Summer Underway

So I keep forgetting that I have this blog...I should probably do a better job at trying to keep up with things like this! The last time that i posted, I had just completed the first two days of my summer internship. I feel like I am the master of talking. I go into businesses everyday and I just talk, flat out, I hear "No", and I talk more, I used to feel awkward about it at first and each day I find myself caring less and less. I used to think that working in a restaurant had made me able to talk to people and handle what they had to say. Now I know that in order to work in sales, cold calling 30 businesses a day, and handling some of the strangest situations imaginable is one of the most interesting things I have ever done. The job has its high highs and low lows, the other day I was driving in my car after being turned down by one of my biggest prospects, down on myself, I parked my car to take a break. I called one of my friends up that just recently graduated, he had been searching for job diligently for quite some time, although he had been turned down by many businesses, he kept on looking. Finally, I got a management job for a natural gas company. After getting off the phone with him I realized that everything comes down to attitude. I always try to tell myself that it is harder to be positive about things than it is to be negative. While I was sitting my car giving myself a little pep talk I started thinking about my friends positive attitude and how I needed to work to be more positive myself. After this thought, I remembered something that my Regional Sales Manager Kristen Wisdorf had told me at training, she said "The only thing you can control in this internship is attitude and effort." After having some time to collect myself and cheer up I walked into a business, overcame some objections, and made a sale. I felt like I actually knew what I was doing, it was great.

Sales Representative

Going to North Carolina for Sales Foundation Academy with University Directories was a pretty intense experience. I had crammed everything for finals into a few days so that I could get out of Fargo and touch down in Chapel Hill, NC. Flight delays were the theme for my travel arrangements, all in all it took me ten hours to get from Fargo to Chapel Hill. The day itinerary was intense, I woke up at six thirty every morning, showered, got into my suit, and headed out to eat some breakfast. Classroom sessions would start at eight and run till noon. We would take forty five minutes to each lunch and then headed right back into the classroom. Class session would last until five, we would take three hours for dinner, and then meet up again till about ten or eleven. I normally need about seven to eight hours of sleep per night, in NC, I averaged about four. By the time it was all over I was pretty exhausted. Now it is time for the internship to begin, I have two days out of the way and one sale. The days can be frustrating, sometimes I feel like 'that guy' going into everyones place of business. I know that I need to work hard and stay focused, This is going to prepare me for a job when I graduate. Here's to a productive summer!

Finals, Finals, Finals

It is that time of year again, finals. What cant you love about this time of the year? You definitely have to appreciate the laundry list of work that compiles at the end of the semester. Presentations, papers, group projects, course evaluations, and the list goes on. How exciting am I? I'll tell you. Last night I spent my night studying int he library until ten o'clock. I woke up this morning and was back at ten thirty...here I sit. I only have one more final on Monday morning and then one Tuesday early afternoon. So close to the end, I am ready! Tuesday night I have to pack up my stuff and get ready to go to Chapel Hill, NC for a week. I accepted an internship for University Directories working as a sales representative in Fargo-Moorhead this summer. I will not be making very much money but the experience is well worth it. I will have the chance to try my hand at sales while at the same time conceptualizing creatives ideas for business owners and managing my own accounts. I think that this is going to be the experience that will give me a close glimpse of what my future career holds. Whatever or wherever it is, I'm excited for it.

A First For Everything

hmmm, where to start. I have never really blogged before, so, this should be rather interesting. I guess I will start with why I decided to set up a blog. Let's face it, blogging is huge these days. All I hear about is social media these days. My friend's father, Kim Kemmer, an unofficial mentor of sorts, set me off in my social media direction with a few words of advice. He basically told me that exployers are expected college students my age (Gen Y's) to be well versed in using all of these internet technologies. It's almost like we are in an advertising renaissance. We have all of these new and creative tools for communicating, and well, someone has to know how to use them. Gen Y can hardly remember existence without the internet, we are the last generation that experienced the world before everything went digital. So, I decided to take his advice. I have a twitter account, AdMAV, where I tweet anything from random updates about what is going on my life to the cool advertising i find on the internet. So far it has been a great educational tool for me. I find myself spending my time on twitter rather than facebook. Instead of facebook stocking through peoples photos, I follow industry professionals on twitter, check out their tweets, read about the content they post, and learn something. Creating a blog was the one world that I haven't dove into. So, with that, here I go.