On the first day I was very nervous and then quickly felt a little calm with the welcoming environment I found at Lava Protocols office. I didn't have much to do on the first day apart from getting an introduction on Lava and a briefing on what the products and services are all about. On the second day it was one of Lava's Employee's birthday and so we all went out for lunch together which was fun as I got to know my colleagues a little better. Later on that week it was one of our bosses' birthday and we went for lunch as well which was rather refreshing getting to have conversations with our bosses. Week 1 did not have alot of work for me due to not having alot to do in the Renewals and success department which means my assistance was not needed, but I did get a few tasks like ; document/contract proof reading, converting documents into different formats, assisting in extracting files for clients from their documents in net suite and work with another intern who's also from Taylor's to conduct a search online to find companies that would need our products/services and develop leads database on Microsoft excel.
On the first day of the 2nd week we had the Lava Protocols Business lunch and Re-branding session where we listened to our colleagues make their presentations which was similar to having a workshop and also played some educational games. During this week I was assigned to the inside sales team where I continued searching for leads and their contacts as well as approaching these leads through email and phone calls. We are meant to book meetings with these potential clients, unfortunately for me the first week was not so productive. Our supervisor, Mr. Kharbilan gave us some tips and we also talked to the field sales team who also gave us an insight as they also started off as inside sales before moving to field sales. It was helpful and gave me hope for a more productive week in the coming week. In addition to that we also had weekly meetings twice a week to follow up on our progress and get advise if we faced any issues with our tasks.
Week 3 & 4: 20th Jan - 4th Feb
Week 3 when we had our weekly meeting, we learned that Lava was entering their ending of their fiscal year which was ending in March, and so they wanted to try to get new clients to add in their accounts before the fiscal year ends as well as getting new clients for the next fiscal year. Very ambitious and driven individuals gave us the motivation we needed to try and get as much meetings with potential clients as we possibly could with making cold calls since making a call without having met the person nor spoken to before is usually tough as people are not very welcoming nor open to talk when they receive calls from strangers asking them what IT problems their company is facing and how they can help.
From the meetings we had in week 3 & 4 we were informed that tasks from this week and the rest of coming weeks of the internship were mainly searching for contacts from the leads databases we develop and others that are are already there, contact potential clients from the leads database, sending emails to potential clients, calling potential clients to introduce Lava and the services we provide (Telemarketing), arranging meetings with potential clients via phone or email. We had some problems with the communication skills in terms of telemarketing, we kept getting tips and searched online for ways to improve on our own as interns and shared it amongst each other as well as informing our supervisor on out progress with the improvements. In these two weeks I managed to get 3 meetings.
Week 5 & 6 : Feb 4th - 18th Feb
During these two weeks we faced some challenges, most of the clients which are from the high level management of the companies that we are targeting are not available. Since its the beginning of the year and also with the Chinese new year coming up, there are very busy in meeting and some even in training. We also tried develop our own strategy on how to capture their attention regardless of their busy schedule which was a few words edited from the original pitch provided when on call and also via email.
I managed to get one two meetings in these two weeks and the rest of the interns not far behind either. We looking into working with random industries/companies, doing research, emailing and calling potential clients. Unfortunately, reaching out to a large variety of industries did not seem to be effective because different industry need a different kind of pitching and we were unable to come up with so many different pitches at once so it was a little challenging although we just managed to adjust the tone and words of the pitch according to the type of business the client is doing.
Week 7 & 8: 18th feb - 4th March
During week 7 there was not much to do since there was the Chinese new year in which our office gave us two days off, but the companies we would be calling and reaching out had their high level management on leave for almost the entire week or we just got responses to try the other week.Since we did not have so much work to do, we were given a simple task to redecorate and design the company noticeboard which has updates on the internal operations, achievements and progress.
In week 8 during the weekly meeting there was a new strategy that was briefed to us by our supervisor, which was to target specific industries which for the two weeks were Universities and pharmaceuticals so as to get the specific pitch for it and search more thoroughly on what exactly they would need from us. Lava Protocols is experienced with Universities since they have at least 2 to 3 universities as clients and a little familiar with pharmaceuticals too so we managed to see what their current clients of the same industry bought from us and we used the same idea to pitch to the potential clients . We worked as a group with our supervisor and other inside sales team to do research, filtering suitable contacts. Targeting Universities and pharmaceuticals.
Week 9 & 10 :4th march - 20th March
These two weeks were rather going a little quiet due to the fact that the company had outsourced some of its Leads work and we were left with a little of it since it was the end of the fiscal year all departments were rounding up their accounts and records for the whole year which kept them all rather busy, leaving to mainly assist in sending work emails, answering calls and searching for more companies to include in the Leads database. We were looking into other industries too such as ; beauty & cosmetics, cleaning service companies, e- commerce companies, recruitment and head hunters agency, retail outlets.
During our last week we were given a task to reach out to potential and current clients to book for a meeting with them to have the field sales team conduct a face to face market survey and discussion on changes to make or ways to improve Lava Protocols' application developed by their application designers and developers that goes by the temporary name XApp. XApp is a mobile application which I'm unfortunately not allowed to discuss its uses and features since it is not out in the market yet.
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