Weekly Rundown: Week 4

During the last week I worked for 17 hours, which brought my grand total to 61 hours completed. After this week, I should be over halfway to completing the internship. This week, I got a lot done, but didn't complete the objectives I set for myself. I did however, have the opportunity to do some things I hadn't planned for.

As I said in last week's rundown, last Friday was supposed to be the deadline to receive the program artwork. However, because more pressing issues came up, the deadline was delayed. I did however, make headway towards completion. I was able to account for about 50-75% of the missing artwork last week. And as of right now I am missing artwork from only 10 companies.

In a exciting event, one of the publications I was working on is now completed. The 2011-2012 Pocket Schedule is now completely formatted and is going off the be printed. Even though I was not as heavily involved in this project as I am in others, its still exciting to see a major project get completed.

I did receive a couple of new responsibilities last week. My bosses wanted to go ahead and make sure that they were on track to fulfill all of the contractual obligations they had to their corporate partners. So they instructed me to go through "The Book" of all their contracts and make sure we had the necessary assets (artwork, weblinks, dasher boards etc) to fulfill our responsibilities. I went through the book and made lists of what we needed and distributed them to the proper salesperson.

Last week, I got my first inside look at the Crown Coliseum, the home arena of the Fayetteville FireAntz. I was able to see the locker rooms, and all of the "underbelly" of the building. It was neat to see how much goes on that fans and spectators will never see. I wasn't aware that the building would have a full time staff like it did.

Also, while I was in the coliseum, I saw how the video board was operated. I learned how to operate the video matrix, and how to make ad's that are in the proper format for the operating system of the video board. I will now begin making videos, and ad's that can be played during games. It will be cool to see my work displayed in front of thousands.

My goals for this week are to get as many hours as possible, and to get the rest of the artwork in. Also I would like to get a few pieces of work done for the video board. I can possibly get to make a few sales calls today, and that is exciting to me.

An Interview with Dean Russell

Hey everyone check out this video Interview I did with Assistant GM Dean Russell. Hear how he got involved in the trade, and what he does on a daily basis!

Weekly Rundown: Week 3

This week I spent a lot of time in the office. I worked 17 hours last week, bringing my grand total to 44 hours completed. I was able to get accomplish most of what I wanted to do, while also doing some spontaneous activities.

My main priority last week was to get all of the program artwork in, and to put them all on a flash drive, so that all of the artwork can be stored in a central location. To be honest, at the beginning of the week I was pretty far behind on getting this done. So the first thing I did on Monday afternoon was to make a list of all the artwork I still needed, and I distributed the list to all sales people. The reason I did this was so that they could contact their clients and remind them to send in their artwork.

Also, while updating my spreadsheet to reflect new artwork submissions, I realized I had made a couple of errors that I needed to fix. First, I hadn't collected all of last years artwork that we were reusing. In order to fix this, I had to contact the man who produced last years program, and get him to email me what I was missing. He promptly emailed me the files and I was caught up on that end. Secondly, when I sent out the list of what I was missing, I had omitted a few clients, so I had to go around and tell all the salespeople the accounts that were not listed. Fixing these two problems helped me learn how to communicate well, and more specifically, how to communicate to others when you are trying to correct an error.

On Tuesday I ran in to some something that I had avoided up until this point; I had to do some busy work. The FireAntz have a promotion called "Chuck-a-Puck". At every game, fans can buy a foam puck for a dollar, and during intermission, have a chance to throw it in to the bed of a truck. Unfortunately, every off season the pucks have to be renumbered. This means that each puck gets a sticker put on it and they are numbered sequentially. This year, the task of renumbering the puck fell to me, so I had to spend a few hours numbering puck after puck. It was unavoidable, and honestly it wasn't that bad. Sooner or later, I will end up having to renumber a lot more pucks.

Also a there were a couple of afternoons that I got to accompany salespeople on stop ins. Meaning I got to go see real sports marketers preform. You will remember that I had the opportunity to do this last week as well. This week, showed me another facet of selling, and that is following up with your customers. Account executive Erika Taylor had just taken over the count of a local business. To make sure she and the client were on the same page, she stopped by to introduce herself, and ensure the client that their contract was going to be fulfilled. This was a great example of how to maintain your relationship with clients.

I really only have one objective, and that is to completely finish gathering all the artwork that is not yet in. Friday is the deadline to have this submitted, so I will be working my hardest to have it done by then.

Weekly Rundown: Week 2

After taking off Monday because of Labor Day, I put in a lot of work in the office this week. I came in every day except for Monday, and worked a total of 14.5 hours, bringing me to a grand total of 27 hours completed for the internship.

This week I was able to complete most of the goals I had established for myself. I updated the spreadsheet the advertising artwork we had on file, and even though I have compiled most of the artwork, there is still quite a few advertisers that I do not have artwork from. Considering the fact that the deadline to get the program finished is fast approaching, I really need to make sure that I let everyone in the office know which ad's I am waiting on, so they can communicate that to their clients.

For the most part, my experience gained from this internship consisted mostly of producing the program, and reviewing advertising/corporate sponsorship contracts. This week however I received some first had experience in corporate sales. My first "sales assignment" was to call a potential sponsor who had been difficult to get in contact with. It was my first time calling someone with the intent of selling them something. Even though I was told he wasn't interested, it was still a valuable experience, and better yet, my biggest experience would come on Friday.

Because this is the tenth season of FireAntz hockey in Fayetteville, the front office decided to make a special offer to potential corporate sponsors. This deal, named "The Fire & Ice Package" includes 4 tickets to 14 different games, an eighth page ad in the annual publication, and a chance to win naming rights to the Crown Collesium for the hockey season, all for $990. Obviously the front office is making a big push, and wants to sell as many of these packages as possible. On Friday of this past week, I was given the opportunity to shadow Account Executive Erika Taylor as she made stop-ins at various Fayetteville merchants. This was the first time I had done something like this, and I learned a ton from Erika. We went to around five different businesses, and the varied in types of visits. Some were expecting us, some had some familiarity with the FireAntz, and some were simply cold calls. Seeing how Erika Taylor interacted with the potential partners showed me how important it is to be personable in sales.

Overall this week was very beneficial to my experience. I was able to achieve my goals set for myself from last week, as well as fulfill the expectation the FireAntz staff had for me and my internship. During this next week, I want to get all the advertisement artwork in and have them on file, and also hopefully get another chance to shadow a member of the FireAntz team as they go on sales calls. Also keep a look out for the next post, I've been brainstorming ideas for intermission contests and I'm going to post some of the ideas. Also I'm in the process of writing the first installment of my Evolution of a Program series.

As always, thanks again to all the member of the FireAntz organization for this great opportunity, and I plan on continuing to work hard, and prove myself.

First Week Recap!



FireAntz Office

 I really hit the ground running with this internship. During this past week I worked 12.5 hours, and made some progress on my major projects. Last Monday was my first day in the office, and before I really got started on my main tasks, I wanted to get a firm a grasp on what exactly I would be doing over the course of the internship. To make sure that we were on the same page, Assistant GM Dean Russell gave me the following objectives:

a.       Organize and lay out the 2011-2012 FireAntz annual publication.

b.      Work with the promotion director on corporate visits and ancillary sales.

c.       Work on actual game script with the director of game day operations.

d.      Work with ticketing director on learning the ticket master system, and using said system for printing and distributing season and group tickets.

e.       Work with game day operations to run the video board and to provide content to be run on the video board.

I was extremely happy with the objectives that Mr. Russell had set for me. In my opinion he was setting me up to gain experience in every department of the organization. I believe that after this experience, I will have a more defined idea of what I want to do after I graduate.

Ever since my first meeting both Mr. MacNaught and Mr. Russell made it clear that the focal point of my internship would be the annual publication. So not surprisingly, the first thing I did was get the ball rolling with the program. The first step in what will be a long process of putting the publication together, was to create a mock-up of the program. By that I mean we used blank white sheets of paper to replicate the size of the new program and mapped out where advertisements, players bio, etc, were going to go. Doing this allowed my supervisors to make sure that sponsorship contracts were fulfilled correctly.

It took me a couple days to finish putting the mock-up together. Once it was completed I was given three more peripheral tasks. One was to create a spreadsheet that listed all the companies that had purchased advertising space. The spreadsheet was used to make sure we had received all the artwork of all the companies. Also I had to research new and returning players and write short bio's about them for the program.

My goals for the next week are too have all of the new and existing artwork on file. Mr. Russell made it clear to me that he wanted all corporate artwork (from both new and existing partners) in one central location. I have gotten a start at compiling all of the files, and by the end of the week I should be done. Also I hope to get a head start on compiling sounds that I would like to play during games.

Overall it has been a great first week, and I cannot wait until I see me work come to fruition.

Expectations for A New Opportunity

Having started my internship with the Fayetteville Fire Antz this past Monday (8/29) I am a little late to the game with this post. I have already put in some hours and gotten a good start on my project (I will go more in depth on that in future posts!), but I still have great expectations for this internship. I will be working under both GM Kevin MacNaught and Assistant GM Dean Russel. During my first meeting with them they explained that my major project during this internship will be refashioning the game day programs that are distributed to the fans. They explained where they felt there were deficiencies (i.e player bios, overall formatting, etc.) and said that they wanted me to help improve those specific areas. Also both Mr. MacNaught and Mr. Russel emphasized that a Fire Antz game should never have a dull moment, and that they want me to help ensure that there never is one. This means that I will be allowed to utilize my creativity and also that I will be given the freedom to offer suggestions to the people who actually make decisions. Based on my meetings with my bosses and the amount of work I have done so far, I expect that this internship will be demanding, yet rewarding. I have been given the opportunity to both sit back and learn the ropes of an industry that interests me, yet at the same time I have been allowed to physically be involved in the process and "get my hands dirty" so to speak.

I am very appreciative of the opportunity that the Fayetteville Fire Antz have given me, and would like to thank both Mr. MacNaught and Mr. Russel personally for awarding me this internship. I am looking forward to having a great semester!