Baylor ProSales Announces Results of the Baylor Business Selling Outside (BBSO) Competition

(From left to right) Rachel Smith, Caleb Paschke, Olivia van der Reijden, Max Kleiner, Allie Boyce, Cade Bissell, Ashley Dohlman, Cullen Slattery, Mahak Rajwani

Baylor’s Center for Professional Selling revealed the final results of the Baylor Business Selling Outside (BBSO) competition on February 6 as students, faculty and business school advisors gathered to celebrate. The BBSO is designed to engage students in a realistic sales situation with business executives. This year, students focused on selling BMC Software’s DSOM products that integrate data center and cloud systems to support enterprise initiatives, streamline workflows, and optimize resources. These in-person role-play sales meetings provided students with the opportunity to engage, face-to-face, with twelve executives from BMC, a Platinum Elite corporate partner for Baylor ProSales.

Student competitors were judged virtually by 140 business executives from around the country, offering students a chance to gain valuable feedback from the Center for Professional Selling’s Corporate Partners, Advisory Board members, Ambassador Board members, and alumni. This year’s competition consisted of 133 competitors (individual and two-person-teams) and the top ten individual finishers included:

1. Mahak Rajwani
2. Caleb Paschke
3. Max Kleiner (tie)
3. Rachel Smith (tie)
4. Ashley Dohlman
5. Cade Bissell
6. Cullen Slattery
7. Olivia van der Reijden
8. Allie Boyce
9. Jackson Rhoades

First-place finisher, Mahak Rajwani, shared this about her competition experience: “The BBSO is a unique competition where your success relies on your individual performance, but your pre competition preparation can be enhanced by collaboration. I  am grateful to have wonderful colleagues in the program whom I can bounce ideas off of and even underclassmen I can mentor and learn from in the process. This year’s BBSO gave me the chance to learn about a complex product and it was a great opportunity to showcase my personal selling style which was really fun!”

Students in the advanced sales class must compete in the BBSO as individual competitors and as part of a two-person team, thereby gaining understanding of the team sales process. The top performing team for this competition included Katie Boatwright and Jax Lewis. As Jax noted about their team-selling experience, ““This BBSO was my first experience working with a partner which definitely brought in several new elements. Right at the start, Katie and I took time to identify each other’s strengths so we could use them to our advantage. What made working with Katie enjoyable was knowing I had her support. We did an excellent job transitioning the driver’s seat as well as learning to drive in tandem. Our ability to communicate well with each other ultimately lead to us having a successful outcome with the buyer.”

All of the ProSales competition materials are developed and/or executed in partnership with the ProSales Corporate Partners. In serving as the ProSales Platinum Elite partner, BMC Software serves as the context for the two Spring sales competitions: the Baylor Business Selling Outside (BBSO) and the Baylor Business Value Analysis (BBVA) competitions. “What a pleasure to develop the BBSO case materials in close partnership with a team of experts from BMC. We have created a stronger integrative experience from our ProSales 1 course through the BBSO to take student learning to a much deeper level,” according to Dr. Andrea Dixon, Executive Director of the Center for Professional Selling. “We love preparing students for the real complexities of today’s business world.”

The BBSO allows Baylor students to see how they stack up against their peers and allows the center’s Corporate Partners to view Baylor talent as they prepare to enter the job market. In addition, top individual performers are awarded cash prizes.

About the 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/.