Fifteen

Issue date: 11/10/09 Section: News

The MIT Sloan Sales Competition in all its glory

The MIT Sloan troupe

"Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do." - Johann von Goethe

Sales. Often overlooked in MBA education, but essential to business success. Enter the MIT Sloan School of Management Sales Club and the 3rd Annual International Sales Competition.

Committed to helping students understand the value of sales skills, the MIT Sloan Sales Club was founded by Dave Spector, Regional Sales Manager for Google Enterprise, and is led by Jeff Hoffman, a sales industry guru who teaches a popular sales seminar available to MIT Sloan MBA students each semester.

On October 17th of this year, some of the world's top MBA students came together at MIT Sloan from across the nation and even as far as London to compete in the 2009 MBA Sales Competition, organized by Dhruv Mehrotra & Heather Ryan, both MBA '10 candidates at MIT. This year, the competition hosted over 150 participants from 13 top business schools, breaking all previous records.

The competition itself consisted of three rounds, with the top 3 competitors from each business school representing their school in the first round as finalists in the international competition. The second and third rounds consisted of both individual- and group-sales pitches. The top prize and event sponsors were SAP, Inc. and Google, while second and third prizes were sponsored by SalesGravy.com and GALLUP Consulting.

Gregory MacKinnon, a Managing Principal of Value Engineering for SAP America, Inc. and competition judge said, "We [SAP] acknowledge that strategic selling is and continues to be a cornerstone of success." As a sponsor, SAP uses the competition as "a means of proactively reaching to schools to identify the best MBA talent in the market. Very early on, there are clear leaders and flashes of brilliance…That's just the caliber of the competition." MacKinnon indicated that a winning team will have "impeccable preparation, mutually-reinforcing team members, and selflessness." He noted that "the quicker a team acknowledges the range of talent [in their group], the better off they'll be. It is really about delivery and presence."

Tom Nolan, a Partner with GALLUP Consulting and another judge at the event, described a winning team as one that "proposes the best solution specifically addressing unique client issues with creativity beyond typical expectations." A representative of Novell, a former sponsor of the event, said that "it is an interesting event building upon MBA skills but not something industries recruit for specifically. We feel these are important skills for the students to develop." Jeff Hoffman of M.J. Hoffman and Associates, LLC, adds that a winning team is "one that is going to conduct intense preparation, have confident objection handling, and provide a quick close. You can't over-prepare-not for a sales call, virtual or otherwise."

Don Quinn MBA '11, an event attendee described the competition as a "great opportunity to network. There's amazing talent here from all school participants who have traveled from afar."
Christine Martell, a second-year MBA candidate from UC Berkeley (Haas), said she joined the competition because she was in a sales class this past summer and thought it would be a good experience to see if she had what it takes to be in sales. "Business schools don't emphasize sales, but they should," Martell added. Shobhit Chugh, a first-year MBA candidate at Northwestern (Kellogg), noted that the event benefited its participants by providing feedback from sales experts and by building enthusiasm for the art and practice of selling.

After a long day of competition, the highest scoring contestants were Evan Richardson from the Harvard Business School, Fan Jin from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Ian Teh from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. The Tuck team won the SAP award for best team pitch while Robert Schneider of Columbia Business School and Fan Jin of MIT Sloan had the best individual pitches.
Congratulations to all the participants, and a big thank you to all those who made this event possible. Realizing the importance of developing sales skills and learning from sales industry gurus are invaluable prizes in itself, so everyone was a winner!
This article was originally printed in http://www.xconomy.com.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools