FSB holds inaugural marketing sales competition and forum
Students tasked with convincing store buyers to stock Skyline products
FSB holds inaugural marketing sales competition and forum
If you ask the CEO of Skyline Chili about sales, you may be surprised by what he thinks of it himself, but probably not surprised by how he thinks about sales overall.
“I don't like sales. I'm not a salesperson. I don't consider myself a salesperson. But I sell every day – whether I'm talking to customers, whether I'm talking to the board, whether I'm meeting with employees it happens all the time,” Dick Williams said “You're trying to sell a vision. You're trying to bring people along to follow your line of thinking. It is constant selling that we're going through.”
Williams, who is also president of North American Properties and a former general manager of the Cincinnati Reds, was the keynote speaker for the start of the inaugural Farmer School of Business Sales Forum and Competition.
More than 20 Miami University students took part in the competition, which had them preparing a pitch to sell a new Skyline Chili product to a chain of stores, then engage in a 20-minute roleplay conversation to make their pitch and field questions about it.
“I've never done something like this,” senior Marketing major Harper Sabin said. “I really wanted to gain the experience and put myself out there. I don't know what I'm doing post grad yet, so it's something that I just wanted to do to push my limits.”
The interviewers, as well as the judges for the event, were industry professionals from Skyline, Cintas, Gallo, and Arrive Logistics.
“What I saw the students do, we do in real life with our own partners. We ask them to role play and do situational sales like this so they're getting prepared for the real world,” Cintas service manager Matt Barnes said. “And yeah, it's scary. But it's so much better if they do it here, as opposed to getting out in the real world and failing there.”
“It was a lot of preparation, going through the different steps of what you want to do in a sales call, how to identify needs, and having to move a lot on the fly and pivot when things don't go the way you're expecting,” junior Marketing major Sam Swiecicki said. “The biggest thing I take away from this experience is just be yourself, don't be nervous, and be able to talk to other people in this type of situation.”
After a long Friday morning of conversations, Swiecicki, Sebastian Hahn, and Drake Viola were named the three winners of the competition.
“This was actually a great experience, unbelievably rewarding, a really hands-on experience as well. You got to do a full role play of how it might go down in the sales world, got wonderful feedback from great professionals with years of experience. So, it was a super rewarding experience,” Viola, a senior Marketing major planning to go into healthcare sales, explained. “The biggest thing I'll take away from this is that listening is key. Active listening is a skill that everyone should be building. And then second thing is emotional intelligence. You got to know who you're talking to. EQ is the most important thing when it comes to knowing how to sell properly.”
“I saw a lot of students who came in confident, who put in the work, and students that really wanted to truly expand upon their sales skills. It's not easy to get in front of a few judges and being able to overcome objections and really listen and apply the skills that you learn in the classroom setting,” Kylie Shambaugh, sales leadership development program manager for the Northeast region for Gallo, said. “I was very impressed by everyone when it came to their thought process, what they put into the actual presentation, and then how they were thinking on their feet.”
“I thought it was just so fun, honestly, at the end of the day. I learned so much, and it was just great to be a part of something that was bigger than myself,” senior Sport Leadership and Management major Megan Sierra said. “Everybody who was involved in this competition was just so kind and knowledgeable that I will truly never forget this experience."
"Biggest thing I'm taking away is that I would really enjoy a career in sales, which I didn't know beforehand," Sabin said.
“I saw some very young, talented students from the Farmer School. I saw the reason my own daughter goes to this university, which is to prepare students to step out into the real world and get a job,” Barnes said. “The best way to get better at anything is just do it and keep practicing. And Miami, I think, is very unique in providing those opportunities.”
