On October 14th, Kaley Moffitt, NC State’s American Marketing Association’s Vice President of Professional Development, visited Whitewater, Wisconsin to participate in the AMA Regional Conference. She attended various workshops, a career fair and competed in two competitions. Kaley was NC State’s only representative at the conference and was able to network with many other students and employers from all over.
Kaley competed in the Federated Sales Competition as well as the Perfect Pitch Competition. We are so proud of Kaley for finishing in second in the Perfect Pitch competition in addition to being competitive in the Federated Sales Competition. The Sales competition consisted of role playing a sales scenario with a convenience store owner and an insurance salesperson. The Perfect Pitch Competition consisted of a 90 second speech on why Northwestern Mutual should hire the competitor. Kaley was awarded $200 for her second place finish.
To prepare for these competitions, Kaley worked with professor and AMA Advisor, Thomas Byrnes as well as AMA Sponsor and Federated Insurance District Marketing Manager, Joe Crass. She role played as a salesperson in various instances with Professor Byrnes and Mr. Crass. As for the Perfect Pitch Competition, she tailored her current elevator speech to fit with Northwestern Mutual’s needs. She credits her coursework at NC State for helping her prepare a professional and efficient elevator speech.
Both of the competitions required Kaley to exercise skills that are common in the professional workforce. In addition to practicing with her current skills, Kaley also went to a few developmental workshops. The two she took away the most from were about sports marketing and branding. The Green Bay Packers’ Marketing Director held a seminar and Kaley says that she learned a lot about sports marketing, which was a subject she had not previously considered. She also attended an event where a representative from Harley Davidson spoke about how they are working to diversify their brand and how important the way you portray yourself as a brand is.
We are so proud of the way Kaley represented NC State at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. UWW has a very competitive AMA chapter in addition to hosting the Regional Conference and Kaley was able to stay competitive in her competitions. She highly recommends her experience to any AMA member. She was able to connect with other students who will be attending the AMA New Orleans conference in the spring and hopes to see them there as well. Kaley’s final thought to everyone considering something like this is to take advantage of opportunities regardless of whether or not you feel qualified.