Paul Musielak '10 - This is my fourth week at Signature Graphics Inc. as an intern, and I figured it would be a good time to write a blog about my experiences thus far. I have already had a number of great learning experiences, and have even been involved much more in the selling process of fleet graphics than I expected to be.

As an intern, I was really only planning on making copies, answering phones, or filing paperwork, but it has been far from that! Two weeks ago, I was able to make a trip with my supervisor, Jeff Cunningham, to Cincinnati, OH to watch a salesman in the field at a few meetings. The salesman had several meetings with prospective clients, and I was able to see how an introductory sales meeting should occur. I have extensive knowledge in Microsoft Office products, and I was able to finally see how my countless hours on Word/EXCEL/PowerPoint could be used in the real business world, especially in the technique of persuasion. It was a very interesting process, and I never really understood how psychological selling is until now. There were lessons that I have learned about doing business with others that I never even considered being important.

Business relationships seem to be a very important topic at Signature and I have really come to the understanding about how crucial long term business loyalty can help any business succeed. I will be doing some role playing with my supervisor in which I “cold call” him (call a customer for the first time) and try to get an appointment. Then I will sit down in a simulated sales meeting in which I pitch our services for his business. Exercises like this, even though they are only with my well known supervisor, still get the blood flowing and are often very exciting. It will be an interesting couple of weeks coming up, especially with another sales trip that I am taking with him to Denver, Colorado. Here I will be sitting in on more sales meetings with him, and watch our selling process in action.

This has been a great experience for me, and I believe a lot of the lessons I am learning in dealing with sales can be used in any type of business. This internship has really helped shape what I am looking to do after graduation. I feel that sales, although a little risky when fresh out of college/new territory/and only a certain amount of sales training, could be a very successful approach to a career. A person looking to do something in the sales field, I feel, must be very entrepreneurial and self driven because of how you are never actually in the office and basically running on your own schedule. However, with its very intense coursework, I believe Wabash can definitely prepare one for career like this.