‘Sellsation’ is the first ever inter-university sales-based business competition organised by the Spartans' Communication Club (SCC), the flagship business club of Faculty of Business Studies (FBS) in University of Dhaka. The uniqueness of this competition is that all the four rounds are designed solely focusing on the selling skills of the participants. The club felt the necessity of a platform where students can practise and demonstrate the art of selling, and this is how the idea of the competition ‘Sellsation’ has emerged.
One of the objectives of the Spartans' Communication Club is to assist undergraduate students to be ready for the tough corporate world ahead by arranging different workshops, seminars, competitions and so on. Following that spirit, the competition ‘Sellsation’ was first arranged last year for the students of FBS, University of Dhaka only and after the success of it, the club decided to organise this competition nationally.
The first round was an online case round and among 253 participating teams, 48 teams qualified for the next round. The second round was a combination of two activities, case solution presentation to judges along with instant sales pitch round. The third round was the most exciting of all that the participants seemed to enjoy the most. It took place in the campus of Rajuk Uttara Model College. Participating teams were given unconventional items like- rubik’s cube, notebook, umbrella, crayons, pen holders, map. The 18 qualified teams had to come up with creative ways to persuade and sell the idea explaining necessity of the products to the school and college students. The students later cast votes for their favourite teams in each category and six teams excelled to the grand finale from this round. For the grand finale, the six top finalists were given the case on Igloo Ice Cream and they were taken to six distribution centres of Igloo Ice Cream Bangladesh for better understanding about the company.
On November 06, the teams presented their ideas in front of the judges and audience at the grand finale. After battling hard, the title of championship went to the team ‘Goal Diggers’ of Faculty of Business Studies, University of Dhaka, followed by first runner-up team ‘Sales- X’ of Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP) and second runner- up team ‘Kemistry’ of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka.
The champion team ‘Goal Diggers’ expressed its experience in this way: ‘Four rounds represented four dimensions of selling. It was not only about giving presentations and convincing the judges. It also made us come up with out-of-the-box ideas and sell them to real life crowd. The competition left no stone unturned to push our limits and gave us a taste of the actual art of selling.’
According to the President of the Spartans' Communication Club, Naabila Riaj, ‘We wanted to give the participants a different experience than they have had in the past. Our competition focused on selling. We were extremely nervous if we could deliver what we promised. The participants were our main focus. But now that the event is successfully over, it gives me great pride and joy to say that, we were successful in that mission. Our participants have given us great feedbacks, they mentioned that the experience was a great learning experience and they enjoyed a lot. Hearing these from participants all over the country, we feel that we have accomplished our goal. The whole journey wouldn't have been possible without the support of Dhaka Bank, and our Dean of FBS.’
The competition aimed at giving the participants a platform where they can obtain some practical learning experience keeping the competition aside so that each team had something to cherish and carry home with them. Spartans' Communication Club expressed its willingness to organise ‘Sellsation’ every year seeing the enthusiasm and the joy the event brought to the participants.
The writer is currently studying in third year at Department of Management, Faculty of Business Studies, University of Dhaka. She can be reached at wafa.rahman95@gmail.com