Senior John Noonan steps to the front of the classroom, his presentation pulled up behind him on a large monitor. Roughly two dozen people stare back at him; the audience includes two of his professors and a panel of judges. He knows he has two minutes to pitch — that’s roughly 300 words. There are hundreds of dollars on the line.
“You’ve just got to be yourself when you’re up there and really believe in it,” Noonan says. “If you keep going at it, one day it will work out for you.”
More than a dozen students put that advice into action at the Center for Professional Selling’s Pitch Purpose competition, wherein students delivered brief sales pitches for a nonprofit group of their choice. Whichever two students came up with the best pitch won a $500 check for their respective charities, courtesy of event sponsor Federated Insurance. Event judge Nick Mergen personally contributed $250 to the total.
Senior Nolan Rappis, who presented on behalf of Team IMPACT, which matches children with illnesses and disabilities with college sports teams, won first place. Senior Harper Stoppacher placed second.
This event is a part of Sales Week, a five-day series of guest speakers, contests and networking opportunities that give students comprehensive exposure to the industry. Dr. Jessica Ogilvie, director of the Center for Professional Selling, considers Pitch Purpose and Sales Week to be cornerstones of her program.
“The combination of experiential learning and servant leadership is what makes our program unique and that’s what Sales Week delivers,” Ogilvie says. “Students who participate in Pitch Purpose present in an environment with real stakes. We’re also furthering Marquette’s mission of being men and women for and with others by centering this exercise around community organizations.”
Many of the students advocated on behalf of organizations they discovered in service-learning classes. One presenter delivered an impassioned case for donating to City on a Hill, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit that combats childhood poverty in the city’s most under-resourced ZIP codes. Others, like Noonan, chose charities close to their hearts, such as the American SIDS Institute, which funds research and public awareness around Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
Noonan became passionate about SIDS advocacy through his girlfriend, whose sister died from it years ago.
“I wanted to explain to the judges that nobody has found a reason for why this happens yet and tell them what their money could do to prevent this from happening to other children,” Noonan says.
Stoppacher also presented a cause that hit close to home: mental health awareness. She presented on behalf of No Empty Seats, a nonprofit founded by a former high school classmate that raises funds for suicide prevention through apparel partnerships. Stoppacher told the judges that multiple people in her hometown had taken their own lives in the past few years and she was there on behalf of an organization determined to save lives.
“I know a lot of the other people who presented were in the sales leadership program and I’d never done a sales pitch like that before,” Stoppacher says. “I had some experience in presentations from my summer internship, so I just did my best and spoke from the heart.”
Both students saw the contest as an opportunity to grow their skills, which will soon come in handy in the professional world. Noonan will graduate in December and is hoping to land a job in marketing or real estate, while Stoppacher will do the same in May with a role lined up at Techtronic Industries, the company that owns Milwaukee Tool.
While at Techtronic, Stoppacher must work as a customer-facing sales rep before moving into the marketing department. Pitch Purpose may prove to be invaluable background for her work.
“The first draft of my presentation was six minutes; it needed to be cut by two-thirds, so I had to edit out a lot of unnecessary things and really learn the art of brevity,” Stoppacher says.
Ultimately, her efforts paid off; both in experience and in money for people in need of mental health intervention.
