That's exactly what the members of the Oklahoma State University chapter of the National Agri Marketing Association hopes to do for the year 2000 competition and conference April 12-14.

"NAMA has a national conference every year where each chapter can submit a marketing proposal for a real or made up product that is a product of agriculture or sold to farms," said Dan Tilley, agricultural economics professor and adviser for OSU's NAMA chapter.

NAMA membership includes college students and business professionals from agricultural firms across the country. There are chapters at many of the major agricultural schools throughout the United States. Patrick Kelly, agricultural economics junior, is the 1999-2000 OSU chapter president.

"We usually have 18 people on the (marketing) team and six to eight presenting people, but most of us do a lot of behind the scenes work doing research and checking facts," Kelly said. Tilley said NAMA is very versatile for any agriculture major, because it incorporates aspects from all academic areas.

"Anyone can be on the team or in the group. In fact, we want more people from other majors for more diversity," said OSU agricultural economics professor Robert Oehrtman.

The team consists of students from several departments, including agricultural economics, animal science and agricultural communications. The teams spend many long hours and work late nights preparing for the contest.

The main point of the national conference is for students to network with agricultural corporations. It is mainly a job fair with a contest thrown in for fun and the prestige of winning. 

"I like to reach the educational objective, but it's nice to win, too," Tilley said.

The schools create a team of five to eight people for the oral presentations. All team members have to speak for part of the oral presentation, and the team draws up a written proposal of their product.

The student teams write proposals, which are no more than 15 pages in length. Oral presentations must be 20 minutes long, and the teams submit a summary of five pages maximum. 

"If it's over five pages, no one will read it anyway, just like in the business world," Tilley said. "Nobody likes reading lots of information when a summary will do."

The presentations include any multimedia methods the students want to use.

At previous conferences, Oehrtman said he has seen everything from Power Point to simple poster board charts. Everything that is used in the presentation must be part of the written proposal.

The proposals are submitted several weeks before the conference so that executives from several different businesses can judge them. 

The field of competitors is then reduced based on the score received for the written proposal. The teams with the highest scores are invited to present at the conference. 

At the conference, the presentations are scored, and the highest scores go to the next round. This process continues until the presenting schools are "whittled down" to 12 and then to four. Those four teams are ranked in first through fourth places.

"The conference must be held in a huge place because the conference has about 400 corporate people and almost twice as many students," Oehrtman said. 

"The facility must also have lots of rooms for giving the group presentations. Next year's conference will be really good because it will be in Kansas City, and NAMA is based out of Kansas City. More people should be there because of the location."

As the days tick by and the conference comes closer, the amount of time the NAMA members spend on their project increases.

"We watch videos of the previous top four groups for practice and to see what works and what doesn't," Kelly said. "We get the videos from the association, and we watch them a lot while we prepare.

"At first we meet about twice a month until the fall semester ends. Then we meet once a week, and then it's Monday through Friday for about two hours each night to get the written plan finished. After that, we work on the oral presentation until the conference."

Like many other student organizations, NAMA really can help students get their foot in the door for future jobs. Contacts are made at the conference which benefit student members. Professionals are members of NAMA also, and they get to know the student members. 

Members of NAMA have access to an opportunity base because of being a member. Even if a student has never met a professional member, the NAMA name has pull on a résumé. 

"It is one of the few ways for students to get involved with real companies," said Heather Hoff, a former OSU NAMA coach and alumnae. Hoff now works as the marketing manager of performance horse products with the Farnam Corporation.

"It stands out to people who have previous expertise with NAMA. It really gives an excellent opportunity for networking in the agriculture business world," said Hoff.

If a student is applying for a job with a NAMA professional, the professional will see the NAMA name and know this student has experience. As a result, the professional will probably place the résumé in the "Keep Pile" and not the "Round File," said Oehrtman.

"The experience of creating a marketing plan like this is a skill many people don't get, and it can help you later in a job environment," Oehrtman said.

The marketing project may not be a walk in the park, but the payoff could make it all worthwhile in the long run. People may think it is working for peanuts or nothing at all, but they can get prestige to use later in life.

For more information about joining NAMA, contact Dan Tilley at (405) 744-6156. Or write to: National Agri Marketing Association, 11020 King Street, Suite 205, Overland Park, KS 66210