Team Aziz took the Keystone Sales Competition by storm. Students Ayman Aziz and Maryam Aziz teamed up with Dr. Heather Kirckwood as their faculty advisor and entered their sales plan into the Keystone Sales Competition.
Both Ayman Aziz and Maryam Aziz are friends in the Business Management major that FSC offers. For the competition, all of the teams are given the same task. They need to create a presentation and pitch a preselected product to a team of judges or manufacturing buyers.
This past spring the product was Dog Lock, a dog safety seat belt. The teams needed to do their own research and create an innovative and captivating pitch presentation to sell their product to the judges. This competition was hosted by Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. Hosted as a virtual competition, Team Aziz started their research to become an experience on their given product the Dog Lock to preparation for the first round of the competition.
A total of sixteen universities entered teams into the Keystone Sales Competition. Dr. Kirkwood met with Team Aziz two to three times a week virtually to help them prepare for the first round; a role-play scenario and a speed sale round.
The teams had to join a virtual meeting room and perform a role-play scenario with a hypothetical buyer. The materials that were to be reviewed were solely their response and knowledge displayed in the role-play scenario. This simulated a real presentation environment a product designer and sales team would experience trying to gain a partner to launch their product. In addition to this, the competition planned to host a two-minute speed sale that simulated an elevator pitch to the judges. Unfortunately due to various restrictions, they canceled the speed sale round for all competitors meaning the team scoring solely included the role-play scenario. Dr. Kirkwood commented she was “never as confident with any other team” for their speed sale pitch. But the team pivoted well and refocused their energy to the role-play scenario.
Well prepared, team Aziz entered the virtual meeting room with confidence. They gave their presentation and answered the judge’s questions well. Unable to view other teams’ presentations they waited by to hear if they are eligible to advance to the next round. The results came in and unfortunately, Team Aziz did not advance. They both commented that they were so happy and grateful they had the opportunity to experience and compete in the competition.
In addition to the competition, Bloomsburg University hosted a job fair and networking fair for all the competitors to attend. This highly recruited event allowed students to engage and network with big companies.
Team Aziz very humbly thanked Dr. Kirkwood for all her help and dedication throughout the process and equally, Dr. Kirkwood expressed her admiration and commended their dedication and flexibility as the pandemic and competition took on some changes and they were able to adjust and still deliver a great performance.