This past weekend, March 28th through 29th, the Virginia Tech Sales Center hosted the annual sales competition, Battle in Blacksburg. This year was the competition's biggest and most competitive year yet, as typically, the competition is between Virginia Tech and James Madison University, but this year was expanded to include competitors from Old Dominion University, Catholic University of America, and Virginia Commonwealth University. During this competition, students from each team competed in either the Roleplay Competition or the Speed Sell Competition. The Roleplay competition consists of competitors acting out real-life sales scenarios, simulating interactions to improve sales skills and prepare for on-the-job selling situations. The Speed Sell Competition is comprised of participants delivering a 90-second elevator pitch to a panel of judges, the extra time allowing for more creativity in selling themselves to a company. All of the competition participants performed incredibly well.

Congratulations to all the winners. For Role Play Eva Carney (VT) in 1st, Trang Woolridge (VT) in 2nd, and Kristen Pruitt (JMU) in 3rd. For Speed Sell, Briana Reveron (VT) took 1st, Ellias Awel (VCU) 2nd, and John (Jack) Spurlin (VT) 3rd.  

On the last day of the competition, running simultaneously to the last rounds, a career fair was offered to competition participants with all visiting companies present at a table. This event provided numerous opportunities for student competitors to not only learn about the companies but to also network on a smaller, more personal scale. Some of these opportunities included a pizza and bowling night at McClain’s, where students, coaches, and employers got the opportunity to blow off steam from the high energy left from day one of the competition, enjoy great food, and talk one-on-one in a relaxed, low stake setting.  

Lastly, we’d like to offer a huge thank you to the role play and speed sell sponsor CoStar (Homes.com) and to our dinner sponsor Financial Growth Partners. We would also like to thank our judges from Cvent, Dexian, Enterprise Mobility, Herc Rentals, memoryBlue, Securis, and Vertosoft.