I recently finished my first internship of the summer with CSA360 under the guidance of Tony Unfried and Jalen Turpen. I thoroughly enjoyed my time working as a Sales and Marketing Intern.
I was blessed to see how a fractional CMO works in a small company, a role Allison Nordenbrock Brown filled wonderfully, while also seeing how sales coach Chris Evans, taught my sales advisor.
I jumped into the sales world, which led me to personal growth and priceless realizations. I experimented with and used CRM and prospecting tools like HubSpot and Apollo while also diving into the exponentially growing world of AI in business. Both Grant Roberts and I were lucky enough to take part in NCS4, a sports security conference in San Antonio where the nation’s leading sports security professionals congregated. As I learned, there is nothing more valuable in the sales world than hands-on training. I experienced this from our exhibit booth where we met with potential clients to talk about our software. I individually talked to clients as big as the Security Director for TD Garden and the Emergency Services Manager for the University of Michigan’s Football Stadium.
On a weekly basis, I executed outbound sales by referring to a sequence, a timeline of how many touchpoints I need to make with a qualified lead to receive a response back. This sequence included cold-emailing, cold-calling, leaving voicemails, and getting yourself acclimated to hearing the word, “No.” On the internal side of the company, I took up the marketing component of the internship by helping CSA360 post blogs, update HubSpot contacts, and run the company’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X accounts, all while transitioning through a rebrand.
From the lessons, life skills, and business experience that I gained from this internship, a major theme stood out to me. Coincidentally, I found a succinct way to describe this theme through a book which I have been reading on my own time (Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday). The simple theme that I have digested is to always stay a student. While on hiatus from the consistent student rhythm at Wabash College, I feel as if this valuable lesson will extend for summers to come and life beyond Wabash: Never stop putting yourself in situations to learn. I smile because this seemingly wise proverb reveals a simple truth: the more you learn, the more you realize how little you actually know.
