K-State Sales Team finishes second at intercollegiate sales competition in Florida
Friday, Feb. 25, 2022
The K-State Sales Team earns a second-place finish at the recent Selling with the Bulls: Intercollegiate 2022 Sales Competition in Tampa, Florida. From left: Lydia Johnson, student coach, with team members Lucas Oliver, Natalie Beck, Blake Bontrager and Kaley Coffman. | Download this photo.
MANHATTAN — The Kansas State University Sales Team brought home second-place team honors in the championship flight at the Selling with the Bulls: Intercollegiate 2022 Sales Competition. Hosted by the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, on Feb. 17-18, the competition had 100 competitors from 19 schools representing 12 different states.
The four-member K-State team included Kaley Coffman, junior in professional strategic selling, Bonner Springs; Lucas Oliver, junior in professional strategic selling, Overland Park; Blake Bontrager, a senior in professional strategic selling and marketing, Wichita; and Natalie Beck, a junior in marketing, Jefferson City, Missouri. Lydia Johnson, junior in professional strategic selling and Spanish, Prior Lake, Minnesota, served as the student coach.
The competition is known as the toughest test in sales education. All participants had to compete in prospecting, networking and customer conversation events. The prospecting events included a LinkedIn connection request, email, voicemail and phone call. The customer conversation events included two rounds of role-play scenarios where the focus was needs discovery and closing, respectively. In individual placings, Coffman was third in the prospecting LinkedIn connection request and fourth in the prospecting email, and Bontrager earned fifth in the prospecting LinkedIn connection request and third in the prospecting email.
"This competition is a true test of a student's ability to utilize all their sales skills from prospecting to closing the sale," said Kellie Jackson, managing director of the National Strategic Selling Institute and sales team coach. "To place in the top five teams is a huge testament to the quality of education they are receiving through our curriculum. The quality of our students' performances at competitions like these has led Kansas State University to become recognized as a leader in sales education."
The K-State Sales Team team consists of students enrolled in the university's major or certificate program in professional strategic selling. The team is part of the College of Business Administration's National Strategic Selling Institute, which has been named one of the top sales programs in the country for 10 straight years by the Sales Education Foundation. The K-State program, launched in 2018 and among the first 20 such programs in the nation, introduces students to the fundamentals of sales. The innovative curriculum and sales labs allow students to develop the skills needed to be successful.
