A Marketing and Sales Intern?
8/13/2022
I went to a conference in March of 2022 called the FounderPath conference. My dad has two start-up companies so he goes to these kinds of things and it was my spring break so I ended up accompanying him. (Here's my LinkedIn post on it) There, I met tons of people in the SaaS (software as a start up) field and I made some crazy connections. I met up with a specific type of company, lets just call it WePlay. WePlay was in lead tracking, call tracking, form tracking, etc. They were second on my list of companies to work for after another, which I started working for 3 months later. I talked to the founder of WePlay and about 3 hours later his head of marketing sent me a message saying something along the lines of, "We like you. Interview?" and so my work life began.
Let's get to the juicy part. What did that experience actually do for me. Lots of SEO stuff. SEO is search engine optimization...the process of using methods to gain traffic to your website. I also wrote a few posts, managed some of their LinkedIn and Twitter, and contacted people for backlinks (a blog from another website linking back to WePlay's page).
Overall, I'd say the experience was a 8/10. The company was really welcoming but it took me a month and a half to figure out what the product was. That, and at times there was a lot of miscommunication on what my tasks were.
Fast forward to about a month later, I reached out to someone else I had met at the conference. The founder spoke at the conference, and I loved his work ethic and drive, so I connected with him later and started working for his company. This company was third on my list (I ended up only working for them for a month). Lets call the company, PenStack. PenStack was a work management platform, kind of like Monday.com. So what did I learn working for them?
Well one thing I learned was, communication is key. This company didn't communicate as much as I would have liked, there weren't weekly team catchup meetings, (or there may have been but I wasn't invited), and it was kind of confusing on what I was supposed to do. When I had entered the company I entered being told to "Manage backlinks, and raise our DA (domain authority) score to 50". And so I worked on that. But what's next? There was nothing on my plate and no communication. When they finally gave me a task to work on, they said they didn't need me anymore so, did they even need me in the first place? To me, the experience was a 4/10. Great founder, love his wife, love the person who managed me, but it was a company I thought would have been better at communicating (if you can't tell by now communication is very important to me).
The third company I worked for was my first choice after the conference. Let's call it Balloon. Balloon was a shipping optimization company, with two amazing founders I ended up sitting next to at the conference. We connected super well, and they had been on my radar every day since that conference. I finally got to start working for them in the beginning of July, and at first it was a bit confusing because of the software, but I ended up understanding the product more than any other ones. They had thought up a rotational cycle after just one day at the conference, so I knew this would be the start of a good friendship and opportunity for me.
So what did I learn? I'm currently still in the Sales rotation so let me speak on that. First, I got an entire sales manual written by one of the founders of Balloon, which seriously helped me out. Second, we had weekly sales/marketing meeting catchups where one of the founders would take me through the software as if I was the person he was selling to. Third, I got to hop on sales calls, and get a first-hand experience at answering questions, thinking on the spot, and listening to the customer. The Balloon experience was truly a 10/10. I love the company, the founders, and the service. The people were welcoming, I knew exactly what my tasks were and, the product made sense.
Thats all, thanks for reading. See you in my next blog, and feel free to ask me any questions you might have!