“The faculty at �鶹ӳ����ý’s College of Business never ceases to amaze us,” State Farm Agent Justin Bauknight says. “They understand our passion and work tirelessly to give us the opportunity to inspire the next generation with our mission. We believe the best way to realize your dreams is to first help others realize their own, and �鶹ӳ����ý has provided an incredible outlet to share this message.”

State Farm has been a continual sponsor of the program, entering their sixth year providing scholarships to the competition’s winners.

The PSP is a nationally-recognized program that aims to prepare its students to become future sales leaders in all selling arenas. The program has won nine national championships in its history, including most recently in the spring.

“Scholarships provide an essential source of education funding for many of our students,” says Bill Steiger, associate lecturer of marketing, and instructor and coordinator for the PSP. “The partnership with State Farm is both educational and an important financial benefit.”

Last month, State Farm granted scholarships to five PSP students who were selected from the cohort of 53 students. They were asked to determine what State Farm products would best meet a hypothetical client’s needs. Students recorded their pitch recommending how they would educate their client on how State Farm could best fit their needs.

State Farm Scholarship Awardees

$1,500 Scholarship

• Gabriel Shore, integrated business senior
• Hunter Montgomery, marketing senior
• Madeleine Hanewich, marketing senior
• Max Calnan, finance senior
• Veronica Batini, integrated business senior

Additionally, marketing senior Bryan Bacallao earned a $2,000 scholarship.

“KPMG is an incredible partner of the college and this competition would not be possible without their involvement and support,” says Bill Steiger, Professional Selling Program coordinator. “They helped us every step of the way from attending classes to creating role-play scripts for the competition.”

Along with the top finishers, Alyssa Markey, Makenna Subbert and Jake Brinker also advanced to the final round of the competition. Following a series of preliminary rounds, only 18 students advanced to the semifinals. KPMG guided students throughout the competition and acted as prospective buyers as the competitors delivered their sales presentations. While KPMG is a longtime partner of the college, the event marks the first formal sales competition hosted by the firm at �鶹ӳ����ý.

“We’ve enjoyed teaming up with �鶹ӳ����ý in this year’s Sales Role Play Competition, which KPMG hosted for the first time. It’s a great opportunity to see talented students apply the latest sales practices and techniques they’ve learned in the classroom to a real-world sales situation,” says KPMG Sales Leader Scott Verschoor. “It’s really a win-win partnership because it helps us to inform our sales training programs and it gives us access to up-and-coming new sales talent.”

The Professional Selling Program is a prestigious, specialized program offered by the College of Business’. The competitive program accepts up to 70 students each year who show potential and promise in the field of sales.

“Through this partnership, our students can experience the process a KPMG sales consultant follows to provide solutions to a client,” Steiger says.

The National Sales Challenge marked Saikaly’s competitive sales debut representing �鶹ӳ����ý and the selling program. In the competition, Saikaly and Davila utilized the skills developed through mentorship opportunities, role-play exercises and networking events hosted by the PSP.

“Oliver and Emily are exceptional students who represented �鶹ӳ����ý and the Professional Selling Program.” – Bill Steiger,��coordinator of the Professional Selling Program

“I took advantage of everything I could possibly learn in the and made myself an expert in the products I was selling,” Saikaly says.

Saikaly demonstrated his selling abilities and intimate knowledge of various products and services during the sales call role-play, where he was required to close a deal with a business executive over the course of a 15-minute meeting. In the speed selling event, Saikaly was given two minutes to deliver a mock sales pitch highlighting his passions for sales and baking while convincing an executive to hire him.

“I couldn’t have done this without my coach Stefanie Mayfield-Garcia and teammate Emily Davila who constantly gave me feedback and helped me practice,” Saikaly says. “As coordinator of the Professional Selling Program, Dr. Bill Steiger also helps each and every one of the program members develop personally and professionally, and that paid off at the competition.”

The National Sales Challenge is a three-day event and competition offering students the chance to network with representatives from major corporations, receive feedback on their sales skills and gain real-world business knowledge from successful executives. Hosted by the Russ Berrie Institute for Professional Sales at William Patterson University, the event also provides students with connections to corporate partners and job opportunities.

“Oliver and Emily are exceptional students who represented �鶹ӳ����ý and the Professional Selling Program with class in front of their peers,” Steiger says.

Victoria Howard, Carla Sanchez, Emily Cunard and Erika Chirino led �鶹ӳ����ý to finish in the top 10 out of more than 50 universities competing in the International Collegiate Sales Competition (ICSC), an annual tournament-style role play competition hosted by Florida State University. Sanchez advanced to the semifinals in the individual competition.

The competition was held November 4-7 at the Rosen Plaza Hotel in Orlando.

“We had a terrific team representing us this year and I was so proud to see their hard work and preparation pay off,” said Cyndi Gundy, instructor of marketing and a team coach. “These competitions are a tremendous platform for promoting the sales profession while allowing top students to showcase their skills.”

“To be selected for the team representing �鶹ӳ����ý at the 2015 ICSC is a tremendous honor,” said Erika Chirino. “I thrive on challenge, so this competition was an invigorating experience for me.”

ICSC challenges students from universities across the nation in all aspects of professional selling. This year, competitors were selling Salonbiz, a salon and spa software product.  The Department of Marketing hosted its own role play competition to find this year’s ICSC team; team members were chosen based on their selling skills, coachability and professionalism.

The Professional Selling Program is a prestigious, specialized program offered by the Department of Marketing in the �鶹ӳ����ý College of Business Administration. The competitive program accepts no more than 40 exceptional students each year that show potential and promise in the fascinating and lucrative field of sales. As one of only approximately 80 specialized sales undergraduate programs in the nation, the Professional Selling Track is at the forefront of preparing students for successful careers in today’s competitive job market. For more information on the Professional Selling Program, please visit: .

The importance of helping others was instilled in the South Florida native from an early age, but when it came time to pick a career path, Berreth, 38, said he struggled.

After a long road that included two years in a state college, the dream of an international job crushed by a tough economic reality, and an Army tour of duty in the Middle East, Berreth began a new path at �鶹ӳ����ý.

On Saturday, May 9, he left his mark at �鶹ӳ����ý, becoming part of the university’s legacy when he graduated from the College of Business Administration with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and became �鶹ӳ����ý’s 250,000th graduate.

The Road to the Military

After completing high school in Miami in 1995, Berreth moved around Florida and eventually returned to South Florida to attend Broward College, hoping his time there would give him some guidance on his future.

It did in some ways. It was there that he met his wife, Jenny. After two years of school, the pallet-wrapping company he worked for offered him a job at its headquarters in Denmark. But as he was preparing to make the move, the dream opportunity fell apart due to the economic crash.

What next, he thought?

One day while walking around a shopping center, Berreth saw an Army advertisement. The sign said now hiring up to age 42, and Berreth, 33 at the time, decided to follow in his family’s footsteps and enlist. His brother was in the Air Force, his father and uncle served in the Vietnam War, and his grandfather is a WWII and Korean War veteran.

Berreth was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, after completing basic training. His title was a food-service specialist, and he served in Iraq and Kuwait.

As his enlistment contract neared an end, Berreth was at another crossroad.

He could re-enlist, but he didn’t think the Army was the place for him for the long-term. He could enter the job market, but it was tough to find companies hiring sales positions, something he had thought about since shadowing his supervisors at the pallet-wrapping company.

He knew a college degree was necessary to get the kind of sales job he wanted, so he decided to look into continuing his education.

“I love helping people, and that’s really what sales is about,” said Berreth. “You’re going to help someone get what they want, what they need. I’ve been helping people my whole life.”

Finding a Home Base at �鶹ӳ����ý

After �鶹ӳ����ý’s Professional Selling Program appeared in an Internet search about sales education, he cold-called Bill Steiger, an instructor of marketing in the College of Business Administration.

“I was blown away that this man out of nowhere would just talk to me,” Berreth said of the 45-minute conversation. “I wasn’t even a student. He said it was an opportunity that if you were able to get into the program, you’d never regret your time spent there. I knew I had to come to �鶹ӳ����ý.”

So Berreth completed a few extra classes at Central Texas College so he could enter �鶹ӳ����ý as a junior and eventually become one of the students selected for admission to the professional selling track, part of the marketing major. He started at �鶹ӳ����ý in fall 2013.

“It was tough. Sometimes when you come out of the military, you don’t know where you belong,” Berreth said. “I was scared that going to school would be a weird experience and that I wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone.”

Instead he said he found just the opposite. People were friendly and open, and he dove into networking with his peers and getting to know his professors.

He also wanted to do something for the Veterans Academic Resource Center, the �鶹ӳ����ý service that had helped him so much in transitioning from the Army to life as a college student.

He helped the VARC establish a LinkedIn page to connect student-veterans, and he worked as a peer mentor for the center, helping students navigate their new lives at �鶹ӳ����ý.

“I’d tell them to step out of the box that you’ve been living in,” Berreth said. “I stepped so far out of my box while being a student here that I don’t know what happened, I don’t know where that box is anymore.”

Saluting a Sales Champion

Berreth, also part of the Sales Club, had the opportunity to compete in the International Collegiate Sales Competition through the Professional Selling Program.

The competition challenges students to role play in a sales scenario. After losing in the first round of the competition, Berreth came in at the top of a wildcard round the following day and went on to score first place in the individual competition, beating out 85 other students and helping �鶹ӳ����ý take home the team prize.

He walked away with more than a trophy. A recruiter from SAS Institute, a business analytics software and services company based in Cary, N.C., saw Berreth’s victory and offered him a job interview for a sales position.

The interview turned into a job offer, and he’ll start as an associate account executive June 1.

He’s looking forward to being in control of his own destiny and seeing the results of his hard work.

He also hopes that his attitude and encouragement have left an impression on the people he’s met at �鶹ӳ����ý, from the veterans he’s helped navigate through difficult times to his professional selling peers and teammates.

His advice to them and others? Be open-minded and take chances.

“Everyone you see everywhere you walk has some value to add to the world,” he said. “They can enhance your life, so give everyone a chance. Have an open heart. You never know what you’re going to find.”

February’s guest speaker was Bill Steiger, coordinator of the Professional Selling Program. The Professional Selling Program is a selective degree track within the Department of Marketing, accepting no more than 35 students each year.

Steiger brought with him the team of #�鶹ӳ����ýBusiness students that recently won the International Collegiate Sales Competition (ICSC). This team was the first in �鶹ӳ����ý history to win the ICSC, which took place in Orlando at the Rosen Centre Hotel.

Throughout the luncheon, Steiger spoke about the prestige that the Professional Selling Program brings to the school, and what the students’ futures look like after graduation. The program boasts a 95% after-graduation job placement rate, with the remaining students continuing on to graduate school.

Past speakers have included Robert Porter, Ph.D. (graduate and executive programs downtown), and Kelly Dowling and Erin Oglethorpe (alumni and donor engagement).

The ICSC puts students’ selling skills to the test in a challenge to create a sales solution to improve a given company’s financial situation. The competition is owned and operated by the Florida State University Sales Institute. This year’s company of choice was Tom James custom suits.

32 teams with 2 students each competed – meaning a total of 64 competitors. In addition to the team championship, student Dan Berreth emerged as the winner in the individual competition. Teammate Stephanie Pitts was also a finalist. Cyndi Gundy and Bill Steiger, instructors in the Professional Selling Program, served as team coaches for �鶹ӳ����ý.

“From day one we had the mindset that we were competing as a team, not as two alternates and two competitors, and that’s why we were able win the entire competition as well as 1st and 4th individually,” said Catherine Bruno, team captain.

In the past, �鶹ӳ����ý teams have participated and received top placement in national sales competitions such as the National Collegiate Sales Competition.

“They continued the legacy of outstanding �鶹ӳ����ý team performance at national sales competitions. It’s extremely rare for a school to get two students in the final four, but we did it,” said Bill Steiger.

The Professional Selling Track is a prestigious, specialized program offered by the Department of Marketing in the �鶹ӳ����ý College of Business Administration. The program accepts no more than 35 outstanding students each year that show potential and promise in sales. The program boasts a 95% after-graduation job placement rate; the remainder go on to graduate school.

The students will compete at Kennesaw State University March 2 – 4. Inaugurated in 1999, the NCSC is the largest and oldest sales role-play competition in existence. The 2013 competition will feature 63 universities and 126 competitors in the sold-out undergraduate division. The NCSC is sponsored by more than 35 business organizations.

�鶹ӳ����ý is a perennial contender for the individual and team awards. Our team earned the team championship in 2002 and finished in the top four on six different occasions. Additionally, �鶹ӳ����ý students won the individual championship in 2002 (Lisa Hanger) and 2008 (Kyle Williams).

Cynthia Gundy�����Ի� William Steiger, both instructors in the College of Business Administration’s Department of Marketing, are co-coaches for the team this year. “This is a very talented and determined team. They will be well prepared and ready to represent �鶹ӳ����ý with skill and distinction,” said Steiger.

Congratulations to the following scholarship recipients: Maricela Arosemena,��Hope Barnecott,��Natalia Bryzhnik,��Noelle Cipollini,��Melissa Diers,��Jamie Gregor,��Lauren Jenkins,Esther Lamarche,��Hang Phan,��Andreina Restrepo,��James Sang,��Kira Schmidt,��Bethany Walti�����Ի� Christin Williams.

Wells Fargo selected to support the Professional Selling Program because they are committed to assisting programs that:

from this event.