UNA Places 5th Overall at 2023 Collegiate World Cup of Sales
Dec. 22, 2023
Ella G. Stephenson , at estephenson5@zo23.com
The University of North Alabama has placed fifth overall at the 2023 Collegiate World Cup of Sales, which took place this semester. The team earned the highest ranking in UNA history.
Brian Morgan, the team coach as well as a lecturer in Management and Marketing in the Sanders College of Business and Technology, traveled with the five students to Orlando, Florida, to compete at the International Collegiate Sales Competition, where Joseph Augustus and Colby Johnson secured first place for the Sales Role-Play Team event.
Augustus and Johnson competed against 160 students representing 80 universities in a four-round, tournament style competition. The pair bested much larger universities, including Florida State University and Louisiana State University.
“Historically, UNA is not that super well-known of a school, especially on a national level,” said Augustus. “From just a year and a half ago, we have done a really good job of building up who UNA is. It’s fun. People are starting to get nervous competing against us. It definitely makes our coach happy and gets more people interested.”
The 2023 Collegiate World Cup of Sales was judged on a point system comprised of four sections: relationship development skills in a role-play event, sales management problem-solving skills in a sales management case event, presentation and speech skills in a speed selling event, and community involvement.
UNA’s Talon Pritchard placed 10th out of 180 students in the Speed Sell Competition. This event consists of two rounds of “elevator pitch” type presentation.
Morgan said he is proud of his team’s performance at the largest university sales competition. Going into the competition, he said he was direct with the team about their skills and preparation to go against the top teams.
“It’s been very rewarding because I’ve seen these young men and women take classroom academics and grow into mature professionals that can easily use their skills to translate into a corporate environment, and that has given me a great amount of personal satisfaction,” Morgan said. “It’s not the school that makes the students. It’s the students that make the school. When you prepare properly, you win.”
The program is a breeding ground for corporate and networking success. UNA sales team members have a 100 percent job placement rate post-graduation.
“At a bigger school, I might not have captained the sales team,” Johnson said. “Credit to the size of UNA and personal experience you get. We get real work experience, and I am super grateful for my time here.”
In addition to the win at the Collegiate World Cup of Sales, UNA’s sales team has also recently placed at the National Collegiate Sports Sales Championship. Competing in the corporate partnership sales division, Clayton Moore placed first, and Pritchard placed seventh. These two wins helped UNA place second overall in the competition, which is a two-step process. In February, the team will travel to Atlanta to compete in the final part of the process.
For this competition, the team will be aided by sport management students, which will be led by Sport and Recreation Management Lecturer Mark Linder.
About The University of North Alabama
The University of North Alabama is an accredited, comprehensive regional state university offering undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs through the colleges of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering; the Sanders College of Business and Technology; Education and Human Sciences; and the Anderson College of Nursing and Health Professions. Occupying a 130-acre campus in a residential section of Florence, Alabama, UNA is located within a four-city area that also includes Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia. UNA Athletics, a renowned collegiate athletics program with seven (7) Division II National Championships, is now a proud member of NCAA Division I as part of the Atlantic Sun and United Athletic conferences. The University of North Alabama is an equal opportunity institution and does not discriminate in the admission policy on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, disability, age, or national origin. For more: zo23.com and zo23.com/unaworks/.