Well, what can I say? I graduated. It’s over. I did it.
I know most of you are saying, “Hey, any idiot could do that.”
“Well, it was tough for me. So back off!” (Billy Madison, anyone?)
There are three things that will be imprinted in my mind in relation to graduating from the greatest college out there (Indiana University – Go Hoosiers!) and starting my career. Surprisingly, it does not include walking across the stage and receiving my diploma.
- Taking my last college final (it took me 12 minutes) and the pure nirvana I felt subsequently
- The palate-pleasing beer and its name (Nefarious Nectar) I shared with my girlfriend right after that last college final
- Receiving a call from Sigstr‘s VP of Sales, Kevin Vanes, with an offer to join the Sigstr team as a Business Development Representative
I interviewed with over ten different companies and received four job offers. This being said not to stroke my ego or toot my own horn, but to point out the amount of opportunities I sorted through to find the perfect one. This was also pretty tough, as I was commuting back and forth to IU’s campus in Bloomington four times a week and working between ten and twenty hours on the weekend at St. Joseph’s Brewery. Adding job interviews into that schedule was difficult to manage. Note to self: breathe, it’s over.
I talked with Kevin for about ten minutes on the phone and promised him that I was ready to learn and ultimately come in and work my little hiney off. I consider myself to have a decent amount of Sales experience for my age after an internship with the Indiana Pacers (side note: a Sigstr customer with some cool email signatures) and a few other “Sales” jobs throughout college. However, at the time, if you asked me to define marketing, buyer personas, or lead nurturing in an intelligent manner, it would result in a prompt answer of “uhhhhh”.
My job title is “Sales” or a “Business Development Representative” depending on who you ask, but really I like to look at it as a hybrid between Sales and Marketing. Drew Kelley (that tall guy pictured above) introduced me to Sigstr, and likes to define us as “smarketers”. See what we did there? My goal everyday is to help Marketers drive brand consistency and unlock an unused Marketing channel through cool email signatures.
Today marks my one-month anniversary here at Sigstr. During that time, I’ve gone through a crash course on Marketing, Sales, tech, how to iron a shirt, and everything else in between to prepare myself and close the knowledge gap. Google searches included (but were not limited to):
- “What is demand generation?”
- “100 Marketing terms that every Marketer should know”
- “What do cool email signatures look like?”
- “How to be an adult”
Everyday, I learn something new. Everyday is an opportunity to gain knowledge and get better at my craft.
Sigstr is a team of about twenty of the most hard-working, fun to be around, tech savvy, individuals that I have the opportunity to go shoulder to shoulder with (literally…we’re touching shoulders and need more office space…and its coming). Sigstr is a growing force to be reckoned with – which you can read more about in last week’s press release. Every army needs a general, and I can’t say enough good things about our leader. Dan Hanrahan, Sigstr CEO and Founder, has taught us all to work hard and celebrate our achievements (you can read more about that here).
We’re a scrappy group, helping marketers craft cool email signatures and open up a new digital Marketing channel. When you think about an email signature, you may question how something so simple can have a huge impact on a brand. That’s fair…I get it. But if you think about the average amount of emails one employee sends annually (10,000…yes 10,000), you can start to see the opportunity it presents as a new channel for your digital marketing toolbox.
With that, I’ll finish this post the same way I started it…with a quote. “If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.”
Be hungry, be humble, and make everyday count.
