition that we participated in was the sales management case competition. Madelyn Opdahl and Claire Witte were provided an 11-page case and were given around 24 hours to come up with a solution to the problem, as well as create a 20 minute presentation to the sponsor company, Gartner. They presented the next day in a room with several judges and earned 4th place in their room.
The students were also tasked with visiting at least 10 career fair booths and learning about those companies. Each student was given an invitation if they succeeded, if they collected 10 invitations, they were given a ticket to Disney World for the final day. All BSU students earned a ticket to Disney and brought their coach.
Several of the students have been busy interviewing with sponsor companies for jobs and internships so it was an overall success. We placed 41st overall and will be invited back to compete again next fall. https://icsc-fsu.com/