Running With Your Hair on Fire: Lessons Learned From Transitioning a National University Sales Competition From Face-to-Face to Virtual in 16 Days

The Web Conferencing Platform

One of the first challenges encountered by the NCSC team was the choice of which web-conferencing platform to utilize for the role-play competition. Gartner, the world-wide leading research and advisory company is a trusted strategic partner of the NCSC and product sponsor of NCSC 2020 and the previous two years. Gartner conducts thousands of web conferences annually using WebEx. Because of their extensive experience and the NCSC’s limited time for planning, they took ownership of the web conferencing logistics and, in conjunction with the NCSC staff, developed a plan for using WebEx to conduct the role-play meetings and webinars.

Like other web-conferencing platforms, WebEx offers a variety of tools to setup meetings, including using break-out rooms or having continuous meetings during which attendees come and go as scheduled, screen sharing, and meeting recording options. Based on advice from Gartner, the decision was made to schedule separate 30-minute sessions (WebEx meetings) for each role-play Meeting of the competition. Given the number of competitors and the multiround nature of the competition, 310 role-play meetings were scheduled and completed. To provide students a richer opportunity for reflective observation (essential to experiential learning), NCSC staff determined it important to record the role-play meetings to make them available to the competitors after the completion of the competition. This necessitated a plan for recording the individual role-play meetings and uploading them to a secure video server.

Initially, the plan was for the buyers to begin recording the role-play meeting once the student competitor entered the room. After discussing the potential for buyers to forget or delay starting the recordings, it was decided that each WebEx meeting would be set to auto-record. While this plan would ensure each role-play would be recorded, it meant each recording would be 30 minutes, only 20 of which would be the sales call. Also, to reduce potential issues with screen-sharing, it was decided that the screen-share would be active before the competitor entered the room. This presented a suboptimal environment and a challenge for judges to evaluate the role-play meeting, especially the “nonverbal” aspects, as both the competitor (seller) and the buyer were visible in a small portion of the screen. However, the NCSC determined that creating less variability in using the technology would alleviate some of the errors that might occur with inexperienced technology users, as well as reduce competitor anxiety associated with the use of new technology.

Remote Training and Support

Remote training and support are important components of NCSC. When Gartner became the NCSC Product Sponsor in 2018, they dedicated a team to support the event, including developing training and sales support materials. The Gartner team established (and updates annually) a website containing a plethora of training materials (e.g., white papers, sales aids, and sample sales call role-plays) and recordings of sales training webinars from the initial year of their NCSC Official Product sponsorship. However, those training resources did not address how to use web conferencing tools to conduct virtual sales calls. Given the sudden change to virtual from face-to-face, the lack of training content in this area represented a significant challenge.

Without adequate training, students are likely to experience lower levels of self-efficacy related to their use of web conferencing tools to conduct the role-plays. Lower levels of self-efficacy lead to higher levels of anxiety and stress (Bandura, 1993, 1988; Conrad & Munro, 2008). While exploring the relationship between anxiety and virtual role-play performance is beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting that the Gartner and NCSC team recognized the need for additional and specific training on the use of web conferencing tools to conduct virtual sales call role-plays. In addition, the Gartner and NCSC team recognized faculty coaches and judges needed training related to changes in the logistics of performing their roles in a virtual format. To address that need, for NCSC 2020 the Gartner and NCSC staff held an additional 19 training and support webinars covering how to use WebEx, digital scoring, virtual judging, general announcements, and live support during the competition.

Logistical and Communication Challenges

Given the short time frame for transitioning to virtual from face-to-face, a “divide and conquer” approach to preparation was adapted. The Gartner staff developed scheduling for the WebEx meetings, and various NCSC staff developed the competition agenda, and a plan for coordinating judges, and scoring. Individuals from each of these areas communicated with NCSC participants (i.e., competitors, coaches, and judges) independently (via email and social media). Coordinating these messages proved to be a challenge and as a result, the number of messages distributed by the Gartner and NSCC team may have been greater than was necessary. Additionally, receiving communications from multiple sources rather than from one central source, in some instances, created more confusion among the participants.

Based on anticipated difficulties of effectively communicating to the 600 plus participants spread across more than 30 states and Canada, a Webinar Command Center was scheduled for each day of the competition. The “Command Center” was staffed by Gartner and NCSC personnel to answer participant questions regarding technology, the Gartner Product, and the competition as they occurred in real-time. In addition, student competitors could test the WebEx screen-sharing tool for their visual aids. Several recommendations were provided by sales faculty across the country and instituting the “Command Center” was one of the most critical.

A few days before the start of the competition, Gartner sent all judges individual WebEx meeting invites for each flight they were judging. For example, Round 1 judges received eight 30-minute WebEx meeting invitations (running back-to-back). In addition, the competitors were sent a 30-minute WebEx meeting invitation corresponding to their assigned role-play meeting room and time. Before the start of the round, judges were sent the links to their respective scoring form and instructed to access the link 10 to 15 minutes before the start of the round.

Time Zones and Seeding

The competition is “seeded” in Round 1 based on previous NCSC university team performances. The subsequent rounds are seeded based on individual competitor ranking in each room from the previous round. When the NCSC is face-to-face, the lower seeded competitors are scheduled earlier in their rounds. However, since the competition would be virtual, meaning competitors were spread throughout the United States and Canada, adjustments had to be made to the schedule based on time zones. For example, the Quarter-Final round started at 8 a.m. EDT or 5 a.m. PDT. Schedules were adjusted within each room so that no competitors would be scheduled before 7 a.m. their local time. This necessitated an additional step for the staff in determining each competitor’s time zone. Since that data had not been collected, the time zone of each university was used as a proxy time zone for their respective competitors.

Managing the Virtual Role-Play

Managing the virtual role-play created additional challenges. One such challenge arises when a student competitor enters the competition “room.” The idea of using waiting rooms was discussed, but at that time few people were familiar with how the waiting rooms worked and how they would be managed. Based on that uncertainty, and the goal of reducing potential errors and anxiety, students were asked to enter the rooms on their own at the start of their respective sale call role-play times. This also created the need for additional individual email invites to be sent to each competitor. Competitors were required to enter their respective role-play meeting rooms (WebEx) no earlier than 1 minute prior to, and not later than 5 minutes after, the official start of the flight. The importance of arriving on time to meetings and limiting the meeting to the amount of time allotted (keeping promises) are key lessons to learn for aspiring salespeople. The role-play meetings were promptly ended at the 20-minute mark.

The buyers were also responsible for managing the judges in their respective rooms. Buyers in an onsite, face-to-face setting are only required to play their roles as buyers and do not have additional administrative duties. This created the additional challenge of making sure buyers were trained and prepared to successfully fulfill those new duties. Instructions included making sure the judges were prepared to judge (were present and had their digital score sheets), and that their cameras and audio were off or muted. Because there would be discussion between and among the buyer/proctor and the judges, competitors entering the WebEx meeting room earlier than 1 minute prior to their competition time would be asked to leave and return at the appropriate time. The buyer/proctors needed to ensure that the competitor entered the role-play meeting room on time, and not too early. If the competitor was more than 5 minutes late, the competitor would be disqualified (for that round). If a competitor were disqualified, the judges and buyer would exit that role-play meeting and enter the next role-play meeting without submitting scores. If the disqualification occurred in Round 1, the competitor would receive a score of zero and advance to the Wildcard Round. In all succeeding rounds the competitor would be disqualified from the remainder of the competition. Finally, judges were given 15 minutes between flights to move from one meeting room to the next, complete the score sheet, and prepare for the next role-play meeting. These policies were communicated to the coaches and competitors during the virtual training and informational sessions.

Managing the Virtual Scoring Process

Moving to a virtual environment also required a full transition to an online scoring system. A digital scoring system was created using a combination of Google Sheets and Google Forms. Using Google Forms, the digital score sheet was developed that contained fields for the necessary identifier information (competitor’s name, round number, judge’s name, etc.).

A master Excel spreadsheet was created capable of taking the raw scores from the judges and then calculating the average weighted scores, ranking the competitors within each room by round, assigning round ranking points to each competitor, seeding each competitor in the next round (until the Finals), and tracking individual and team scores for each competitor and school. In addition, the spreadsheet provided a means for checking to ensure the correct number of scoresheets were collected for each competitor, each judge had submitted a score sheet, each score sheet was complete, and that competitors from the same school were not scheduled to compete in the same room and round.

At the end of each flight scoresheets were submitted by each judge, which populated a Google Sheet corresponding to the judge’s meeting room. Once all the judges’ scores had been submitted, the scores were imported into the master Excel scoring spreadsheet. The scoring spreadsheet tracked the progression of each round by flight. Once the scores from the last flight of a round were imported, the round rankings and subsequent round seeding and schedule were available. The schedule was then manually reviewed to ensure no two competitors from the same school were scheduled in the same room for the next round. If this occurred, competitors were moved to the same seed number in another room, making sure they had not already competed against the other students in that room.

Mitigating Virtual Data Entry Errors

The master score sheet and schedule are keyed to competitors’ and judges’ names (or ID numbers) and email addresses; ensuring the accuracy of that data is critical. Since the NCSC staff had not yet used a digital scoring system nor multiple WebEx rooms simultaneously, it was decided to pilot test the process. A few days before the start of the 2020 NCSC, a webinar meeting was held for judges to review the digital scoring form, how to use it, and how to transition from one role-play meeting room to the next when a new flight began. Three flights were simulated during the webinar, giving judges the opportunity to complete and submit multiple scoring forms. Judges submitted score sheets to be processed to test the digital scoring system. Data entry errors or inconsistencies were found that would be problematic for scoring. For example, some judges misspelled competitors’ names or entered different versions of the same name (e.g., Kimberly Burns, Kim Burns, K. Burns, Kimberly B., and so forth). There were also instances of judges making errors regarding their own email addresses, or not using the same email address on each of the forms.

To mitigate data entry errors, a prepopulated form was developed that included the names of all the competitors and the respective room and round codes. To accomplish this objective, unique scoring forms were created for each room in each round. The scoring forms contained a code identifying the room and round, and a drop-down dialogue box containing only the names of the students competing in the respective room and round. In addition, the instructions on each form reminded judges to use the same name format and email address on each form they complete. While creating the unique scoring form took extra time on the front-end, it eliminated data entry errors on the score sheets and improved the scoring process during the competition.

During a face-to-face NCSC, staff responsible for collecting and processing score sheets can observe the role-plays in real time, visually verify the judges were scoring, and physically collect score sheets from judges when a flight is complete. This made it easy to ensure each judge submitted a score sheet. In the virtual NCSC, the staff responsible for scoring had no visual cues that role-plays were occurring or that judges were judging, nor when the role-play ended. The only visual cue that a flight was completed was the appearance of submitted scores on Google Drive. Shortly after each flight was completed, the scoring data populated the Google sheets associated with the respective rooms. As the data came in from each of the rooms, tallies were kept determining which judges had submitted score sheets. Judges were given 10 minutes (after each flight concluded) to submit their score sheets before the NCSC staff sent a reminder message. During the competition, a total of 1,527 score sheets were collected, and all but two of those were submitted within the 10-minute time frame. In the two instances requiring a reminder message, the judges submitted those score sheets immediately upon receiving the reminder.

After each flight, the scoring data from each of the rooms was aggregated, imported into the master Excel score sheet, and processed. At the end of each round (except for the final round), the results were collected and the schedule for the next round was manually reviewed for accuracy and consistency with the seeding policy. Once the schedule for the next round was set, the results and schedule were released to the NCSC staff for posting to Guidebook, and provided to the Gartner team so they could send out the WebEx meeting invitations to the respective competitors (the judges already had the invitations). The amount of time necessary to process the scores, results, and subsequent round schedule varied based on the number of score sheets processed and the number of participants advancing to the next round. As mentioned, the additional time required to manually verify the required conditions for the competitor schedule created an unforeseen bottleneck.

Table 1 presents the expected amount of time required to complete this process for each round. With the exception of Round 1, the expected time frames were met for each of the rounds. As predicted, 20 minutes was required to process the Round 1 scores. However, the autogenerated schedule had multiple instances of teammates competing in the same room. The task of moving one of the affected competitors to a new room while ensuring they had not competed against anyone in the new room, were not moved to a room where their coach was a judge, nor had they had any of the same judges from Round 1 required more time than expected. An additional 30 minutes was required (beyond the scheduled 40 minutes) to complete the entire process.

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Table 1.

Score Processing Time by Round.

Round	Rooms	Score sheets collected	Time required to process the score sheets (minutes).	Time required to schedule next round and send out meeting invitations (minutes)
Round 1	18	695	20	40
Wildcard	18	462	20	20
Quarter finals	8	250	10	10
Semifinals	4	84	5	5
Finals	1	36	1	Not applicable

Due to the delay in scheduling, the Wildcard Round could not begin at its scheduled time. Complicating matters further was the rigidity in the WebEx meeting schedule. Since all 108 WebEx meetings occurring during the Wildcard Round were scheduled (regarding time) and could not be adjusted without unreasonable effort and confusion, the decision was made to move the scheduled first flight of the Wildcard Round to the end of the round, keeping flights two through six on schedule. While this solved the problem, it created some confusion among the competitors, coaches, and judges that were rescheduled.

Curating the Recorded Role-Plays and Distribution of Score Sheets

Recording shareable competition role-play meetings for educational (universities) and evaluative (industry sponsors) purposes is critical to the mission of this event. While there are many providers available, Panopto, a commercial video server, was chosen for curating the Role-Play Meetings. Panopto allowed for easy upload and controlled access via protected folders. A Panopto folder was created for each of 68 participating schools, and also for the semifinal and final rounds. Since the Role-Play Meetings were being recorded to Gartner servers, the Gartner team volunteered to manage the upload process. After each round, Gartner representatives uploaded recordings from the round to the respective school’s folders in Panopto. Since the autorecord feature was used, each 30-minute recording included the 20-minute role-play and up to 10 minutes of judges and buyers talking while waiting for the competitor. Consequently, all non-role-play footage was edited out of each of the 325 role-play videos before made available. Once the videos were edited, each university team was granted access to their own folders (containing their recordings) as well as those of the Semifinals and Finals at the conclusion of the competition. The competition sponsors were granted access to all recordings at the conclusion of the event.

Shortly after the competition ended, separate spreadsheets were created for each competitor containing only their scores and qualitative feedback from the competition. Information identifying the judges was removed. Subsequently, all 138 competitors were sent individual e-mails containing their scoresheets (as attachments) and a link to their recorded role-plays on Panopto.

Opportunities Realized in the Move to a Virtual Environment

One of the primary advantages of a virtual sales competition is that physical space is not a constraining factor. Instead of physical rooms in which the sales role-play call is conducted, virtual rooms set-up in WebEx were utilized. As such, the number of “rooms” could be increased, thereby reducing the length of the competition. Based on the number of competitors and the time frame, flights of 18 competitors were utilized for both Round 1 and the Wildcard round. This required planning 18 simultaneous WebEx sessions for each flight associated with those rounds. While running a greater number of competitors in each flight saves time, it also raises the challenge of the coordination of 18 sets of buyers and judges for each of those rounds. Table 2 presents the breakdown of rooms, flights, buyers, judges, and competitors by round.

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Table 2.

Virtual Competition Structure.

Round	Rooms	Flights	Buyers	Judges	Competitors
Round 1	18	8	18	108	144
Wildcard	18	6	18	108	108
Quarter finals	8	6	8	48	54
Semifinals	4	4	4	24	15
Finals	1	1	1	9	4

Another advantage to the virtual sales competition (relative to an on-site format) is that it is easier to manage the judges. Judges are required in a virtual format to take more ownership of, and responsibility for managing their time. For example, on-site judges sometimes end up in the wrong judging room or fail to show up to judge. In the virtual competition format, the judges receive WebEx invites only to the rooms in which they judge, eliminating the possibility they could end up in the wrong room. In addition, because they are required to “accept” the WebEx meeting invitation, which subsequently populates their calendars, they are less likely to miss or be late for a round.

In order to answer additional questions concerning how to successfully and effectively conduct a virtual sales competition beyond the NCSC staff observations, we endeavored to collect data from all participants in the event.

General Comments

Approximately 42% of the comments were categorized as “General,” and 90% of those were positive. Most of the 92 positive comments were associated with expressions of satisfaction and gratitude for hosting the event, especially given the quick pivot to virtual because of the COVID-19 crisis. For example, “I was impressed with how quickly the in-person event was able to transition to online.” These comments offer partial support for the notion the change to a virtual format was managed effectively. This success may be attributed to the commitment of all participants to make the change.

The positive comments, especially those with qualifiers like “given the unprecedented changes you faced . . .” “considering the short turn time . . .,” and “given all the constraints . . .” suggested some latitude was given because of the circumstances driving the change. These comments, while supportive, were not as informative as the negative comments in terms of suggestions for improvement.

The negative General comments were primarily tied to time between rounds and perceived scoring delays. For example, “The scores seemed like they took a while to release.” Below is a representative sample of additional negative comments classified as “General.”

The delay between the Round 1 and the Wild Card round resulted because the impact of an unanticipated confluence of constraining factors. For example, the Gartner staff needed to have their work completed by 5 p.m. eastern time. To limit the time demands of the judges and buyers, the Gartner and NCSC team wanted to complete Round 1 and the Wild Card round within nine hours on the first day of the competition. This meant the time required for Round 1 and the Wildcard round was reduced by 6½ hours compared to the when the competition was held on-site. This provided less time for scoring and scheduling between the rounds. Combined with the seeding and other requirements to manually adjust the schedule to satisfy NCSC policy, the interval proved to be inadequate to complete and publish or communicate the schedule in the time originally allotted.

Aside from those comments related to making the pivot to virtual in a short period of time, the bulk of the General comments, both positive and negative, are representative of the comments the NCSC typically receives every year.

Communication

The second most common category was Communication (see Table 4), and just over 72% of those comments were negative. While several respondents expressed satisfaction with the level of communication, (“Communication was done extremely well”) most thought there was too much communication and from too many different sources (“The communication was thorough but fragmented. I lost count of the number of e-mails with information that was relevant to be used for the event. A more coordinated communication effort would have made it better”). Communication is critical to successful change management (Kemp & Low, 2008; Nilakant & Ramnarayan, 2006). Accordingly, the team responsible for implementing the change encouraged each area (scheduling, scoring, training, logistics, and general announcements) to communicate frequently with participants. Comments like “Both Gartner and NCSC staff overcommunicated all important information. In light of the situation, this was quite helpful!” indicate it was better to err on the side of overcommunication.

In addition, respondents expressed dissatisfaction with how the scores and delays were communicated. Below is a representative sample of the comments classified as “Communication” related.

As mentioned previously, responsibility for communicating to the NCSC participants was distributed among various parts of the Gartner and NCSC teams (e.g., scoring, scheduling, etc.). This increased the number of messages sent out and contributed to respondents’ perceptions that the communication was fragmented and confusing. Furthermore, the decision to hold separate WebEx meetings for each competitor significantly increased the number of e-mail messages sent to judges. For example, each of the 108 judges in Round 1 received eight WebEx meeting invitations from Gartner. In total, Gartner coordinated more than three hundred WebEx role-play meetings, each of which required individual invitations to a competitor, a buyer, and five to six judges. In addition, each invitation required an acceptance to ensure everyone was aware of their schedule. These invitation messages were in addition to other messages regarding scheduling, scoring, and general announcements sent from other members of the Gartner/NCSC teams.

Part of the rationale for having separate meetings for each role-play meeting was (1) to control competitor access to the meetings, (2) to use the auto-record feature of WebEx (eliminating the need for someone to start and stop the recording), and (3) to reduce potential errors and confusion. The auto-record function (automatically recorded the entire 30-minute meeting session) ensured each meeting was recorded but significantly increased the number of email messages sent to the judges. Using one meeting for each room and controlling sales competitor access via the virtual waiting room would have been more efficient. The caveat was the risk that one or more of the role-play meetings would not get recorded. That risk can be mitigated by sufficient training and creating a written procedure that calls for the recording to be initiated prior to allowing the competitor into the meeting room.

While some respondents felt there was too much communication (“Both Gartner and NCSC staff overcommunicated all important information), others felt there was not enough communication—especially related to the scheduling delay between Round 1 and the Wildcard round (“More timely communications regarding advancing in the rounds. It would have been nice to see the results BEFORE emails started going out with role-play information on rounds”). The delay was due to the complex nature of the scoring, seeding, and scheduling processes combined with the relatively short window between Round 1 and the Wildcard round. Because the length of the delay was unknown, no messages about the delay were sent out until the decision was made to postpone the first flight of the Wildcard round. Also, because the WebEx meeting invitation emails needed to be sent to the competitors in advance of the round, the scheduling team received the Round 1 results prior to their release to the participants. As a result, some of the competitors received Wildcard round meeting invitations before the official Round 1 results were distributed. This led to some anxiety among the competitors and coaches.

The data suggest a more strategic approach to communication would improve effectiveness and satisfaction. Coordinating and consolidating the communication would reduce the total number of messages sent/received and the perception of fragmentation. In addition, scheduling sufficient time between Round 1 and the Wildcard round would create more realistic expectations, eliminate the delay, and allow the results to be posted before the meeting invitations were sent out. The feedback indicates that competitors and coaches prefer to have a clearly communicated schedule prior to receiving invitations to the individual role-play meeting. This is also true for the judges.

Although commented on by only a few respondents, the “Command Center” webinars (see Table 5) were valuable and powerful methods of communication providing at least the NCSC staff a greater level of confidence in their ability to mitigate technology and communication errors. For example, “In addition, the resource IT room that was provided throughout the competition was extremely helpful. I made use of that myself a couple of times and that was timely and helpful.” The Gartner and NCSC staff fielded many different questions related to the competition (e.g., schedules, the role-plays, using WebEx, etc.) from many students, faculty, and judges who joined the Command Center webinar at different times throughout the competition. Judges and buyers also communicated challenges and issues to the Gartner and NCSC staff during competition role-play meetings which were then able to be resolved in a timely manner.

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Table 5.

Summary of Takeaways.

Area	Summary of takeaways
Communication	• Coordinate and limit the number of sources and platforms (e.g., email, social media, etc.) • Create a FAQ page and add to the information leading up to and throughout the event • Distribute a comprehensive schedule of meetings and competition times in a timely manner • Host an open “Command Center” or “Information Center” webinar during competition hours • Establish a realistic schedule (time between rounds and role-play meetings) to allow for potential disruptions in technology, and scoring/scheduling complications • Use one meeting for each room per round to reduce the number of meeting invitations
Training	• Host training webinars a minimum of 4 to 6 weeks in advance of the competition • Make sure judges and buyers are trained (using the scoring system, recording, controlling mic and camera during role-plays) • Train participants (especially students) how to make sure they understand the technology with which they need to be proficient and manage during the role-play • Pilot test each aspect of the competition and judging processes
Technology	• Use the waiting room feature to control competitor access to the meeting room • Allow competitors to control screen-share • Make sure participants check internet connections in advance of the competition • Assign buyers/proctors the responsibility of recording the role-plays
Virtual vs. Face-to-face	• Ask competitors and buyers to configure a wider camera shot to capture nonverbals (e.g., body language) • Make competitors aware of the need to test and control their audio connection that is unique to virtual sales calls • Include criteria in the judging from to encompass nonverbals (background, lighting, camera angle, etc.) unique to virtual sales calls • Find ways to promote engagement through digital versions of mixers. For example, use a series of breakout rooms of small groups to which people are randomly assigned • Make the awards presentation webinar more interactive and/or with more fanfare and recognition for more participants
General	• Have a clear policy for what happens if technology fails • Use buyers/proctors to keep the competition fair and on schedule • Clearly communicate value of virtual events (sponsors and participants) • Clearly establish and communicate competition format and policies

Training

Training is a critical component to successful change management (Kemp & Low, 2008; Nilakant & Ramnarayan, 2006). As mentioned previously, during the time period leading up to the 2020 NCSC, COVID-19 related closings were just starting and most faculty, students, and judges were not as experienced or otherwise familiar with web conferencing technology (and related tools like WebEx and Zoom) as they would become over the following months. Accordingly, Gartner and the NCSC staff were intent on providing the training necessary for participants to feel comfortable making the change to a virtual format by increasing their confidence with the virtual aspects of the competition, including using WebEx and the new digital scoring system. As mentioned previously, Gartner held 19 training webinars, including four focused on training competitors and coaches on how to use WebEx to sell virtually. Relatively few respondents commented on the training, but of those that did, the majority expressed satisfaction with the training provided. Below is a representative sample of additional comments.

In addition to providing training, the webinars for the judges provided the NCSC staff the opportunity to pilot-test the new digital scoring process, and the feasibility of having judges move from one meeting to the next within the planned 10-minute window between the end of one flight and the start of the next. Based on findings from hosting the training sessions, the window between flights was increased to 15 minutes (from 10), and (as discussed previously) the scoresheet form was changed to reduce data entry error.

Gartner and the NCSC staff hosted multiple training webinars for students and judges. The data suggest the training sessions were successful. This was a welcome result because with only 16 days between the decision to go virtual and the start of the competition, the time available to create robust training sessions was limited. While the training sessions were well received, we expect this is partly due to the emergent circumstances brought on by the COVID-19 crisis. Spacing out the training sessions over the 3 months preceding the NCSC would have provided the participants a higher level of comfort and sense of preparedness.

Virtual Versus Face-to-Face

Several respondents provided feedback related to the shifting to virtual sales competitions in general, including expressions of preference for one or more characteristics of each format (“Unusual experience due to being virtual. Much prefer human element and face to face interaction.”). Comments related to the idea of sales competitions becoming virtual, or those containing direct or indirect comparisons of virtual and face-to-face competitions were added to this category. A representative sample of additional comments is below.

The most common concern regarding the virtual sales competition format is the diminished interpersonal engagement. It is important to note that the NCSC judging experience between the virtual and face-to-face competition formats is similar. In both cases, judges are watching live-streamed video feeds of the sales calls; however, what they are seeing is different. The cameras used in the face-to-face format capture a wider area, allowing judges to see more body language and nonverbal cues than in a WebEx or Zoom meeting. However, those cameras do not provide judges good visual access to the competitors’ visual aids. In contrast, the screen-share function available in the virtual format allows the judges a better view of the competitors’ visual aids but limits their ability to see the competitors’ (and buyers’) nonverbals. Beyond the role-play activity, the interpersonal engagement was diminished in the virtual competition format because judges were not in the same location, there were no social mixers (receptions, meals, etc.) or common areas (e.g., hallways, hotel lobby, etc.) where participants could interact spontaneously and network or otherwise communicate informally. Finding a way to replicate those opportunities in a virtual format may add substantial value to the experience of participating in a virtual sales competition event. For example, virtual webinars or meetings might be scheduled in the evenings for each group of participants so that faculty might have discussions with other faculty. Webinars might be set up for sponsors and student competitors and alternates (candidates) as well. Individual virtual rooms for each of the sponsoring organizations could be set up such that students and faculty could enter and exit each of the rooms for the type of more personal discussions associated with an onsite career fair.