Proof is in the sales

Six weeks away from graduation Carly Gregg already has her future in clear focus with two full-time job offers, including one with the Philadelphia Flyers.

However instead of the City of Brotherly Love, the senior Bloomsburg University marketing major will be spending next hockey season in Fort Myers, Fla., as an account manager for Gartner, Inc.

How did this all happen? Easy answer, according to Gregg — BU’s professional sales program.

“It’s set me up for success by expanding my business network, explaining the importance of sales, teaching me the basic sales process and just how to carry myself professionally,” Gregg said. “The (sales) role plays we’re required to do make you ‘comfortable with the uncomfortable.’”

Gartner is a global research and advisory firm providing insights, advice and tools for leaders in a variety of fields to include IT, finance, HR, customer service and supply chain functions across the world.

That career network and those corporate connections, according to Gregg, are a direct result of the sales program and its involvement in several sales competitions throughout the school year to include its own hosted BU/UPS Sales Competition each spring.

“The sales competitions are beneficial, because you’re able to expand your network and make important connections,” says Gregg, whose future employer is among the corporate partners of the professional sales program. “You also start to gain sales skills to use in future career opportunities.”

And Gregg made it count her senior year.

In October, she won the first-ever Philadelphia Flyers Sales Showcase as the lone female competitor of 16 entrants. The next month she placed in the Top 10 out of 150 students in the Speed Sell portion of the International Collegiate Sales Competition in Orlando, Fla. Recently, she finished second out of 150 students at the National Collegiate Sales Competition hosted by Kennesaw State in Georgia.

Competition is great and the connections are an added bonus, according to Gregg.

“This means you have the opportunity to walk into the career fair with over 30 companies looking to hire top sales talent,” Gregg says. “My teammates and I were able to leave with over 150 business cards collectively.”

“Additionally, Bloomsburg University is usually recognized as an "underdog” school at these competitions that no one has ever heard of. It’s awesome to prove people wrong and show them the talent that BU sales students possess.”