Senior Marketing Students Quarterfinal at NCSC

04/16/2014 3:58 PM

A team of Bradley marketing students reached the quarterfinals of the National Collegiate Sales Competition in March at Kennesaw State University. Seniors Victoria Haan, Tanner Peterson and Jake Foster represented the university at the competition.

“Our students did very well in the contest and strongly represented Bradley,” said Mark Johlke, associate professor and director of the Professional Sales Program.

In addition to advancing through the tournament, students attended a job fair which yielded a job interview for Foster.

“Competing in the NCSC truly helped further my sales skills,” Peterson said.  “The NCSC gives sales students the opportunity to present their sales expertise on the largest stage possible.  There are firms and professors from all of the nation at the NCSC, all of whom get to see your sales skills in action.  I feel confident that my future job will be easier now that I have begun to enhance my sales skills.”

“I would say the highlight for me was the experience in general,” Haan said.  “I was able to meet other sales students from universities across the country.  The networking was also unbelievable.  Recruiters from companies all over were itching to talk to you and interview you.”

Haan, Peterson and Foster were chosen for NCSC based on a competition in their MTG 404 Advanced Professional Selling class earlier in the year.

Peterson credited team coaches for the team’s success. 

“Dr. Johlke and Professor (Brad) Eskridge sacrificed a lot of time and energy in order to fully prepare Tori and me for the NCSC,” he said. “Jake played an important role as our team’s alternate in preparing both of us for various scenarios that we thought could happen at the NCSC. He helped us with product knowledge preparations and was always willing to do what we asked.”

Inaugurated in 1999, the National Collegiate Sales Competition (NCSC) is the largest and oldest sales role-play competition in existence.  Over the NCSC’s 15 year history, more than a thousand students and faculty have participated from across the United States, Canada, Mexico and Belgium.