The K-State Sales Cats Sales Team represents the university at numerous regional and national competitions. Competitions allow our students to practice their selling skills in a realistic environment, participating in a 20-minute “sales call” as a representative of a product chosen by the competition sponsor. All “sales calls” are judged by sales professionals, with students receiving feedback from the judges.
Students also have the opportunity to hone their networking skills by interacting with students and faculty from other universities, as well as with the multitudes of business people in attendance. Finally, students attend numerous professional development events and a career fair.
This year we have participated in five competitions: The International Collegiate Sales Competition at Florida State University; The Great Northwoods Sales Warm-up at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire; The RBI Sales Challenge at William Paterson University; the World Collegiate Sales Open hosted by Northern Illinois University; and the National Collegiate Sales Competition at Kennesaw State University.
We just returned from the National Collegiate Sales Competition (NCSC) a few weeks ago. Six students accompanied faculty coaches David Lehman and Dawn Deeter to Kennesaw State University to compete March 1-4, 2013: Seniors Andrea Fouts, Megan Kirtland, Jeffrey Norris, Josh Kirk, and juniors Tyler Maneth and Jake Pritchard. Megan Kirtland ended the competition as a semi-finalist, tied for 9th out of 134 students. Megan also won the ADP Best-in-Class Award for her performance in the quarter-finals (ADP was the main sponsor of the competition). Overall, the Sales Cats placed 11th out of 67 universities; last year we placed 22nd, so this was quite an improvement! We are quite proud of our team and their performance.
Many students indicate that attending a sales competition is the highlight of their college experience. Our goal is to share this experience with as many of our students as possible.