Carson White ’20 and Cassidy Nozemack ’21 were among more than 300 students participating in the professional selling competition hosted by Florida State University.
The Elon Sales Team further developed the professional selling skills of its members during the 2019 International Collegiate Sales Competition (ICSC) hosted by Florida State University.
Cassidy Nozemack ’21, a public health major from Baltimore, Maryland, and Carson White ’20, a marketing major from Canton, Ohio, represented Elon in the FSU sales competition, which brought together more than 300 students from universities including the University of Tampa, Ohio University, the University of Texas at Dallas and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Nozemack and White were peer-coached by teammates Lucas Lamus ’20, a marketing major from Bogota, Colombia; Riley Johnson ’20, a management (business analytics) major from Rochester, Massachusetts; and Hannah Chaput ’22, an international business major from Loudonville, New York; as well as faculty coaches Nawar Chaker and George Talbert, both assistant professors of marketing in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business.
“We had the opportunity to compete with some of the best sales programs in the country while also growing Elon’s name,” Johnson said.
Lamus added, “Schools from all over the nation were able to connect and compete, making it a friendly environment, yet still competitive as all teams worked hard.”
The annual competition aims to enhance the selling profession by encouraging the development of critical skills needed by today’s collegiate sales graduates. It consisted of a sales management simulation, warm call, speed selling, a sales management case and a roleplay involving ReliaQuest.
“The competition was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done,” Nozemack said. “Roleplaying in a real-world setting was a great experience, and I learned so much.”
The experience was “a great opportunity to practice what we learned in the classroom and apply it in a realistic scenario,” White added.
Competitors were judged on the different elements of the sales process, including needs identification, product presentation, overcoming objections and gaining customer commitment.
“Our team put so much time and effort into the competition, and growing our skills together and becoming better salespeople was such a reward,” Nozemack said.
The competition also included a community involvement event for Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida and a career fair, which Chaput noted was “a great way to network with a diverse group of companies and make excellent connections all around the room.”
The ICSC is one of several sales competitions and career fairs in which the Elon Sales Team participates. The team is supported by the Chandler Family Professional Sales Center, which promotes professional selling and sales management, provides high-quality instruction to both students and sales executives, and conducts research that advances the field of sales.
Elon’s strong sales curriculum and experiential learning component earned it the distinction as a “Top University Sales Program for 2019” by the Sales Education Foundation, a section of The Dayton Foundation.
For more information about the Elon Sales Team, contact Assistant Professors Chaker or Talbert.