Senior marketing majors Megan Taylor and Taylor Olsen and three other Flyers represented UD against students from 71 other universities at the March competition at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. While Taylor and Olsen competed individually, they leaned on their teammates – Jianna Doskocil, Jack Bronsil and Noah Schneller – for help prepping for their sales calls with role play and research.
The process to secure the role of representing UD at the National Collegiate Sales Competition starts in the fall with the Flyers Sales Challenge, open to anyone who has learned the UD School of Business Administration sales process. Students placing in the top 10 qualify for a second competition in January, where performance and placement determine who is selected to go to nationals.
The training ground for this highly competitive endeavor is the School of Business Administration’s Fiore Talarico Center for Professional Selling led by Patrick Lindsay. He’s also the faculty advisor for Pi Sigma Epsilon, a professional fraternity focused on sales, marketing and management. He replaced Tony Krystofik, who retired after directing the Talarico Center since its inception in 2010.
“I replaced a legend, someone who was very much admired,” Lindsay said. “The program here is really phenomenal. There are nine corporate sponsors who are integrated into the sales center and they love UD students. The faculty allows the partners to come in and co-teach a class — you don’t have that anywhere else.
“Megan [Taylor] and Taylor [Olsen] were the first people I met. I spent time with them and the Pi Sigma Epsilon leadership to see what they were doing. The beauty of this job after a long time in the corporate world is to watch talented students learn and develop.”
The preparation and commitment for the national sales competition is like taking on a part-time job. Taylor and Olsen spent dozens of hours over six weeks researching Gartner, the IT resource company they would sell at nationals, attending Zoom meetings and practicing for the first 20-minute role play, while trying to predict the curveballs.
“The biggest takeaway from competition is to be adaptive and be able to pivot at any point,” Olsen said. “We put in lots of hours to prepare, but things aren’t black and white on a sales call and we had no idea what the role plays would look like.”
In the first round, there are 10 competitors in a room; only first- and second-place finishers move on to the next round. Taylor made it to the quarterfinals, while Olsen journeyed into the semis, garnering the nickname “Taylor the tiger” from one of the judges. Both women lost to the eventual champion in their respective rounds.
Neither Olsen or Taylor would say they came to UD thinking they were born to sell.
After taking two accounting classes in the business core, Olsen started having second thoughts about her accounting major, so she switched to marketing.
“I decided my sophomore year to join the business fraternity. I felt like everyone there was welcoming, and I was able to learn the nine week business-to-business sales call – and from then on, I just wanted to be involved as much as possible,” Olsen said. This kind of early exposure, in and beyond the classroom, helps students better understand each discipline, find their major, and discover where they can grow and succeed.
Taylor was a marketing major. Her real push into sales came from the former president of Pi Sigma Epsilon, whose mantra “why would you not do that?” inspired Taylor to apply for and get an internship at Crown Equipment Corporation after her freshman year. Taylor said it was monumental in building her confidence. Acting on that phrase propelled her to seize opportunities at UD, including taking the reins of PSE as president and really fall in love with sales.
“I enjoy being able to learn about people and understand them and their business objectives,” Taylor said. “What’s unique about sales is you’re not talking ‘at people’, you’re listening to them and their story. I like the problem solving aspect — how can I save them money, make them less stressed and just be able to help the individual?”
Taylor was also recently honored by Poets & Quants for undergrads, a national publication for undergraduate business school education as one of the “Top 100 Best and Brightest Undergraduate Business Majors of 2026.”
Olsen and Taylor have jobs lined up after graduation. Olsen is headed home to Chicago to work as a brand sales specialist for IBM.
Taylor will be working for Stryker in Portage, Michigan
“I feel relieved and it allows me to be really present here this final semester. I interned at Stryker for two years, so I will be working with the same team in a role I know I will enjoy,” Taylor said.
Both point to the opportunities available at UD as a key part of their success, along with the very real sense of community.
“You figure out what that means from faculty, staff and professors because everyone wants to help you,” Olsen said. “All my professors know me by my name, the sponsors are willing to come in and help, the mentorship and hands-on experience are invaluable. People want to help you get prepared for the real world and succeed.”