The team from UCM excelled in a recent marketing and sales competition with universities across the country, earning them a gold award.

A team of two marketing students, Shelby Briscoe and Marissa Johnson, coached by Tyler Hirlinger, assistant professor of marketing, earned the gold award in the marketing presentation category at the 2018 State Farm Marketing and Sales Competition hosted by UCM Nov. 2.

The competition has three categories: marketing presentation, sales role play and customer service role play.

Platinum winners from each category were: Tyler Nabonzny of Western Michigan University for sales role play, Tina Kennerup of Arizona State University for customer service role play and Jordan Adeboye and Dasia Redmond of Georgia State University for market presentation.

The State Farm Marketing and Sales Competition allows students to put the skills they learn in the classroom to the test in real-world situations.

“It was good for the marketing and sales portion of our degree,” Johnson said. “We definitely gained knowledge over State Farm and how to digitally innovate ideas and how to pull ideas together to then present them to others.”

Competitors also learned how to prepare successful presentations and how to work with clients.

“It’s just about making a marketing presentation and putting together a sales and customer service role play that would best represent how to work with clients as well as be innovative and work with a digital presence to build relationships,” Johnson said.

Briscoe and Johnson said the competition required months of preparation.

“We started preparing over the summer, and then we started having meetings come August,” Briscoe said. “We met every single week and just kind of went over the material, but we didn’t get the prompts for the marketing presentation until a month before. So, we really only had a month to prepare the marketing presentation, and then we didn’t get the sales role plays until the night before. So, we were at the school until midnight the night before the competition going over the scenarios and preparing for it.”

Johnson said they learned more about a wide variety of topics.

“We learned a lot about AI and data analytics and we gained so many good insights on information about technology as well as working with others and the customer service and sales departments,” she said.

The competition served as a good opportunity for Johnson to network and meet new people.

“Overall, it was a great experience and we got to meet so many amazing people,” Briscoe said. “Now we have contacts if we want jobs and people we can go to.”

Briscoe said their coach encouraged them to compete and helped them prepare.

“Our coach, Tyler Hirlinger, really encouraged us to do it,” Briscoe said. “The first competition we competed in, I was like ‘no way, I’m not interested in sales at all,’ and then he really pushed me and encouraged me to do it and I ended up really enjoying it so then he came to me about the State Farm one and I was like ‘yeah, you know I enjoyed the last one so I’ll go ahead and do it.’”

Briscoe and Johnson took home an award of $3,000 and $1,000 individual participation awards.

The platinum award winner in the marketing presentation category received $5,000 plus a $1,000 individual participation award and the platinum winner in the sales role play and customer service role play each received $3,000 plus a $1,000 individual participation award.

Along with UCM, teams from Arizona State Universtiy, Ball State University, Dunquesne University, Georgia State University, Middle Tennessee State University, University of Georgia, University of Houston, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, University of Oregon and Western Michigan University also competed in the competition.