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Last day!

Today, we wrapped up our work experience program by meeting with Mr. Smith again to go over our findings. We met him at Carolina Cafe at 9:30 and presented him with our project results over the past couple of days. We showed him our i️information and explained to him the patterns and what surprised us about the data we collected. Mr Smith said that the i️nformation we collected would be very helpful for him going forward as well! After presenting him with our i️nformation, he explained to us how in recent years there is a notable increase in athletes coming out of North Carolina, something that was also very apparent in our data. This was very interesting to hear about as it’s something that i️ didn’t know about before. Also, we did another question and answer process which was very helpful in learning more about the sports agency process. I learned that being a sports agent is a lot more than just the money, and so much of it comes from the relationships you make with people. Mr. Smith was very helpful in answering Jonathan and Is questions about sports in general and also more about sports agents and what jobs they actually do. He stated the pros and cons of his job and stated that he liked his job 80 percent of the time, but there are cons just like there are cons of everything. The particular cons of this job come from people who fall apart while becoming a professional athlete. Altogether, i️t was a really good experience and i️m glad we had the opportunity to meet with him!

This is a picture of something that is stated on Vanguards website

Day 7!

Today was a day to work on the project that Mr. Smith assigned us yesterday. This project included two different parts, both of which to get us thinking more along the lines of sports management. We had time to work on this project alone, so Jonathan and I split up the work and then got started. The first step of what Mr. Smith assigned us to do had to do with general questions about the role of a sports agent. He asked us to pretend we were an athlete that was getting signed out of high school and to determine the factors and questions we would have for an agency through this process. This exercise gave us the opportunity to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes to gain more knowledge for the actual work that a sports agent does. It was interesting to do research about different sports agencies and read some of the main factors of why certain ones are more liked than others. This comes down to a lot of factors, some being truthfulness and honesty. The second part of the project had to do with athletes from North Carolina in the past multiple drafts for baseball, basketball, and football. We made a spreadsheet that consisted of the players from the first couple of rounds of these drafts and found their salary after 4 years and what amount of this salary would go to the agent. Mr. Smith told us that this information would be very useful to him and that it is something that he has always wanted to collect. We are very excited to meet with him again tomorrow and tell him about our findings!

Some of the information we found regarding the athletes from North Carolina!

Day 6

Today, Jonathan and I️ moved onto our third and final site. We met with Mr. Smith of Vanguard sports agency this morning around 9 am. Vanguard sports agency is a growing agency that represents players from basketball, football, and baseball. They handle their financial and legal deals of being a professional athlete. After this quick description, he explained to us about how to sports world is actually quite a complicated business and explained some stories of his experience. He also told us that he never knew what would happen to him on a day to day basis because everything was always changing, as things would in the sports world. Vanguard was created 4 years ago and had now grown to 3 different sports. He told us about his job, as well as his career that led to what he does now. He explained to us about the marketing side of being a sports agent, and how media deals with the players are extremely important for any sports agency. After a long and descriptive question and answer process, Mr. Smith gave us a project, something that would get our heads thinking about sports management as a whole. This is what Jonatan and I worked on the rest of the day today and will be working on tomorrow, leading to another meeting with Mr. Smith on Thursday. I️ will explain this “project” or “exercise” in tomorrow’s blog post since that is when we will primarily get i️t done. It was a fun day!

Since we didn’t go to an actual office today, this is a photo of Vanguards website.

Day 5 at USA baseball!

Today was such a cool day. Jonathan and I made our way to the USA baseball offices around 9:30. This is different than the USA baseball complex, but they are currently working on moving the offices to be at the complex. We then met Brittany, who is the marketing assistant director for USA baseball. Brittany primarily works with the host family program that USA baseball offers, a program where a family has the chance to host a rising baseball star from all over the world for a week. She showed us around the office, showing us famous trophies from over the years and introducing us to people in the office such as the CEO and finance director and i️nterns who are spending there summer working for USA baseball. Brittany then explained to us her background, how she was actually an intern that turned into the job that she has today. Brittany gave us many tasks throughout the day. Our first task was to make folders that would be given out to the national women’s team, as they have their identification process this coming weekend. This i️ncluded papers where players filled out their names, travel forms, medical forms and sorted and copied all of these into 50 folders. We then stuck labels onto all of these as well. After this, we were given a box of lanyards and had to label them with the names of the host family. This program happens very soon so most of what was going on in the office had to do with this. After this, we put together another folder filled with information that needed to go to the host family. This i️ncluded the schedule for the time and other general guidelines that the host family had to know. As we were working, i️t was very i️ntersting to hear the conversations that we’re going on in the office. There were conversations from the basketball game last night to how to best edit a picture for a pamphlet given out at a game. This was really cool to hear and I’m glad we were able to spend the day here.

Day 4! Last day at Entigral!

Today was Jonathan and I’s last day at the company Entigral. Throughout our time here, we have done a lot of the same but it was very accomplishing to finally finish what we have worked so hard on. We successfully found the information for 4000 car dealerships all throughout North Carolina. If you ever need a car, used or new, Mercedes or Honda, I’m sure one of these can find you the perfect car! After hours and hours of work, we completed the 3 tasks that Mr. Self had asked us to complete. We made a starter powerpoint for Mr. Self to use to sell the product, we completed a list of the 50 state car dealership associations across the country and found information for all the car dealerships in North Carolina. Even though all of this work was very time consuming, I learned a lot about what Marketing is really about and Mr. Self assured us that all of this information would be very crucial for other steps of this company. Mr. Self then ended our time together with some advice about our future and we said our goodbyes.

Day 3!

Day 3 was a lot like the other days, research and more research. We arrived back at the office around 9:30 this morning and began completing more research about car dealerships! I now know more about car dealerships than I ever have before! While completing all this research I learned that much of the work that is done in the marketing world is about research and finding the data to enhance the product to make it sell better. We were talked through how this data that we are collecting now is going to later help sell the product, CarTrax. By collecting data about all the car dealerships in North Carolina, they can then break it down to determine the best and easiest way to go about selling the product to all the different car dealerships in Raleigh and in North Carolina. We are just completing one step to the equation in the larger scale of marketing in a whole. Tomorrow is our last day at the Entigral office and we will be breaking down our week here with Mr Self.

Day 2

Today, Jonathon and I arrived back at the entigral office around 9:30 this morning. We right away began by completing more research, as Mr. Self asked us to go further into our research that we completed yesterday. Much of what is done in this office is research that can later be used to sell the product, very different then what I was expecting. We also created a proposal powerpoint that Mr. Self can use for introducing the product to any other car dealership. While Jonathon took over the task of collecting data from the car dealerships all over North Carolina (there’s a lot), I worked on completing a spreadsheet that included all the car dealership associations in the 50 states. It turned out to be very difficult to find the president, phone number, and the number of dealerships represented by the dealerships of these associations. We also grabbed some food at a nice food truck across the street. It was a very full day! This is a picture of one of the data sheets that we have been collecting both days.

Day 2!

Today, Jonathon and I arrived back at the Entigral office around 9:30 this morning. We right away began by completing more research, as Mr. Self asked us to go further into our research that we completed yesterday. Much of what is done in this office is research that can later be used to sell the product, very different then what I was expecting. We also created a proposal powerpoint that Mr. Self can use for introducing the product to any other car dealership. While Jonathon took over the task of collecting data from the car dealerships all over North Carolina (there’s a lot), I worked on completing a spreadsheet that included all the car dealership associations in the 50 states. It turned out to be very difficult to find the president, phone number, and the number of dealerships represented by the dealerships of these associations. We also grabbed some food at a nice food truck across the street. It was a very full day! This picture is a spreadsheet of some of the state car dealership associations that we found while collecting the data.

Day 1- Introduction and Information!

Today was quite the research-heavy day. This week we are at the Entigral office, a software company. The company created a software called Cartrax that puts a tag on vehicles to allow a more swift process when buying a car. This software is then used to collect data. They sell this software to car dealerships. Jonathon and I arrived at the office about 9:30 and met with Mr. Self. We began the day with a brief meeting regarding the logistics of the company. The company created a software product that has the ability to tag things and track them. This week specifically we will be working with Cartrax. As you can see in one of the pictures, we were told about the majority of the products that the company has been successful with. After this, we were tasked to create a spreadsheet of all the car dealerships in the area and where to reach them, as you can see in the other photo. We created this spreadsheet to aid us in our phone calls to the actual car dealership tomorrow to try and sell the product.