News
MSU team wins national sales competition—again!
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| 2009 Sales Competition Team |
A team consisting of two Broad School students and two Communications students led by Assistant Professor Doug Hughes recently won first place in the National Team Selling Competition for the second year in a row.
Team members this year were Marketing senior Mike Scavuzzo, Marketing junior Melanie Pine, and Communications seniors Lindsey Archambo and Anthony Housley. The team members are students in the Sales Communication Specialization, which is a joint endeavor between the Broad School and the College of Communication Arts and Sciences.
The third annual "Can’t Beat the Experience!" competition, hosted by The Center for Global Sales Leadership at Indiana University, was sponsored by Altria Sales and Distribution. At this year’s competition, teams were asked to market an energy drink to a group representing a supermarket chain. Teams received the case description one week before the competition and then prepared a sales pitch in which they analyzed the customers’ needs and also developed solutions to meet those needs.
“This competition took my classroom experience away from the book and allowed me to actually apply all that I’ve learned into a real selling situation,” says Melanie Pine. “Now I know that I not only understand what I’m learning but I also know that I can actually do it.”
The competition attracts top teams from around the U.S. to compete in a real-world sales simulation judged by representatives from top corporations. Big Ten schools Indiana University, Pennsylvania State University and University of Wisconsin-Madison were among the 15 competitors, with Florida A&M and Pennsylvania State University coming in second and third, respectively.
Photo caption: MSU Sales Competition Team (from l. to r.) Mike Scavuzzo, Lindsey Archambo, Doug Hughes, Melanie Pine, and Anthony Housley