Topic: Miller College of Business
October 9, 2008
For the second year in a row, the Ball State University Sales Team finished second at a national team selling competition, held at Indiana University.
Ball State's sales team is made up of senior Collin Meyers, senior Nicole Schultz, senior Rekko Enochs and senior Joel Luebcke. In the overall team scores, Ball State finished behind Michigan State University.
The Sept. 26 competition featured 11 teams from top-ranked business schools in the nation. Ball State finished ahead of competing schools that included Indiana University, University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, and Penn State University.
During the competition, the team met with a buyer (played by an executive of competition sponsor Philip-Morris) for a fictional 87-outlet convenient store company. The objective of the meeting was to persuade the convenience store chain to consider carrying the team's brand of bottled water and to schedule a second meeting with the company's three senior executives. Following the first meeting, the students were given two hours to prepare for the second meeting, where teams presented an analysis of the bottled-water industry and aimed to gain the company's commitment to carrying the team's product.
"I expected our team to be in the top five because of the sales team's talent," said Scott Inks, associate professor of marketing and head coach of Ball State's sales team. " I'm proud of the team's performance, especially given the quality of the competition."
Students were judged by executives from Philip-Morris on their ability to uncover needs, understand the market, understand the customer's competitive position in the market and present relevant solutions with a measurable return on investment.
By Ashley Keebler