Making Some Good Connections

My last weeks have been full of different possibilities to make some good and especially valuable connections in different terms. As mentioned previously I am trying to get connected in all different ways on and off campus and the last weeks have been full of chances to do so.

The Professional Sales Club had its first meeting and its first field trip, and the on-campus career fair took place – two great ways to make valuable connections. The Sales Program at UWRF is very new and so is the Professional Sales Club that just started in its second semester at UWRF if I am right. The fact that the club is brand new does not make the experience any worse – it is quite the opposite: We are meeting to talk about the future development of the club, places we would like to visit, things we would like to do and so on. It gives everyone the chance to get involved in the further development of the club and this makes it so much more fun. The members and the cooperating professor try their best to make it a valuable, professional and overall good experience.

The first field trip of the club brought us to the Mid-States Trade Show in Minneapolis. We were kindly invited by a local business owner who invited the whole club to have a look around on the fair that is usually closed for the public. He talked about his own experiences in business as a salesperson and introduced us to a lot of his direct/indirect competitors and friends. The fair consisted of many local, national, and international well-known businesses that use this platform to get connected, talk business and compare offers and so on. Our host showed us around and connected us to a lot of business owners. Everyone was super open-minded and glad to meet us even though there was no direct benefit for them. We talked a lot about sales and marketing and everyone tried to give us his best tips for a future career in sales. For me it felt like the American average business person is way more open-minded than European business people. Everyone was super happy to show us around and tell us about his or her story. It felt like the benefit for students was priceless as those stories were based on real life.

I really like the American way of seeing and making business and its work hard, play hard approach. The stories we listened to were highly motivating and inspiring. After listening to all these successful business people, you really feel like you can make it if you work hard enough. It is a good feeling!

Another chance to make some valuable connections and gain some further experiences in approaching businesses was the on-campus career fair. Again, a high amount of well-known businesses from around town or even somewhere else in the state or country came to present their business such as FedEx, comcast, Coca-Cola and others. They came to make connections to students that are looking for a summer-job or internship. To be honest: I never make it to events like this in Germany because of reasons I don’t even know and so I really wanted to make sure that I at least see the career fair in River Falls once. It was cool! Many nice talks, a lot of friendly and interested faces and overall a good chance to gain some further knowledge and experience of how to handle business contacts.

Unfortunately, I wasn´t able to take pictures at the Mid-States Trade Show and so I will just upload some nice pictures of Hudson in wintertime.

To be continued!