Pi Sigma Epsilon to go to Indianapolis for national competition
Central Michigan University's professional sales fraternity has been seeing something business people love: results.
Eight members of CMU's chapter of Pi Sigma Epsilon will be traveling from March 13 to 18 to the PSE National Convention in Indianapolis to compete for the awards of Top Silver Chapter, Top Salesperson, Top Sales Project and Top Faculty Adviser.
"It's a miracle because we’ve only been around for less than three years. It will be three years Labor Day, and to ramp up to the amount these guys have ramped up is really phenomenal," said Assistant Professor of Marketing and Hospitality Services Administration Ken Cherry, the chapter's faculty adviser. "There's nowhere to hide. You look at our trophy case and you see real results."
Nick Otis, the chapter president, said chapter levels — bronze, amethyst, silver and gold — were based on a point system.
"With everything we do, any social project, any fundraiser, we submit a report to headquarters and they give us points, and then based on all of our points throughout the fiscal year, we get a rating versus every other chapter in the United States," the Coleman senior said.
Based on the report PSE sent in, it ranked 11 out of 62 chapters in the country, Otis said.
For the Top Silver Chapter Award, PSE will be competing against three other schools: Appalachian State University, the University of Missouri and the University of Toledo, according to the press release.
At the conference, members of PSE will have to give a 25-minute presentation about chapter accomplishments in recruiting, fundraising, volunteering and other areas, Otis said.
The top PSE sales project was a collaboration effort with the Detroit Red Wings, and the finalists for the Top Sales Project and Top Salesperson sprung from that effort.
The project was to sell tickets for the Red Wings. Otis said the chapter was approached by the team's inside sales manager and asked to sell tickets during the regular season.
"It turned out we did much better than was expected of us and he said we’ve done better than any other university or chapter he’s come across," Otis said. "We came close to $14,000 in total sales, of which we got $3,000 back to go to nationals."
Lauren Dworzanin, a Canton sophomore and the chapter's vice president of professional development, is the nominee for top salesperson.
"I have to prepare a presentation and go down to (the) national debate early to do a 15-minute interview in front of a panel," she said.
The Top Faculty Adviser award required a written component, so no finalists were announced.
"Our faculty adviser, Professor Ken Cherry, has been helping to organize and to provide overall leadership to our chapter in the past three years and (has) been helping us become the chapter we have," Otis said. "As students come and go, he’s been the one constant and he really puts forth much more than would ever be expected of him, and goes personally out of his way to help us as students."
The sales program at CMU as a whole has 100-percent internship or career placement within three months of graduation and has grown substantially in the past years, Otis said, which is why companies keep returning to hire CMU students.
"I think the best quote would be from one of our managers, who had interviewed an individual going through the process and said, ‘Where do we get more of these people?’ because they’re prepared," said Lauren Jones, an AT&T recruiter. "They have hard numbers to talk with, or internships through student organizations that show results in an interview process, but then they come and show that in a training process"
