Spring 2006: Sports Marketing

A Step Toward Success

by Kristin Todd

Internships may not be the most glamorous stepping stone on the path to a successful career. However, university students are encouraged to intern with companies to avoid the “deer in the headlights” effect when entering the business world. These Sports, Sponsorship and Sales (S3) students have learned the value of hard work while gaining the bonus of experience in marketing internships.

Test Drive: General Motors

Scott Frase, a Longview senior, knows the importance of landing an internship. Frase spent the summer in Irving, Texas, working for GM R*Works. The agency handles sponsorships, promotions and events for the General Motors organization.

Although the internship was paid, lodging and living expenses were left to the student to handle.

“It was definitely an adventure,” Frase said. “I lived in an extended stay motel for three months. I didn’t have an office at work, but I did have my own cubicle with a window view.”

Frase didn’t exactly have top executive status, but he did obtain experience dealing with clients on a daily basis.

“If there was a meeting, I went with them,” he said. “The guys in the office really got me involved.”

Frase said his main project was helping coordinate Chevy’s “Freedom of Texas 4th of July Celebration.” The city of Houston was responsible for the event; however, GM was the title sponsor.

“It was a street festival event where they offered test drives, t-shirt giveaways and musical entertainment from Clint Black and LeAnn Rhimes,” he said. “Our goal was to generate potential client interest.”

Frase said he still stays in touch with his coworkers at the organization and learned the strengths and weaknesses required in the selling of sponsorships.

“The best part of sales and sponsorships is that it’s a dynamic industry,” he said. “One day I might sell space at a stadium, which is something you don’t think about being for sale. It’s all about creating value.”

Capital Opportunity: State Farm Insurance

Last summer Ashley Stewart experienced life in Austin, Texas, through an internship program at State Farm Insurance. A Houston native, this senior got some insight into her future career.

“As a State Farm marketing department intern, I was given the opportunity to work with another Baylor student from the S3 program,” she said. “Our main project for the summer was to evaluate the current and proposed sponsorships for the Texas region for State Farm.”

Stewart’s responsibilities included researching high school, college and professional sports teams as well as rodeos to gain prospective sponsorships for the insurance company. She determined whether the sponsorship would serve as a profitable investment and gain positive public exposure for State Farm.

“We had to begin with researching statistics on the teams such as number of people in attendance, demographics of the fans and how often fans were at multiple games,” she said. “From there we could determine whether or not the sponsorship was worth the money State Farm was spending.”

Although Stewart conducted research through paperwork, she was not silent in her efforts.

“I was also given the opportunity to tell the company my opinion in keeping a deal, or when I found one of no value to the company’s goals,” she said. “It offered me a better look at the sports sponsorship world, and I was able to experience this on the corporate side.”

Stewart’s next strategy is working on the other side of the fence, selling sponsorships on behalf of the professional sports arena.

“This summer I will be working for a professional sports team selling sponsorships,” she said. “From there, I hope to decide if the corporate world or the sports world is my place.”

Take Me Out To The Ballgame: National Baseball Hall of Fame

Blake Paul, a Richardson senior, hit a homerun of an internship. Paul worked last summer at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

“I heard about the internship through the S3 major,” Paul said. “Dr. Lehnus and Dr. Wakefield, my professors in the major, do a wonderful job networking around the country and offering their students incredible opportunities like this one.

Paul wasted no time in contributing to the organization. Besides daily interaction with thousands of visiting fellow baseball fans, he worked on seven different projects for the membership department.

“I created the sales training manual for the Hall of Fame and developed a multi-year membership plan that was implemented after I left,” he said.

Paul said he received a stipend for his work, but the experience was priceless. Along with meeting Hall of Famers like Ozzie Smith and Gary Carter, he also had the opportunity to meet 26 other interns from all over the world.

“Networking was a huge part of this internship,” he said. “I could make two phone calls and get in touch with anyone in baseball.”

This Atlanta Braves fan said he gained “real-world” experience through the internship and wishes to continue in the sports industry after graduation.

“I would like to be a corporate sales executive in a professional sports organization,” Paul said. “After that, who knows? Hopefully I will find a way to make a positive impact on the sports industry.”

Branching Out: The Marketing Arm

Robyn Neece did more than make copies through her internship at The Marketing Arm over the summer. The Marketing Arm is a firm specializing in strategic marketing through advertising, logo design, website design, print media, consulting and other services.

“I was responsible in assisting the account coordinator on a Fortune 50 communications client account,” she said. “I conducted market research to support the consulting group’s strategy development.”

Neece also designed and produced copy for a weekly e-newsletter that catered to a music and entertainment website, which reached over 1,200 subscribers.

“By the end of my internship, I was interpreting survey results and preparing presentations to communicate results to clients,” she said.

Neece was so productive that she continued working the internship two days each week through the fall 2005 semester.

“The environment is designed to allow a person to grow in their knowledge and abilities,” she said. “They definitely were not hesitant about giving me ‘real-world’ responsibilities.”

The Paris, Texas, senior not only gained internship experience, but also professional relationships.

“I left The Marketing Arm with relationships that will continue to help me in the future,” Neece said. “These relationships have taught me how to network and pursue jobs.”

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2006

1966

Allan Clark Cloud, BBA, serves as the president of the Killeen Economic Development Corporation. He has previously served as president of the Fort Hood Area Board of Realtors.

1973

Mike Harder, BBA, has been appointed president of TSTC Corporate College. He has more than 30 years of experience in private sector firms such as Arthur Anderson in Houston and Bullard Furniture Corporation in Lubbock. Most recently, Harder served as chief financial and operations officer at Naman, Howell, Smith & Lee, LLP in Waco.

1979

Lyle Weinert, MBA, was recently elected to the USD 465 school board in Winfield, Kansas. He has been a faculty member at Southwestern College in Winfield for nine years.

Mitchell W. Kitayama, MBA, has been appointed to chief executive officer and vice chairman of First United Bank of San Diego. He previously served as senior vice president and treasurer of the East West Bank in San Marino, California, for eight years. Prior to that, he held various positions with several other banking institutions in Texas, Virginia and New York since 1981.

1981

Roland Garcia, BBA and JD, was named to a managing shareholder position in the Houston office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP. He was also appointed by the Mayor of Houston and the Houston City Council as a board member of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority.

1982

Paul D. Perry, BBA, was recently named this year’s Top Stock Producer for Cullum & Burks Securities, Inc. The award was presented for his outstanding equity production over the last year for the Dallas-based firm. He is a vice president of investments at Cullum & Burks.

Bill Russell, BBA, has been appointed the assistant director of field operations for mission support at U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s El Paso field office. He will be responsible for supervision of his staff and all administrative and logistical support for the area.

1983

Allen Hudson, BA and MBA, has been promoted to executive vice president of the Dallas Banking Center of Real Estate Lending. He has over 20 years of banking and lending experience.

1984

Mark V. Petersen, MBA, is now the managing director of marketing at Madison Harbor Capital in New York City. He is responsible for directing the marketing functions for the primary funds sponsored by the Firm. Petersen has over 25 years experience in real estate, banking and finance and has been involved in raising over $7 billion of new capital during his career.

1985

Susan Lipscomb, BBA, recently co-founded Argent Wealth Management, Inc (AWM). AWM is a fee-only registered investment advisor located in Round Rock, Texas. Lipscomb also manages a separate CPA practice, which focuses on taxation and tax planning for high income and high net worth individuals.

Li Yifei, MBA, has been promoted to executive vice president of MTV Asia. She was the senior vice president of MTV and managing director of MTV China. Li joined Viacom as chief representative of Viacom China in 1999, after serving as managing director of Burson-Marsteller China.

1987

Sarah DeMond, BBA, is now a management marketing administrator with A.G. Edwards & Sons.

1988

Don Willet, BBA, was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Gov. Rick Perry. Prior to assuming the bench, he was Deputy Texas Attorney General for Legal Counsel, where he served as chief legal adviser to Attorney General Greg Abbott on the complete array of major legal issues confronting Texas. Willet earned a triple-major BBA from Baylor and his JD with honors along with an M.A. in political science from Duke University.

1989

Matt Bingham, BBA, announced his intention to seek a second term as the Smith County criminal district attorney. He has prosecuted 20 criminal homicide cases, resulting in sentences totaling more than 1,400 years in the penitentiary and one death penalty.

1991

Michael Howell, BBA, has been promoted to executive vice president and manager of the Las Colinas Banking Center. He has been a board member for the Irving Chamber of Commerce.

Sayuri Yamada, BBA, is the Association of Commerce and Industry of New Mexico’s vice president of government affairs. She has been an ACI board member for the past five years.

1995

Preston W. Smith, BBA, serves as the chairman for the Judiciary Committee and on the Appropriations Committee, Health and Human Services Committee for the Georgia State Senate. He was first elected to the Senate in 2002.

Todd Robison, BBA, has joined the Steward Real Estate Information group as the new director of corporate development. Robinson will work to formalize strategic planning for the group.

2001

Danny Muskrat, BBA, has been named the information technology officer of American Bank. He previously was the information systems manager of the bank’s Web site. He will now coordinate the implementation of new technologies.

2002

Natalie K. Kelley, BBA, has resigned her position as a marketing coordinator at Deloitte in Dallas to earn her masters in public health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to pursue her goals of preventing, reducing and ideally eliminating obesity. She is currently working as a research assistant for UAMS College of Public Health in the Health Behavior department. She works on an internet weight loss research project funded by the National Institutes on Health (NIH).

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2006

Reclaiming Salesmanship Without Selling Your Soul

by Nancy C. Godson

In 1992 Hollywood released a film titled “Glengarry Glen Ross,” the story of a failing real estate office in which four real estate salesmen are told by management that two of them will face certain termination if significant property sales are not immediately forthcoming. The top two producers are promised substantial bonuses. How the salesmen generate leads and pursue sales over the next 24 hours within a pressure cooker of unrelenting scrutiny from management and intense competition among themselves has become an academic study of sales ethics used by university marketing departments throughout the country.

As the story unfolds, one salesman chooses to break the law and another will experience an emotional breakdown. The perennially confident top producer of the team will force a sale on a particularly vulnerable client, while the “old lion” of the group, considered by his peers to be professionally obsolete, believes he scored the major sale of the day.

The depiction of salespeople as wily hucksters who value compensation over client welfare does little to enhance the professional image the career and the majority of its practitioners deserve. According to Baylor marketing professors and research collaborators Bill Weeks and Larry Chonko, much of this negativity is rooted in how sales were conducted 30, 40, even 50 years ago.

“Salespeople continue to have a bad rap in some circles, and some of it is deserved,” says. Chonko. “Any profession that offers an opportunity to make a good living is going to draw a range of ethical views.”

“Historically there has long been a negative stereotype of salespeople,” agrees Weeks, who, together with Chonko, is considered a definitive resource on the subject of business and sales ethics among leading trade and academic journals.

Why is the issue of ethics suddenly a hot topic in today’s business-to-business sales environment?

Weeks credits the trend to growing competition, increased pressure on profit margins, more complex sales processes, a constantly evolving business market and the recent corporate debacles of Enron, WorldCom and Waste Management, Inc —textbook examples of organizations that lacked a true culture of ethical compliance.

Rather than taking the traditional “sell harder” competitive approach, selling firms seeking to effectively differentiate their solution offerings are instead investing in a successful corporate ethics culture that incorporates a value-added method to sales — and reaping positive results.

“The historical stereotype of salespeople is changing as more people become familiar with the critical role that salespeople play in the United States economy, and as selling firms choose to separate themselves from their competitors by demonstrating a clear preference for longterm, mutually profitable relationships with clients,” says Weeks

“Indeed, some firms are living this,” says. Chonko. “But most firms still struggle with focusing on the longterm as they have their eye on meeting monthly sales objectives.

Part of the reason for this is that other factors besides organizational factors drive salespeople,” he continued. “Materialism, a need to succeed, the desire to take care of a family—these are also factors that encourage short-term-oriented sales activity.

“Such influencers and the resulting sales activities may in fact be ethical, but they may not be in the best interest of a client for the longterm,” he said. “There is no doubt that the conflict between meeting short-term goals while developing longterm relationships provides fertile ground for the seeds of unethical activity.”

Sales practitioners can be their own worst enemy in perpetuating a sense of general mistrust. Bowing to perceived criticism, many companies discourage the term ‘salesperson’ from being printed on the business cards of their sales staff, preferring titles such as ‘marketing representative,’ ‘product consultant,’ or ‘client advisor’ to describe their sales function.

“These companies expect their sales staff to act as sales professionals and achieve set sales goals, yet do not want them to be perceived as salespeople,” says Chonko. “Not only is that a delicate line to walk, but it demeans a legitimate and worthy occupation.

The result is a profession experiencing an identity crisis and a company sales culture that inhibits salespeople, confuses customers and does little to benefit the bottom line.

In his book, The Hard Truth about Soft-Selling: Restoring Pride and Purpose to the Sales Profession, John F. Tanner, a marketing professor and associate dean of research and faculty development at Hankamer School of Business, seeks to convince sales professionals that a sales career is a worthy, credible profession.

“Because salespeople regard their career as somehow less than professional or something to be ashamed of, they have become professional ‘visitors’ or ‘friends’ to their clients rather than product advocates, ” says Tanner.

This self-imposed role rejection has resulted in a generation of salespeople engaging in soft-selling techniques that are counterproductive to the goal of closing deals. Uncomfortable with pitching their product too obviously, today’s sales practitioners expect their product to somehow sell itself.

“In fact, the customer understands that the salesperson is there to sell, needs product information, knows that a decision must be made and needs help making it,” says Tanner.

“Salespeople are focusing on acceptance rather than the primary reason they are with the client—to ethically represent their products and services to a prospective buyer,” he said.

Weeks champions the concept that salespeople should be considered ‘value-added partners’ to clients, with the greatest profit potential for each party understood as the shared goal.

“Ideally, salespeople and clients should work together to clarify the customer’s immediate needs and goals, determine where he wants to take his firm in the long run, and then identify the problems or challenges which must be overcome in order to achieve those objectives, he said.

“Essentially the salesperson’s function is to help the customer make decisions that solve problems—that’s the basis of longterm, lucrative client relationships.”

“No one would discount the importance of relationship-building with clients,” says Chonko. “Tension arises when sales accountability is factored into the mix, because relationships are seldom forged overnight and management still expects monthly quotas to be met.”

It is at this juncture that sales professionals will most often experience ethical dilemmas. Common unethical practices include promising a client more than the company can deliver, knowingly recommending products that do not offer the customer the best solution to his problem, steering customers toward a higher-priced solution when a more reasonable alternative exists, or criticizing the competition.

Such practices handicap potential longterm client relationships and do nothing to dismantle the negative opinion that the sales profession is inherently unethical.

Top management cannot rely on individual integrity, but instead must take active responsibility for the ethical climate of its organization according to Weeks and Chonko.

“Reinforcing the importance of moral values is most forceful and the message of ethical performance most eloquent when communicated by the consistent ethical example of leadership—with integrity at the highest levels of management filtering throughout the sales organization,” says Chonko.

Firms concerned with encouraging and maintaining a successful ethical climate are likely to have a clearly developed code of ethics and regularly communicate ethical procedures to employees at every level within the organization. Their suppliers and joint venture partners are expected to demonstrate the same ethical standards. Ethics officers or dedicated ombudsmen often appear on their administrative staff rolls. Ongoing ethics training (including role play), group discussions and newsletters that address specific ethical concerns are the norm.

Growing corporate membership in trade organizations such as the Global Account Management Association (GAMA), the Ethics Officers Association (EOA) and the Professional Society for Marketing and Training is another indicator that Corporate America is raising the bar on ethical expectations and practice. Corporate sponsors underwrite much of today’s sales research. As the academic community continues to recognize the relevance of ethical training, more business schools are adding sales programs to their academic curricula, with five universities now offering dedicated sales degrees.

It is the on the front lines, however, that a company’s ethical standards are often most visible. Sales management must demonstrate consistent responses to employees when they are observed engaging in unethical behavior, regardless of their performance level.

“The last thing you want to discover is a high performer who has been involved in unethical conduct to be treated milder than a low performing individual engaging in the same behavior,” says Weeks.

He suggests that, along with rewarding sales professionals for hitting sales revenue quotas, management would be wise to include a measure for customer satisfaction scores and repeat purchases. In other words, professional integrity must be included as a definition of success.

“If salespeople understand that they are being measured and rewarded for satisfied customers and repeat business, one would expect them to make sure they are doing right by the customer,” he said.

Happily the slick, fast-talking salesperson devoted to the quick sale that populated “Glengarry Glen Ross” is rapidly disappearing from the sales landscape as more companies commit to developing successful ethical cultures within their organizations and practitioners reclaim their role as product-savvy sales professionals partnered with clients in longstanding, mutually beneficial relationships.

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2006

The Use of Data Programs by Salespeople and the Effect on Customers

John F. Tanner Jr., associate dean of Research & Faculty Development, is involved in a qualitative research study evaluating salespeople and the ways they use data to segment buyers. The study is being done in Mexico, France, and the United States. Tanner has found that while salespeople use the data to plan sales calls and account strategies, organizations are not leveraging the power of the information to inform company strategy. The research study looks at technology and the transition organizations make from sales-focused data systems to broader customer relationship management systems.

Can Happiness be Purchased at the Mall?

In a culture that tells us happiness can be purchased at the mall or on the Internet, it isn’t surprising that many Americans have a love-hate relationship with money and material possessions. In pursuing the “American dream,” many of us are caught up in a never ending cycle of spending and disappointment as we find little or fleeting satisfaction with each additional purchase. However, with each additional purchase come mounting bills, stress, and anxiety. The use of credit cards in pursuit of the “good life” accelerates this downward spiral into unhappiness and debt. The relationship between shopping, credit cards and quality of life is a hot research topic with interesting results. James A. Roberts, associate professor of Marketing, is interested in how consumers use credit cards and how this use affects their shopping behavior.

“How we relate to material possessions really does affect how we relate to our fellow human beings,” Roberts claims.

Roberts’ research supports the notion that when we use credit cards we spend more than when we use cash, checks, or debit cards. In some instances we spend up to 50 percent more when we use credit cards. Dr. Robert’s believes an important question to ask is why consumers spend more when they use credit cards. A potential answer may lie in the delayed impact on one’s wealth and lack of rehearsal when using credit cards.

When we use cash, checks, or debit cards, the money is immediately no longer available in our pockets or accounts. With credit cards the impact is not felt for up to a month and, unlike a check, we don’t have to write down the total spent when using credit cards. All of this leads to the tendency to over estimate the amount of money available to spend when using credit cards. In turn, this over estimate of available wealth leads to more spending. Roberts has found a strong relationship between credit card misuse and compulsive buying. And, compulsive buying is associated with a whole host of problems including arguing with friends and family over money, mounting credit card debt, personal bankruptcies, and the stress and anxiety associated with money worries.

A preoccupation with material possessions crowds out more fulfilling pursuits such as family, friends, and participation in your community. All of these activities are more intrinsically satisfying and lead to happier people. However, these types of pursuits are clearly at odds with the current consumer culture.

Roberts blames our current preoccupation with material possessions, wealth, and status on two factors: (1) a culture that tells us that happiness can be purchased, and (2) feelings of low self-esteem and personal inadequacies. And, Madison Avenue is quick to exploit both in helping Americans achieve the “good life.”

Branding Effects on Employee Performance and Customer Satisfaction

Firms spend millions of dollars in marketing to customers, creating elaborate brand promises. However, many firms under-invest in ensuring that their employees transform the brand promise into reality. In a current research project, Chris Pullig, assistant professor of Marketing, is investigating employee-based brand equity effects. In a series of studies, Pullig’s research indicates that when employees find the brand they represent more attractive, they are more committed to deliver the brand’s promise and that this commitment is positively related to supervisor-rated job performance and customer satisfaction. Thus, brand messages and marketing efforts viewed by prospective and current employees may be equally important as the ones aimed at consumers in creating employee-based brand equity and greater success in the marketplace.

Newsletter to Focus on Research at Hankamer School of Business

A newsletter aimed at sharing information about business research being conducted at Baylor debuts this month. “Each issue of the newsletter, called Focus, will be centered around a general topic for which there are various streams of research at the business school,” said Tanner.

The topic of the first issue is entrepreneurship. Research from Kevin Johnson, Roberts, Jeff McMullen and Bill Petty will be highlighted. The newsletter will be published three times per year and distributed to AACSB-accredited business schools worldwide.

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2006

by Amanda Keys

Attention, sports fans: ESPN SportsCenter is coming to Hankamer. Well… not quite. However, the new Sports Sponsorship & Sales Center will look a lot like that famed television studio, with an academic twist. Instead of serving as a forum for sports fans arguing about the latest controversial call, Hankamer’s version will be designed for Sports Sponsorship & Sales (S3) majors to use in preparation for their careers.

“We offer the only university program that is anything like this,” Kirk Wakefield, associate professor and chair of the department of marketing, said. “This facility will allow us to teach the classes the way they need to be taught.”

Indeed, the S3 major has several unique needs. From the beginning of the program, students are taught that the foot-in-the-door job in sports sponsorships is inside sales. As lecturer Darryl Lehnus so eloquently puts it, that means headset-monitor-cubicle. To that end, part of the facility will be devoted to a call center, equipped with the aforementioned tools.

“Our advisory board has told us that it makes all the difference in the world for people to walk into the job the first day and say, ‘where are the phones?’ instead of asking, ‘ohh, I have to work phones?’” Lehnus said. “This is the foot-in-the-door to work up to corporate or outside sales.”

But the training S3 offers is not just practice. The call center will be used for real-life purposes, as students in one of Lehnus’ classes sell Texas Rangers tickets each spring. At the Rangers’ office, they keep daily tabs of the top sellers on the wall for all to see, and working on the phones helps students hone their selling skills so they can be at the top of such a wall. The S3 program works with its advisory board, which consists of executives from all of Texas’ major league teams in addition to a few other teams, as well as corporations that are athletics sponsors, to guarantee internships to all S3 majors. The new Center will ensure that every student is prepared to be among the best salespeople at these teams and companies.

“We know the teams look for someone who knows how to do the job—they aren’t as concerned that you know the sport well,” Wakefield noted. “These jobs are about selling entertainment, and they want to know that you have that interest and capability in sales.”

A SportsCenter-style desk will be incorporated into the more traditional classroom area of the S3 Center, providing space appropriate for role-playing activities that will help students learn how to build the relationships that result in high sales numbers. Sports memorabilia provided by some of the S3 advisory board will decorate the Center, reminding students of what they are working toward: a career that provides the lifeline for professional athletics. Sponsorships and ticket sales are key to success in the sports business, and the new Center will provide students the groundwork they need to prosper and work their way up in sports sales.

“All of the different facilities in the new Center will improve every student’s ability to go out in the work force and be successful,” Todd Pollock, an S3 senior from York, Maine, said. “In addition, it will enable the program to have its own identity in the business school and certainly be the most envied of all majors.”

Though the major only began in 2004, with its first students slated to graduate in August 2006 after completing their internships, the program is quite sought after and boasts the highest GPA average in the School of Business. After applying the spring of their sophomore year, only 20 students are accepted each year. Students take all of their S3 classes together, providing them with a close network of colleagues that will be crucial to success in an industry quite dependent upon business relationships and connections.

“People often are hired by who they know in sports, so students in our program get a shot that others don’t,” Wakefield explained. “Sponsorships are about relationships—hoping the affinity the fan has for a team transfers to the sponsor. That’s an intangible, and we are trying to make it more tangible through our work at the S3 Center.”

In addition to making concrete the relationship between sports and sponsors, the S3 Center will cement its place in the industry.

“Baylor clearly is a leader in this field, and we need something that shows our leadership,” Wakefield said. “We really need facilities that match the quality of our program.”

The School of Business plans to juxtapose the S3 Center alongside the new Southwest Securities Financial Markets Center on the Cashion Academic Center side of Hankamer, giving visitors an impressive view of Baylor.

“The Sports Sponsorship & Sales Center will serve as a prominent fixture for the program for years to come,” Pollock said. “It will be a great attraction to potential Baylor students, and it will serve as a great academic learning device for students in the program. It is something that is vital and will be outstanding for the university.”

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2006

by Elizabeth Potter

A program is being developed to help graduating MBA candidates land a job. The goal of the program is to find jobs through alumni already established in the business world.

“Alumni are our most important resource when it comes to identifying job/internship opportunities for our current students,” says Kevin Nall, Associate Director for MBA Career Management at Baylor. “Alumni know how challenging and in some cases how nerve rattling the job search can be. They have already done it.”

“It also requires students to take responsibility for their own careers and put forth the effort to contact and communicate with alumni who are willing to help. We want our students to become competent with the tools used in the job search which will inevitably lead to the confidence necessary to execute a successful job search. The great thing about it for the student is that they will take those skills with them for the rest of their professional careers. Their first job out of the MBA program will likely not be their last.”

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2006