The skills that Stephanie Goldbaum and Michael Nichols learned in the BYU Marriott School of Business marketing junior core classes didn’t just help them on tests and assignments: Their knowledge propelled them into the Arizona Collegiate Sales Competition (ACSC).
Goldbaum and Nichols were junior core groupmates in their consumer behavior class. “We were presenting product innovation to real-world executives—we spent months on that presentation, getting it ready,” says Nichols, a junior from Huntsville, Alabama.
Fresh from their experience presenting for class, they learned about ACSC through the Sales Society and applied to compete and test their sales skills. “We thought we could do a really good job with the data analytics and the presentation, and then we both have sales experience to help us sell our idea,” Nichols explains.
Four students were selected from the applicants to represent BYU Marriott at ACSC, and Goldbaum and Nichols were chosen for the team case event. Between their midterms and Sales Society responsibilities, though, the pair were so busy that with just a week to go before ACSC, they had only a rough draft that Goldbaum says they didn’t feel confident in.
“Then we went over the presentation with one of our marketing professors, Matt Madden,” says Goldbaum, a senior from Orange County, California. “He tore our slides apart and helped us refine our ideas, which was exactly what we wanted.” After Madden’s input, they felt more confident in the direction of their presentation.
BYU Marriott’s four participants and assistant professor of marketing BJ Allen flew into Tempe, Arizona, where the competition would take place. Nichols and Goldbaum stayed up until midnight in the hotel lobby refining their presentation before they were scheduled to present the next morning. “That’s what made it fun,” Goldbaum says. “Cutting it close, sitting there in the lobby crunching out numbers and trying to figure out how to make the presentation all flow and work.”
In all their preparation, Goldbaum and Nichols had never run through the entire presentation until the morning of the competition. They ran through their slides for the very first time with Allen and got some feedback before sharing their proposal on internal and external rebranding with the competition’s judges.
Goldbaum and Nichols were one of only three teams to continue to the second round of the competition, and they had just 30 minutes with Allen before round two to adjust their presentation based on the judge’s feedback. “We’d had a month to prepare for the first round,” Nichols says. “Now the idea was to test if we could pivot when they gave us something new.”
The duo was scheduled to present last out of the final three teams, and no one from BYU Marriott was allowed to watch the previous presentations. Without seeing the other cases, the team had no idea where they stood in comparison, so they could only wait for the results to be announced—an experience Nichols describes as nerve-racking. The next afternoon, the wait was up: Goldbaum and Nichols won first place and a $1,500 cash prize.
“Participating in the case competition has given me confidence,” Goldbaum reflects. “I know the strategy and implementation required to carry out a project, and I can do that successfully. I attribute those skills to my professors, who have taught me so well throughout my time at BYU Marriott.” She says this knowledge has helped her feel more prepared for working in a full-time position after she graduates.
Nichols, who will take over the role of president of the Sales Society, says winning has inspired him to hold himself and his peers to a higher standard in the future. “It helped me realize just how blessed we are to be here at BYU Marriott,” Nichols says. “We need to put in the work and the effort to believe in ourselves—to go out and show what we’ve learned and help people know just how great BYU Marriott is.”