Job Description (Final)

                                                                            Shipping Supplies Sales Intern

 

Boxes, tape, toilet paper, stretch wrap, and gloves. These items don’t typically fill the trunk of a teenager, but they filled mine when I worked as a Sales Intern for a shipping supplies company. I spent every Monday in the office calling customers to set up meetings for the next week. Then on Tuesday through Friday, I was out in the field driving to see ten customers per day. Five of those customers had confirmed meetings, four of them were “drop-ins” (current customers without confirmed meetings), and one was a cold call (a company buying nothing from us). My responsibilities were to meet with decision-makers and get warehouse tours to uncover new opportunities, drive revenue growth, and provide value to the customers. 

 

Three descriptions summarize the duties of a Shipping Supplies Sales Intern:

 

·      Detective

 

·      Talk Show Host

 

·      CEO

 

Now I’ll explain how each of these applies to my internship.

 

Detective

 

I was a detective in three main ways:

 

·      Investigate warehouses for new opportunities

 

·      Seek out and speak with decision-makers

 

·      Find and pursue leads

 

Examples of my detective work happened every day. When I would walk into a business for a meeting, I always asked to have the meetings while walking through the warehouse to get a better understanding of how they used our products. In their warehouses, I was investigating every product I saw. If they already bought the product from us, I made sure they were buying the right one for their needs. For example, some customers were buying our heaviest-duty tape, but they only needed our standard tape. I would then point this out to the customer and give them a demo of our standard tape so they could switch and save. 

 

If I found any products from competitors, I would ask and take measurements to determine who they were buying from and exactly what kind of product it was. For example, stretch wrap comes in a variety of thicknesses impossible to measure without a specific tool (that I had). Although two stretch wraps might feel the same to the touch, one might be twice as thick after taking measurements. This is essential so that any price comparisons and product recommendations will be fair and accurate. Customers often thought we charged much more for something like stretch wrap compared to competitors. But the actual reason was that they were comparing our highest quality stretch wrap to a competitor’s standard option. Being a detective allowed me to find all of these opportunities while in customers’ warehouses.

 

Talk Show Host

 

I was a talk show host in two main ways:

 

·      I was constantly running conversations and bringing the questions to the meetings

 

·      Gave away free gifts

 

I had to bring the same spunk and energy that talk show hosts have to bring to their shows when I walked into a business. I had to come in with an agenda and specific talking points, just like hosts have their questions prepared so they can direct the conversation. Finally, I had presents. In my handy bag, I found ways to stuff in toilet paper, tape, and other supplies to give to customers so they could see our product quality firsthand. It’s an interesting feeling going to a world-class university like USC and giving out toilet paper for a living. 

 

At the end of their shows, hosts usually unveil some amazing gifts or donations for their guests. My farewell gift to customers was very simple, but it produced huge smiles. It was a branded pad of sticky notes on a mini shipping container. Maybe people just love free things, or maybe sticky notes are just extremely useful, but I ended every meeting with the sticky note gift and this always brought happiness to all involved.

 

CEO

 

I was a CEO in a few ways:

 

·      I dictated my own schedules every day

·      Had no direct oversight for 80% of my weeks

 

CEOs typically have certain goals to hit, but how they achieve those goals is almost entirely up to them. Nobody is managing them and making sure they don’t show up late in the morning. In much the same way, my job was to have ten customer meetings per day, but how I achieved that goal was entirely up to me. For example, I found that people were most willing to meet in the mornings, so I stacked most meetings before lunch. This helped me get in my ten meetings and then have time after lunch to submit all customer notes and administrative tasks. If I was unable to hit the ten-meeting goal, there was no manager getting onto me. Instead, this would just reflect poorly in my statistics and would eventually lead to negative assessments, just like when a CEO fails to meet their goals.

 

Statistics:

Flesch Reading Ease: 62.2

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 9.4

Passive Sentences: 0%