Marketing Class Competition Winners Earn

Professional Leadership Coaching

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (May 12, 2009) – Smeal College of Business Marketing Instructor Carolyn Todd recently presented 20 students on the winning teams in her semester-long case competition project with a unique and valuable prize: a complete leadership personality profile that identifies their leadership strengths as well as areas to improve upon, plus a one-hour "debriefing session" with an experienced professional development consultant on how to use their leadership skills to their advantage in their new careers.

State College-based consulting firm Bartell & Bartell Ltd., who will provide the leadership coaching, sponsored the project and helped to judge the final competition. The agency is a 35-year-old consulting practice that specializes in organizational and leadership technologies. 

"In the beginning of the semester, Bartell & Bartell had each student complete two of their many personality instruments," Todd explains. "The students were then invited to Bartell & Bartell headquarters for a three-hour session on leadership, with advice on how to interpret the results of their personality profiles."

She says this experience at the consultancy gave the students a taste of the big prize and motivated them to perform all semester long. "Their efforts throughout the semester were astounding," Todd says. "I am very proud of what all the student teams accomplished. It was a very tough competition. All of the students wanted to win."

The focus of the case competition was to help Bartell & Bartell market its four-and-a-half-day leadership program called Leadership Flight School. Once a month, business professionals come to Bartell & Bartell's training facilities to learn about their leadership style through a suite of assessment tools and to learn practical strategies to be more effective as "servant leaders," which the firm describes as leading to serve others. Bartell & Bartell has successfully offered this course for five years, relying primarily on its current client base and its excellent reputation to fill seats.  Todd's students were charged with helping the firm to expand its client base, fill existing seats, and eventually double the number of courses offered throughout the year. They had a blank slate to be as creative as possible in their marketing strategies. 

Over an intensive three days last month, Bartell & Bartell executives Tara Arnold, Jessie Pfaff, and company founder Rod Bartell listened to 14 presentations by Todd's students. The teams were required to research the market for executive leadership training, understand the customer base and buying behavior, perform a competitor analysis, and analyze Bartell & Bartell's competitive strengths and weaknesses in marketing its Leadership Flight School. They were also asked to identify potential collaborators such as strategic alliance partners in marketing.

The student teams created a detailed one-year marketing plan with an initial budget of $60,000 for the first year, plus big ideas for growth in two to three years. With the primary buyers being business customers, the teams also needed to tailor their strategies toward tools and techniques that work in the business-to-business marketplace. But they were also challenged to come up with Internet-savvy techniques such as social networking.

The current recession presented special considerations for the students. The marketplace for executive training is in a downturn, so the students were challenged to research target segments of the current economy where growth is still occurring and where companies have the best potential to invest in leadership training in the short term. 

To provide some background on the market for executive training, Todd turned to Patrick Cataldo, Smeal associate dean for executive education. Prior to joining Smeal, Cataldo served as chief learning officer for corporations such as Science Applications International Corp. and Home Depot. With his background and experience working with corporations through Penn State Executive Programs, Cataldo provided the class with a solid overview of the executive training market.

At the competition, the teams had exactly 20 minutes to present their complete analysis and proposed strategy to the judges, who then had 10 minutes to ask follow-up questions. In the end, the judges selected one team as the winner and three teams to name "Best in Class." In addition to the consulting prize, which was awarded to each of the top four teams, the first-place team members won a plaque and the "Best in Class" team members received certificates suitable for framing.   

"The students all took this case competition seriously and invested great time, energy, and creativity in crafting well-thought-out marketing plans," says Arnold, director of business development for Bartell & Bartell. "We were quite impressed with their grasp of the case as well as the professionalism and poise with which they presented their strategies."

Bartell agrees: "Smeal College is developing some excellent marketing talent for the workplace. These students were focused, hardworking, creative, and very professional. They were a delight to work with."

Todd's students were equally pleased with the outcome. "I liked that the standard for this project was set so high, because it forced us to bring actual deliverables to the table and work to our highest potential instead of coasting along with just a PowerPoint," says Chelsea Cercone, a member of one of the winning teams. "From being sure to include the cost of stamps in the budget, to actually producing a direct mailer and newsletter, our group had to put a lot of effort into this project. This is exactly what will be expected of us in the professional world."

Todd adds that the project had another benefit in that the students were exposed to the learning opportunities that exist after college. "My final message to them was to take advantage of such opportunities—that their education is not ending now, but rather it's just the beginning," she says. "They need to engage in a process of continuous improvement throughout their careers, and programs like those offered by Bartell & Bartell and Penn State Executive Programs can help them do just that."