Contest puts sales skills of undergrads to test

Sellsation 2019, a selling competition, has commenced. This contest gives participants an opportunity to showcase their selling skills to differentiate them as the masters of the art of selling.

Sellsation is an initiative of Spartans' Communication Club of University of Dhaka. It has organised several successful events for university students. This is the club's flagship event that was created with the aim of giving the participants a platform to put their selling prowess into battle and experience what the brands have to do to communicate their message to the consumers.

The factor that sets this competition apart from other business contests is its concentration in the area of 'Selling'. While typical business competitions evaluate participants on the basis of their skills in marketing, finance, ideation, or case solving, Sellsation is the only one of its kind that puts the participants' selling skill to test.

This year they have launched the second instalment of Sellsation. They are already done with the second round which was an instant case round. The participants were given 1.5 hours to crack the case and then present their solutions in front of the judges. Prior to that, in the first round, the participants had to face the online round wherein they were given 48 hours to solve the online case and submit the solution. Two more rounds are yet to take place. The third round is going to be a surprise round, the details of which have not been disclosed yet. And then there will be the grand finale where the participants are to face severe battle in the ultimate selling showdown.

From the vast pool of participants from all over the country, only 48 teams qualified to the second round and from them only 12 teams have gone through to the third round. From the qualifying teams, the six best teams will get a ticket to the grand finale. The total prize money is Tk 0.2 million. The champion team is to take 0.1 million. The next two teams will get Tk 60,000 and Tk 40,000 respectively.

This year, the organisers have pulled off successful road shows at East West University, Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP), Eastern University, Jahangirnagar University, and Army Institute of Business Administration. The competition was targeted toward undergraduate students across the country. Any undergraduate student currently enrolled in a university in the country had the opportunity to join by forming a group of three. However, they all would have to be from the same university.

Sellsation 2019 is being sponsored by GPH Ispat and Crown Cement along with other partners.

The writer is a second year student of BBA programme at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka. He can be reached at [email protected]