2015 BBSO Champion Coaching Peers to Victory
Missing from photo: Margaret Newton (5th place)
When it comes to sales competitions, early preparation is key to engaging in a role-play with confidence. Early preparation helped Robert McCandlish take first place in the 2014 Baylor Business Sell Off (BBSO) competition, which was his first entre into the BBSO. This year, coaching others prepare for the competition helped Rob defend his first-place title and take top honors for the second year in a row.
As a BBSO veteran, Robert served as a mentor to several students who were participating in the BBSO for their first time. His valuable coaching and advice helped those students place 3rd, 5th, 9th, and 10th in the competition.
The week before the BBSO, Robert met with six Professional Sales students who are underclassmen. First, he walked them through the basic selling process. While some students had the ProSales I course under their belts, other were entirely new to the sales process. Then, the students constructed their own outlines for approaching the sales role-play. Next, Rob helped the students tailor their outlines to their own personalities with a goal of making the role-play conversations flow naturally. Rob then practiced with these students for three days by acting as the buyer and showing them how to improve after each rehearsal.
Robert quickly realized that helping others prepare for the BBSO helped Robert prepare for the competition as well. While practicing with the other students, Robert helped them by coming up with different objections to handle. Simultaneously, Robert considered how he would handle each objection, in turn preparing himself for the competition as well.
Keeping the competition in perspective was the biggest piece of advice that Robert gave us undergraduate competitors. The night before the Sell-Off, Robert recounts telling the students he coached to remember that “in the long run, the place doesn’t matter, what you learned along the way does. Your value in God’s eyes is so much more than what goes on in those 20 minutes.”
About Center for Professional Selling
Dedicated to excellence in sales education and based in the university’s Hankamer School of Business, the Center for Professional Selling is recognized as one of the premier global information resources for the sales profession. For more information on the Center for Professional Selling, visit https://sites.baylor.edu/prosales/.