MGMT 101 companies sell out in under three hours

April 5, 2012

By Amanda Ayers and Sara Blair Matthews

News Editor and Assistant News Editor

Management 101’s Company C, or the Skyline Company, sold out its stock of shirts in three hours this past week. Company B, the Permit Company, sold out in an hour and eight minutes.

“Selling out on the first day of sales has been unusual but certainly not unheard of in the history of MGMT 101. My teaching partner Professor Tammy Hiller and I don’t recall ever having two companies sell out this quickly in the same semester,” said associate professor of management Jamie Hendry, Management 101 instructor. “I hesitate to speculate on the cause of this, but one factor might be that, since the University changed its policies during the 2010-11 academic year regarding the use of BUID for purchases (Campus Dollars are now permissible, but not BUID), we have found the need to encourage companies to be more conservative in determining order quantities, as sales overall have declined under this policy.”

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In addition to this change in policy, success was also attributed to the logos used as well as the powerful capacity to advertise through social media websites like Twitter and Facebook.

“We had a huge buzz [surrounding our product]. We played off the Patagonia logo and used it in all our marketing. We wanted people to see our logo and immediately associate it with our company,” said Alex Nowlin ’14, Company C CEO.

Company C also credits some of its success to the fact that it had no competition as the first company to sell. It managed to collect over $1,000 as a result of sales and will be donating this money to Riverwoods Senior Living Community, a local retirement community.

“MGMT 101 is not primarily about selling products. The course is primarily focused on conducting meaningful service projects; students sell products as a means of raising the funds required to complete their service projects, so they only order as much as they need to sell in order to achieve their service goals,” Hendry said. “Service project clients are generally local non-profit community service organizations, but on occasion national and even international organizations have benefited, as have organizations that are not strictly ‘non-profit.’”

“Our motto is service first. Our business allows us [to carry out our service goals],” Nowlin said.

“Service is the heart of our company. We wanted to provide the highest service project that would have a long term impact on our organization,” said Tory Cutting ’14, Skyline company vice president.

Company C group members will put in at least 10 hours of service through a “Game Extravaganza” night next week, organizing numerous games of Bingo (a favorite of the residents) and conducting at least 10 interviews with the residents to create “memory posters” about their lives. Students in the company plan to provide transcripts of these interviews to the residents’ families.

“Everyone in our group has really enjoyed the experience. We have received lots of positive feedback,” Cutting said.

Company B is working through the Bucknell Office of Civic Engagement to create a community garden in a plot of land across the street from the St. Anthony’s Park in Lewisburg. They have started seedlings in the greenhouse (on the top floor of the biology building), and they will be creating the garden beds and installing fencing this week and next.

This semester of Management 101 has four companies: A, B, C and D. Look out during the upcoming week in the ELC “mall” for Bison tanks, John Deere shirts and ’Ray Bucknell sunglasses.

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