Sam Reel ’18 PoliticalBank – Throughout my internship with Politicalbank, I have learned a lot of valuable experience working with a start-up that can be translated to many different job fields.  Start-ups require a lot of work in all aspects of business; therefore, I was able to get experience in fields such as sales, marketing, data compilation/analysis, and sitting in on meetings with executives of the company.  All of these different projects I worked on allowed me to add many great skills/job experiences to my resume.

At the beginning of the summer, I was tasked with a massive data compilation and analysis project about past elections.  I had to compile many of the winners from past elections and analyze the demographics of the political sphere in the country.  Once I was completed with the analysis, I had to write many different installments of a data report that focused on many different demographics.  For example, the different installments would be about gender, party, office type, and many other things.  When looking for internships for the summer of 2017, I was looking for an internship where I could polish my data analytic skills that I have learned throughout my schooling so far.  This project fulfilled that want.

I was then able to get a taste of sales and marketing on two different levels.  I approached the sales on the individual candidate level and the organization level.  Before I would begin cold-calling and contacting different groups, I went through sales training with the sales department within the company.  This was another added benefit that I was able to receive during this internship.  I had never had any formal sales training before this summer, but now it can be an important talking point in future interviews when looking for a job.  Once I completed the sales training, I was able to begin cold-calling and contacting candidates that would be running for office in 2017.  It was very good experience on how to remain conversational when making a sales call.  When calling the individual, I would either be trying to get them to claim a profile on the website or buy products from the campaign store.  This was good experience also because I had to change the sales pitch depending on what I was selling.  When trying to form partnerships with advocacy groups/political organizations, I had to change the sales pitch again.  I wasn’t necessarily selling anything for monetary value, but I had to sell the company as a whole and remain conversational.  Having this sales and marketing side of the internship will be very beneficial to my future career.

Overall, I learned a lot about the ins and outs of running a business, which is extremely beneficial no matter the field you are in.  I am extremely grateful to the Lilly Endowment to make this internship possible.