Ag Sales Team Advances to Nationals
by Jeff Maierhofer
May 19, 2008
Even though the Seneca FFA Ag Sales team was two points short of winning the state competition, they will be advancing to the National Agriculture Communications Career Development at the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis the fall. By virtue of their runner-up status, they have been invited to the competition.
The Ag Sales Career Development Event is designed to test knowledge of skills of FFA members ability to communicate in a sales setting. They first must take a 50 question exam over Agriculture Sales issues and concepts. After completing the test, the team collectively completes a market analysis of an Ag Business and submits this analysis within a 15 minute time span.
The members then separate into their areas of expertise. Elizabeth Peterson presented a sales presentation to a group of judges and was then asked a series of questions regarding the pre-planned presentation. Telephone Skills was another area of Ag Sales covered in the practicums. Nicole Bromberek was required to deal with a customer (that also served as a judge) over the phone and handle a sale and customer problem. . The over-the-counter customer relation was completed by Miranda Petterson. She had to process a customer complaint face to face before a panel of judges. The task for Rachel Siedentop was to create an advertisement for an Ag magazine or a newspaper regarding a selected Agriculture product. Rachel was the state runner up in that category. The final aspect of the contest was for Matt Sereno to create a display area promoting a selected Ag Sales promotion or product. The display is then photographed and judged. Matt had the state winning display. After all team members completed their portion of the contest, the team score was then determined.
