Author: kevinc686

So today was the last day of marketing. Isaac and I learned how to use Canva which is a template design for marketing. Surprisingly, they are very strict with moving the template, deleting parts of it, or what images you use because of legal things. My ideas were generic buzzwords such as “Data management for the future” or “Analytics for the future”. After Canva, we went to essentially what happens when people contact the generic SAS helpline or visit the SAS website. The building is actually located off of cary parkway and not actually on the campus. I learned that the operators have a scary amount of information on you when you go on the website. Then we went back and had a pizza party wrap up session. We had a career panel that gave us advice on workplace stuff, college, etc. Pretty good wrap up day.

So this week I am doing marketing at SAS. I have the pleasure of getting the marketing experience with our very own Isaac Fan. A summary of today is that I need to get Linkedin so I can network and get connections. I started off the morning with Liz Hammer who works with US marketing. Then we met Scott Batchelor who talked to us about the customer journey and how marketing works and all the different facets of it. Mr. Batchelor told me warriors in 4 by the way. It was fun talking to him. After, we went back with Liz and listened in on a conference call about certain partnership logistics. Not the most interesting thing to do, but it does give a picture to the day to day work of someone in marketing. One thing I did learn is that marketing is a broad category with employees spanning in different specialties all working together. After the conference call I met with two interns, Jack and Kate who talked to us: about SAS, life, college, etc. They were pretty much life advice givers. After we met with Courtney Vigil while she gave us a run down on what social selling is. Just another slice of what is the pie of marketing. Courtney essentially teaches people how to use Linkedin and sells products through Linkedin. The last stop of the day was meeting with Beth Bullard who works in digital marketing. I got to find out how much money it costs to put ads on stuff. Really riveting stuff. Also I learned that some deals for advertisement, if you click on the ad the company will pay like 15 cents to the website for an ad click which is cool if u want to waste other companies’ money.

SAS marketing… gave us free notebooks. So now you guys see it and we can further put out the SAS brand.

Today I met with the rest of the CA people in building Q to start off the day. We then entered into a introductory course of SAS programming. Really riveting stuff. Essentially we just programmed stuff and it spit out graphs and other visual aids. Then we went off the lunch and ate the best SAS dining had to offer. During the end of lunch we met with a sub group of just young people. I think it was called young people in the work force. Its just a group of younger people in a diverse work force. After lunch we messed around with SAS visual analytics and made different graphs with reports. Pretty eventful day, but not a lot of verbalize.

Sadly, yesterday marked the end of my time at the sales department at SAS. Good thing I got to see everyone else from CA today at SAS. Everyone gathered around at building R which is one of the R and D buildings at SAS. We started off the day with a presentation on the app GatherIQ. Honestly, it wasn’t that interesting. The run down is it uses SAS visual analytics to create pretty graphs on pressing issues such as migrants, environment, and water issues. When then went down to test the app because we are unbiased opinions. I teamed up with Isaac as we tested the application. So I have some problems with the app. First they want this product to be for anyone to pick up and use, especially younger people. The problem with that is just people don’t care. I am an environmentalist and sure I would look at some of the stuff they have in my free time maybe. However, I wouldn’t be on there looking at everything they have all the time. I feel like the general populace just doesn’t care enough for this type of app. So this also brings in marketing. SAS isn’t really marketing GatherIQ at all and on top of that the majority of people aren’t interested it makes for an unsuccessful app. After testing it I had lunch with the CA kids. Then we went back and the people behind GatherIQ had a challenge for us. So we had two teams. One was Matthew S, Matthew C, Will P, and Jessica J. The other team was Isaac, Nancy (a girl joining us for the activity) and I. My group’s task was to see if this could be viable in terms of other people sharing it on social media. Then creating a webpage or model for a potential GatherIQ revamp. Then create a way to include games in the app. Overall, had a blast hanging out with my friends and meeting new people. look at the gather IQ webpage

Today I started the morning meeting with Gary Smith. I don’t really remember all the technical position names everyone has but I understand what everyone does generally. So Mr. Smith works in post sales so after a sales is nearing completion he is the person who builds a plan. So on much money it costs to send a crew in and install the software or other service costs. Mr. Smith needs to know almost every software SAS sells just because the sales people will come to him and ask him if the sale can get done. The job is a lot of hard work and I think I would prefer to just selling things. Then I had a meeting with JoAnne Grafinger who kind of manages the sales people using a software called Orion. I also figured out that she lives right down the street from me which was crazy. After that I went to lunch with Kristen Somers and her team. They work in more of a pre-sales support role at SAS. So. the team asked more questions about my aspirations during lunch and just filled me in about what they do and the perks of the job. Later, I had a meeting with Robert Latham who also works in pre sales. Pre Sales tends to support sales and if I learned one thing today, it is that there needs to be teamwork in sales. You need pre-sales, sales, and service all working together to close a deal. I met a young guy 3-4 years out of college named Bryan who works under Mr. Latham. He is a sales engineer/ Systems Architect which is code name for making pretty graphs using SAS software. Honestly he has a pretty cool job. These graphs are then used by the AE or accounting executive to use. I got to see some SAS software in the works and some projects they are working on. These projects actually are helping the government save lives which is amazing. So today I learned that sales is about teamwork and that everyone has to work together to succeed. I love it because I love working with people and having social interactions. I still would prefer just the sales role because while pre-sales and services seem cool, it doesn’t compare to the actual sales people.

How SAS “sells” software in a nutshell.

So today I learned how to actually sell something. In the morning I attended the Sales Academy final presentation. Sales Academy participants made presentations for their graduation. These presentations were all real sales pitches they could be giving in the future. These pitches were for insurers, banks, etc. This was probably my highlight today because I got to see how pitching products actually works. Mrs. Cosby and other senior managers pretended to be risk officers of respective companies and asked hard questions for the presenters. I feel like sales is a lot like debate. I research a topic for months then present or argue another team just like the sales person will research the topic they are selling, the company they are selling to, etc. Then it is about presentation, speaking, and projection. Also the risk management officers will ask hard questions that the sales person might not know to answer to. So it’s important to know how to dodge questions, partially answer, and also have big topic knowledge. So, there are a lot of parallels to debate. This was the first time I had seen what “sales” is really about. I got to meet the sales academy people which is a really selective program. There are 28 students and only 7 of them are from the U.S. They also get paid while in the academy which is really cool. The rest of the day was lunch meetings and Webx meetings and then more meetings. I got to listen in on a bunch of interesting things such as Project Mercury. I don’t know if I am allowed to talk about it but it is pretty interesting. However, the best part of the day was definitely the sales presentation. Overall, today gave me a great realistic view of what it is like to work in sales.

 This is the cafeteria in C building

Here is a cool Pi sculpture on campus.

So SAS is literally one of the best places to work ever. I remember reading a article when I was little and SAS was listed as one of the best places to work. The article listed the great benefits that SAS had to offer. Now taking a tour of some of the buildings and talking to employees I realized just how great the benefits are. Employees have free use of recreational facilities, almost free healthcare, free day care, etc. I have learned that SAS heavily emphasizes culture. Dr. Goodnight wants to make sure everyone is a part of the family whether you are from grounds keeping crew to a senior manger at sales. The benefits apply of all workers and the culture seems to be more of a family. The campus is enormous and much larger than I realized. Since I am new I had to GPS around the campus going from building to building. Fun fact, there are five different cafeterias on campus. Sadly, sage dining cannot rival the amount of diversity and high quality food that SAS offers. The first day we had a presentation on what SAS does and SAS culture for around two hours. We then transitioned to building C that offers that largest cafeteria and had lunch. I wanted to branch out because the cafeteria offered so many different options, but at the same time I couldn’t go wrong with pizza. So for lunch I had pizza and this special rice and vegetable soup they offered. Overall dining experience on the first day was A+, another part of adding to the SAS culture. After lunch I met with Beth Cosby who is a senior manager in the sales department and she gave me a tour of building C and some of the things she does. The tour was really awesome because the technology in the building is state of the art and parts of Iron Man 3 were shot in the building. Building C also houses most of the executive offices on the 6th floor. The 6th floor houses Dr. Goodnight’s rock collection which were all stunning and worth oh so very much money. Then Mrs. Cosby talked about the sales academy which is the academy that employees go through to become part of the sales team. The sales side of the business is split into different sectors. The part that Mrs. Cosby is in is sales relating to the government in terms of local, state, and federal government. Mrs. Cosby showed me some graphs and figures/things she would have a meeting with her boss with later. I learned about pipelines which blew my mind. Essentially what SAS does is create pipelines and those are projected combined earnings throughout the year. So for every goal they have the pipe line is usually 4 times as big as the goal. The rationale behind it is that deals won’t always go through and if the pipeline is 4 times as big you have a high chance of still hitting your target even if some deals fall through. I learned a lot about different things SAS does with pipelines and how you can take data from it. After all SAS is an analytical software company. Overall, first day at SAS was amazing. I could definitely see myself working in the future. Tomorrow students at the sales academy are giving their final presentations and I will be watching some of them so I am excited to see what it is like at the sales academy. 10/10 first day.

Me with Dr. Goodnight’s very expensive rock collection

Building C, site of a scene in Iron Man 3.