fall 2020 "Advise" Role play

 Dec 15, 2020
8:30-10:00 am

UConn's "Advise" Role Play

course-structureDuring our semester-long role play, students play business development interns at Impact, a Connecticut-based marketing agency.  They are pursuing a sales opportunity with the leadership team of the UConn Full-time MBA program, who are looking to improve their digital marketing presence in order to recruit more applicants. 

The advise call is in the final phase of our sales strategy.   Students have done a competitive analysis of other MBA programs and identified gaps in UConn's digital presence.  Based on those gaps they have developed a proposal for a 1-year renewable service contract with short-term and longer-term activities to help the UConn team meet their recruitment goals.  

Buyer-partners like you will role-play one of two leaders of the MBA program. The students have scheduled a 15-minute video meeting with you to review their findings and recommendations, which they will present as a team. 

Ready to Connect with our Students?

Your participation makes this role play real for the students! 

Register before Dec 3, 5:00pm

 

Or read on to learn more...

Meet your roles

You will be working in pairs, role-playing two members of the leadership team for the UConn MBA Program.  Registered buyer-partners will receive more information

meg-tech-buyer

Meg Warren

Director- Full Time MBA Program

Technical Buyer

Meg is responsible for overseeing the entire scope of the program.  She not a marketing expert, so relies on a small overworked team who manage marketing and recruiting for all graduate programs, including hers. 
david-tech-buyer

David Souder

Associate Dean-Graduate Programs

Economic Buyer (and Meg's boss)

David is responsible for all graduate programs.  While Meg has briefed David, this is the first time he will meet the sales interns from Impact.  David approves marketing budgets for all graduate programs, implemented by the small team that works for him. 

About your goals and challenges

The students learned these goals and challenges from simulated explore calls with Meg.  Registered buyer partners will receive more information

  1. Your key goal is to increase quality enrollments in the MBA program. 
  2. You are specifically looking for help at the top of your recruiting funnel:
    1. attracting visitors to your website
    2. gaining permission to interact with them more personally,
    3. convincing qualified applicants to complete the online application
  3. You have six months to recruit the next entering class.   

About your concerns

Each of you should raise at least one of these concerns during the role play.
Registered buyer-partners will receive further information.

  1. How can Impact maintain high applicant quality as you invest in attracting and engaging with more potential students? 
  2. How much time will be required from people on your teams? 
  3. Can you afford to hire external help for this?   
  4. How sure is Impact that this will work? 

About feedback and evaluation

You will provide live feedback to the students as soon as they finish, and survey feedback to the instructor, on the following areas.  Registered buyers will receive further information.  

  1. "Connect": builds good rapport
  2. "Explore": probes for understanding and agreement
  3. "Advise": makes clear connections with business outcomes
  4. "Earn Commitment": asks for the order
  5. "Overall": in control, professional
  6. "Team": good use of team

Roleplay Timeline

Registered buyers will receive access links 48 hours before the roleplay

  • 9:30 Buyers Pre-Meeting
  • 9:45 First Student Team Joins:
    • 2-minute "out of role" greeting: 
    • 15-minute roleplay
    • 1o-minute fast feedback to students
    • 3- minute online feedback to instructor (students depart)
  • 10:15 Second Student Team Joins (and process repeats)
  • 10:45: Finalize feedback to instructor