Justin Clark, UMD Sales Summit co-chair, provides his overview of the successful event.
Getting students to interact with people face-to-face again was the premise behind the inaugural UMD Sales Summit, which took place on February 10. The in-person event focused on connecting students with companies and future employers through networking—much like a business conference.
Themed “The Future is Present,” the summit gave a nod to the reality that those attending the summit are currently students and to the future of the workforce.
The pandemic brought a sense of comfortableness through the ability to do many things via technology in our own homes. We are blessed to have these resources at our fingertips, 24/7, but relationship-building and in-person networking are crucial life skills—ones that we didn’t want students to lose sight of.
When initial planning began for the 2022 Sales Summit, we wanted to make it as interactive as possible for students to connect with speakers, sponsors, and fellow peers. This was achieved by breaking up the day-long event into four sessions, which included a networking workshop, keynote speakers, a networking luncheon, and a panel discussion.
The summit kicked off with our networking workshop, hosted by UMD graduate Rob Stenberg. He is a man of many talents—from his personable nature to his sharp knowledge in networking. As a certified workshop facilitator, he was able to spread knowledge and confidence in building connections through storytelling.
Following the networking workshop, students were able to take that knowledge into the networking luncheon. This exclusive, one-hour session allowed students to connect with companies like 3M, Fastenal, Northwestern Mutual, Uline, and Enterprise Holdings to name just a few of the company sponsors in attendance.
After the luncheon, the Summit switched gears to present some professional development opportunities for students through three high-profile keynote speakers—Bob Usselman of 3M, Monte Mayer of Salesforce, and Todd Thiewes of Sandler Training. Each speaker touched on different topics, with Usselman touching on the importance of mentorship, Mayer speaking on what to expect in real-world situations, and Thiewes, who spoke about the importance of leading effective meetings.
After the sessions wrapped up, the Sales Summit was brought to a close with a panel discussion. With the summit’s theme of “The Future is Present,” we felt it was important to also have former UMD alumni speak about what it was like for them in transitioning from the classroom to a new career.
The moderator for the panel discussion was UMD Professional Sales Program co-founder John Kratz. It was an obvious choice for the panel to also include some of Kratz’s former students, including Andy Boyd (3M), Brady Lindemann (Northwestern Mutual), Brett Rodenberg (North Shore Bank), and Hailey Franklin (TTI) to round out the panelists for the 2022 Sales Summit.
After the event, attendee and senior Finance major Nathan Miller said, “It was important for me to attend because I really wanted to learn more about the selling process and how I can actually use some of that in my life when it comes to selling my product or service. I’m very accustomed to finance, and it was great to hear more about sales.”
Miller added, “I gained from this summit real-life leadership tactics, different aspects to getting ahead in my life, and how a sale really goes down. A couple of things I really liked hearing about in particular were how to find a mentor and the qualities that great CEOs have.”
While we are extremely happy with the results of this year’s summit, we would be remiss to not mention how it all came together—nearly two years after it was just an idea.
At some point during the 2019-2020 school year, Kratz mentioned the idea to current UMD Sales Club President Kayla Nelson about wanting to host a business conference on campus. Two years and a pandemic later, it came to fruition, but not without an extreme amount of work by a large number of people.
This event would not have been possible if not for the support of our current Professional Sales Program Director Jessica Gardner, who helped us every step of the way. With her support, we were able to successfully pursue this initiative and bring it to life.
Nelson and I led the production for this event, spearheading not only logistics and execution but also the organization and delegation. While we were the visionaries, we were fortunate to get a cohort of ten dedicated, driven individuals to help make the summit happen. This was truly a team effort and would not have been possible without everyone’s contributions.
We successfully reached our target demographic of students and faculty, and the attendance of 295 students was nearly 200% over our projections! This was due to a lot of preparation, classroom visits, and marketing activities.
Again, this goes to show how the support of so many club members, students, faculty, sponsors, and many more contributed to making this a great event!
In closing, I would like to acknowledge those who made it all happen:
Event Sponsors: 3M, Northwestern Mutual, Fastenal, Uline, State Farm, Enterprise Holdings, Graybar, Loffler, Coordinated Business Systems, Unum, Federated Insurance, Medix, Gartner, and ProPrint.
Faculty and Staff: LSBE Dean Praveen Aggarwal, Director of Professional Sales Program Jessica Gardner, Marketing Instructor John Kratz, Executive Office and Administrative Specialist Georgina Spears, Communications Specialist Kate Chernak, Kirby Student Center Operations Manager Gina Pudlick. We also acknowledge the Kirby Student Center and LBSE for their guidance in making this event happen.
Sales Summit Team: Karie Lenard, Joe Wilson, Anna Schulte, Karli Young, Brianna Styles, Austin Gordon, Ben Charpentier, Parker Schultz, Chris Stingle, Kolin Posterick, Kayla Nelson, and Justin Clark. Thank you all for your hard work, dedication, and perseverance in making the Sales Summit the success it is.
PHOTO: Co-Chair Kayla Nelson, Marketing Instructor John Kratz, Co-Chair Justin Clark, Ben Charpentier, Chris Stingle, Joe Wilson, Sam Gomke, Parker Schultz, Karie Lenard, Brianna Styles, Anna Schulte, Karli Young, and Director of Professional Sales Program Jessica Gardner.