My successes and failures as an Aidmatrix intern. It started with my first few meetings and call in interviews with Brad. Which I will list under my successes. A few weeks after school had ended I traveled up to Dallas for my training. Which on the whole I thought was very informative. I would however have preferred a little bit more sales training. Cold calling and things of that nature. But it could just have been that I didn’t have the same schooling as the other interns.
Well any ways next I was trying to make calls and meetings. And here is where things started to go rather pear shaped on me. You see this is how it seemed to work. I would call up a clinic give my speech and the person would be excited about it. Then I would try to find out if they qualified or how interested they were. For the most part they would rather me explain it over the phone then go for a visit. So I would start talking to them. And seeing if they qualified. Most of them did not. And those they might have felt that there wasn’t enough of a benefit for them to implement our program. This was rather disheartening. So I tried the food banks and other non-profits in the area. But they were either too small or just not interested in what we had to offer.
So I called up Brad and told him about how things were going. And expressed my feelings that I wasn’t feeling very useful and if he had any work for me to do over by him. So he told me to do some web marketing and “spread the word of Aidmatrix” and that started to take up most of my day. I still made calls to clinks and tried to contact west Texas ones. But that was only and hour maybe 2 hours a day and the rest of my time were spent web marketing.
Also on several occasions I translated a few power points and wrote up some one pagers for Brad, which I thought was fun and helped break up the days. But if I am perfectly honest I don’t think I was as helpful or useful as you guys had originally hoped that I would be. Or as I thought I would be for that matter.
That being said I did have a lot of fun at this job. I got to meet a lot of interesting people both at Aidmatrix and in the health community of El Paso. So I would say that it was a very positive experience. The only thing I would have changed is probably have picked a community with a few more health clinics in it.
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Thursday, August 2, 2007
It's been great!!
My internship this summer has been truly amazing and one of the most gratifying experiences I’ve had so far. Just knowing that we are really making a difference in peoples lives makes me feel good inside and proud of what we were all able to accomplish. The experience I got from this internship is invaluable and will not only benefit me in my future career but in life as well. I loved the sales and technological aspects of this job and to be able to improve and use those skills gave me a lot of confidence. After looking back over the past couple of months, I can see how much I’ve grown as a person and that makes me really excited for what’s in store for me in the future.
I remember the first day I was so nervous/excited about cold calling and setting up meetings that I woke up 2 hours early just to get down my sales pitch. I must have stuttered a hundred times my first call but I was able to set up a meeting (probably out of pity) which gave me the confidence I needed for the duration of my internship. I think Michael said it best when he told us, “No matter what happens, you’re not going to die!” After that first call I was comfortable with what I was saying and cold calling no longer became an issue. It makes it a lot easier to cold call and set up meetings when you truly believe in the program you are representing. My absolute favorite part of this internship was going to the meetings and getting a chance to sit down and talk to these people. I have met so many great people with big hearts that just want to help and give back to the community. Some of them would get so excited when I presented the Freeclinic Link and that got me excited! It’s a great feeling to see the look on their faces and something I will never forget. I was also able to work with Daniel a lot this summer with the FedEx Kinko’s donations. Many clinics were interested in computer donations and that was a great incentive for them to sign up.
After about 5 weeks I hit kind of a wall and meetings started slowing a down quite a bit. I had to do a lot more research to try and find new contacts and get things rolling again. It especially got more difficult when ¾ of the people I contacted didn’t meet the membership criteria or weren’t interested in Donate Now. One of the biggest challenges was getting in contact with the people you needed to talk to and/or trying to have them call or e-mail you back. That part got really annoying but I knew that would be part of the job when I signed on. It took a lot of self-motivation and persistence to keep calling and e-mailing back but it paid off with a few clinics.
Overall, I feel very blessed to be a part of this internship program with Aidmatrix and know this was the right decision. To work with so many great people that genuinely care about what they do really inspires me. From this opportunity, I can take the skills and confidence I have gained to fulfill my goals and take on many more challenges in the future.
I remember the first day I was so nervous/excited about cold calling and setting up meetings that I woke up 2 hours early just to get down my sales pitch. I must have stuttered a hundred times my first call but I was able to set up a meeting (probably out of pity) which gave me the confidence I needed for the duration of my internship. I think Michael said it best when he told us, “No matter what happens, you’re not going to die!” After that first call I was comfortable with what I was saying and cold calling no longer became an issue. It makes it a lot easier to cold call and set up meetings when you truly believe in the program you are representing. My absolute favorite part of this internship was going to the meetings and getting a chance to sit down and talk to these people. I have met so many great people with big hearts that just want to help and give back to the community. Some of them would get so excited when I presented the Freeclinic Link and that got me excited! It’s a great feeling to see the look on their faces and something I will never forget. I was also able to work with Daniel a lot this summer with the FedEx Kinko’s donations. Many clinics were interested in computer donations and that was a great incentive for them to sign up.
After about 5 weeks I hit kind of a wall and meetings started slowing a down quite a bit. I had to do a lot more research to try and find new contacts and get things rolling again. It especially got more difficult when ¾ of the people I contacted didn’t meet the membership criteria or weren’t interested in Donate Now. One of the biggest challenges was getting in contact with the people you needed to talk to and/or trying to have them call or e-mail you back. That part got really annoying but I knew that would be part of the job when I signed on. It took a lot of self-motivation and persistence to keep calling and e-mailing back but it paid off with a few clinics.
Overall, I feel very blessed to be a part of this internship program with Aidmatrix and know this was the right decision. To work with so many great people that genuinely care about what they do really inspires me. From this opportunity, I can take the skills and confidence I have gained to fulfill my goals and take on many more challenges in the future.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
My last hoorah.
The internship this summer has been such an awesome experience. It has been cool to see it bring together industrial distribution with a project that is really impacting people daily. It combined sales, people interaction, technological skills, and an end goal to make it a really neat project to be assigned to. I think we all learned very similar things, about cold calling, self-motivation and determination, and also just about representing a company and a product. I still don’t think I got used to being introduced as “Kristen, with Aidmatrix.”
I have learned a lot about the non-profit world in general. All the people I have talked with either work at free clinics, homeless shelters, churches, or other non-profits; I have loved talking to them and hearing how they became a part of it. It’s opened my eyes to things I either do or do not want to do in the future. Even if I do not always work in non-profit, it has definitely taught me skills that I will take with me in any field.
The sales aspect has been a great experience. I became very comfortable with cold-calling: calling on people I had never met, at places I had never been. At first that was the biggest challenge, but it became the biggest area of growth. I loved the meetings with people, and learned how to carry the conversation and listen sincerely, while also providing them with clear answers. I have probably learned the most from those interactions. I also learned from my mistakes; saying the wrong thing on the phone, not being as prepared as I should be, getting lost… It does get frustrating to have to find random places that you have never been and be on time; I think that is something we all had to overcome. :)
Being in Dallas has been a huge blessing because there are so many resources for clinics, as well as non-profits. Talking with Julie and getting more information at the beginning of the summer really helped to jump-start my contacts. They began as a whirlwind and I set up many meetings in the first few weeks. The last few weeks and clinics required more pursuit, because some people are just not as responsive. Near the end it picked up again; it was nice to hear people say that they appreciated my follow-up and persistence, because I times I just felt annoying. It was great to learn how to be patiently persistent.
I have also loved being able to come to the office and getting to see more of Aidmatrix. From the beginning I was just so impressed with the company and was excited to know that there are places like this; this office is full of intelligent, very outgoing people who are choosing to do something that is really impacting people around the world. It is definitely unique and we have all been blessed to be a part of it. Hopefully we have been able to forge the way ahead for these clinics and this program.
I have learned a lot about the non-profit world in general. All the people I have talked with either work at free clinics, homeless shelters, churches, or other non-profits; I have loved talking to them and hearing how they became a part of it. It’s opened my eyes to things I either do or do not want to do in the future. Even if I do not always work in non-profit, it has definitely taught me skills that I will take with me in any field.
The sales aspect has been a great experience. I became very comfortable with cold-calling: calling on people I had never met, at places I had never been. At first that was the biggest challenge, but it became the biggest area of growth. I loved the meetings with people, and learned how to carry the conversation and listen sincerely, while also providing them with clear answers. I have probably learned the most from those interactions. I also learned from my mistakes; saying the wrong thing on the phone, not being as prepared as I should be, getting lost… It does get frustrating to have to find random places that you have never been and be on time; I think that is something we all had to overcome. :)
Being in Dallas has been a huge blessing because there are so many resources for clinics, as well as non-profits. Talking with Julie and getting more information at the beginning of the summer really helped to jump-start my contacts. They began as a whirlwind and I set up many meetings in the first few weeks. The last few weeks and clinics required more pursuit, because some people are just not as responsive. Near the end it picked up again; it was nice to hear people say that they appreciated my follow-up and persistence, because I times I just felt annoying. It was great to learn how to be patiently persistent.
I have also loved being able to come to the office and getting to see more of Aidmatrix. From the beginning I was just so impressed with the company and was excited to know that there are places like this; this office is full of intelligent, very outgoing people who are choosing to do something that is really impacting people around the world. It is definitely unique and we have all been blessed to be a part of it. Hopefully we have been able to forge the way ahead for these clinics and this program.
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