Weber State’s professional sales team placed eighth in the National Collegiate Sales Competition.
“There are literally hundreds of competitions throughout the country, but they all funnel up to the NCSC, so it’s like the Super Bowl of sales competitions,” Tim Border, coach of the professional sales team, said.
Students who participated in the NCSC first went through a rigorous qualification process.
“What they have to do to get to the NCSC is they have to finish top eight in Weber State’s internal sales competition, the England Logistics,” Border said.
The top competitors are then narrowed down to four.
“As soon as we find out who the top winners are from the England competition, then they start battling for a position in the top four in that field to travel to Atlanta,” Border said.
“Not every school can attend this competition because the NCSC is invitation only,” Border said. “Only the best of the best in the country can get there. If you fall out of the top 50 in the country, you have to leave and hope that one day you get a lotto back in. Weber State has never fallen out of the top 50. We’ve averaged right around in the top 20 over the last 10 years that we’ve participated. But this year we broke in, for the first time, into the top 10 and ranked eighth in the nation.”
The students who attended the competition this year were Bailey Penhorwood, Cline Chatterton, Cort Dixon and Isaac Clarke. They each competed and earned points for the team. All of their scores total up for a team score, and WSU’s team score came in at eighth in the nation.
According to Border, Clarke took first place in the speed selling event, and Penhorwood placed in several of her events and took seventh place overall in the nation.
“That’s the highest one of our students has ever competed at that level, and she rocked it,” Border said.
In regards to her professional sales journey, Penhorwood extended some credit to her professor, Nicole Flink. After winning a class sales competition, Flink encouraged Penhorwood to participate in the England Logistics Competition.
“I would have never thought earlier in the semester when I was convinced to do the England Logistics Competition that it would have led to me winning 7th in the nation,” Penhorwood said. “It’s really cool to see how it’s come full circle and to look back and see how far I’ve come from where I started.”
Border also emphasized that the benefits of participating in the event’s sales competitions go beyond academia, such as building students’ resumes as well as preparing students for their professional careers in the future.