Week 16 is here already. We all survived these 4 months and I know collectively as a class we are very proud. I am very proud that all of the out-of-state interns made it all the way through the internship. It was very hard at times to punch away on my keyboard all by myself in my basement. I knew that I wanted to come back to California right after I left the first time. Here is a little look at my second adventure in California during this last week.
Wednesday 4/25/12: Fly to California. I had to transfer planes on Phoenix and I barely made it to my next flight! I had 40mins in between flights, but my first plane was delayed 30mins. I walked off one plane and immediately walked on to the next.
Thursday 4/26/12: We had a lot of people in the office this day getting ready for the BambooSK8 and Grind for Life Charity event. All of our hard work paid off and we made some money for this great charity!
Friday 4/27/12: This was the final day of the internship!
Saturday 4/26/12: Tameka, Gavin, David and I attended GreenFest at SDSU. We had a good time and got to spread some BambooSK8 love.
Sunday 4/27/12: I will be flying back to lovely Wisconsin and will be missing California.
It was a journey, but I am so thankful for all the friends I made along the way. I hope to see you all soon and wish you a world of blessings.
this is my last blog entry for the Bamboosk8 internship. To you all that are starting this internship soon, good luck. It will change the way you see things, you’ll make lots of friends, you’ll learn a lot about action sports, skateboarding, people and business.
To those that worked with me for the last 4 months, thanks for all your effort and for helping me when I needed it. I hope to see you guys soon and work with you again.
To Mark, Geoff K, Geoff C and Jacquelyn, thanks for all your knowledge and friendliness. I can’t wait to meet you guys and work with you again in the near future.
4 months ago I was wondering what to do after I finished my studies and I didn’t have much experience or quantifiable results to show to prospective employers. Now, after 16 weeks I have a baggage of knowledge, confidence, experience and quantifiable results to go ahead with my career and I know I will stand above the crowd of job seekers.
I can’t thank enough everyone for their time and support, I wish actually I met you guys earlier, but this is where my destiny is taking me right now.
If you’re looking for a positive change in your life and all the other internships never filled that void, well, buckle up for the roller-coaster of your life. You’ll sweat a lot and you’ll be tested to your limits, but every week you’ll see how much you’re learning in sales, PR, marketing, finance and what others take years of work to learn or are never given the chance.
I consider myself lucky, being part of this class and having these people take time from their daily jobs to create something meaningful for future graduates or current university/college students is something that you won’t find anywhere and I know. I searched all of Europe, Australia and USA for this and only Bamboosk8 accepted me and had what I was looking for…real, quantifiable experience that I could then use to get a job in the action sport industry or whatever it is that you’re looking for.
Thanks again for making my life so hard at times, now I have the bigger picture and I know it was all worth it.
This experience has been INTENSE yet I have had the time of my life!! I have met more truly amazing people in the last few months than ever in my life. I have never been to so many events supporting good causes and my eyes have been opened about living a more sustainable life.
I have learned very valuable lessons about productivity and managing time and tasks. Without this internship, I feel that I would have been quite unprepared to take on a career. Now I feel confident in my value and what I can offer a future employer.
Our GRIND FOR LIFE benefit last night was awesome. We had a lot of support from sponsors and a lot of people who showed up and supported the cause. I am very happy that I had the opportunity to be involved with helping people with cancer.
Overall, this internship has helped me grow to become a more motivated individual. It has provided me with excellent experience in marketing, sales, pr, events, finance, project management, and customer support. I am very thankful to the whole bamboo crew for offering me such a great opportunity and will continue to show my support into the future.
Today marks the end of our 16 week adventure. I can’t believe it’s already over! These last two weeks seem like such a blur. I don’t even know where to start or how to say goodbye.
First of all, working with Mark and Geoff has been great. They are both very intelligent men and I feel privileged to have been their grasshopper for the last four months. Geoff taught me many life lessons like don’t let life get stale, and nothing is going to come to you, you have to be the one to make things happen. Mark was a really good mentor and helped me out with a few different things like being more confident, helping others, and being innovative. I’m going to miss our weekly Skype meetings are getting know them!
Ahhh the interns. Though I didn’t meet you guys, you are special in different ways. The in office crew was super great in helping all of the out-of-staters with things. The out-of-staters all conquered the challenge of working remotely and not directly with our teams side by side. I’m still bummed I didn’t make it out to SD for the Grind for Life event yesterday, but I hope we can all meet somewhere one day and have a Vegas Bomb for ol’ time sake!
As one door closes, another one opens. I’m ending this internship with more knowledge and experience then when I came, and I will be taking it with me on my next journey to Oregon this summer. Action sports is the path I’ve chosen, and BambooSK8 has made me feel like it’s the right choice.
Well, so long for now. Good luck to everyone on their adventures after this! Also, good luck to the future intern classes! Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you need help with anything!
The internship has finally ended and it has been quite the ride! Highs and lows filled with learning experiences, made friends along the way, and got great work experience to help me get that next job! Now that this experience is over, I can reflect on all I have learned about myself. Coming into this internship, I was very unsure about which direction I wanted to take with my career (besides the dream of working in action sports!) I wasn’t sure what area; marketing or sales I wanted to focus on. I ended up being put on the sales team. With no experience in this area prior to the internship, I didn’t have much confidence and wasn’t sure if I could sell. Over the last 4 months, I have pushed myself into uncomfortable situations through visiting skate parks, skate shops, and events to practice my sales approach. The biggest thing I have gained from all this is confidence and belief in myself. As an end result, I introduced our brand into 7 new shops and gained some applicable experience that I think will really stand out on my resume. Whether I choose to stay in action sports or not, the experience gained here is applicable to other industries.
I would also like to give other potential interns who are reading these blogs and thinking about whether or not this internship is for them some advice. Expect to commit a huge chunk of time and effort to this internship! Be prepared to give your time to BambooSK8 without being compensated monetarily. It is a sacrifice but BambooSK8 will compensate you in other ways; such as experience, friends, and recommendations. Do not come in with the expectation that this is an ordinary internship in which you can skate by! (excuse the pun haha) Treat it like a job, because it is one and your livelihood depends on it!
BambooSK8 – OUT!
Panda at the BambooSK8 Grind for Life end of internship event!
It’s the last week of the internship and it’s a little sad. I have made some amazing friends that I know will be friends for life. We have all worked so hard to reach our goals that it’s a little bittersweet that it’s all coming to an end.
Right now, we are focusing all of our time trying to reach our goals and get the product for the Intern Fundraiser ready. There is SO much stuff it’s insane! We were able to get so many donations that I’m pretty sure anyone who buys a raffle ticket will walk away with something. I’m hoping to CRUSH last semesters earnings of $1,000. With the amount of product and their worth I think we can expect to surpass 1k. Gavin just sent an email out to everyone that Malakye is tweeting about our event! That’s HUGE!! I am really excited for Thursday.
On top of getting everything organized we are also gearing up for the event at SDSU on Thursday. Tameka was able to get us into the Eco Fest down there. We are hoping to sell some decks and get the word about the fundraiser out to everyone there.
Also, last week Jamie and I had to pick the winner of the OSF design contest. It was SO HARD!!! I can’t even believe how amazing those students’ designs were. Here are the winners:
1st place: Faline
2nd Place: Alyssa
3rd Place: Alex
This was by far the best year yet. Every single design was amazing. The kids at OSF have so much talent. I guarantee you will be seeing their names again.
I would be lying if I said I hadn’t learned anything from my time here at BambooSK8. This internship has definitely pushed me to my limits. I know more about the inter workings of a business better than I ever have before. I learned how connected each position within the company relates to one another and drives results. All of those topics are important to know and understand, but what I learned most was about myself. I have pushed myself to become better. To be happier, more courageous, to understand when to take emotion out of situations and most importantly, how to be more positive. I have to say that I came into this internship with the hope to fine tune and obtain quantitative data for my resume, and I did get those things, but the most important thing I will take away from this experience is how to become a better me.
So thank you to everyone at BambooSK8 for being so amazing these past 4 months!!! I can’t wait to send everyone off the right way at the Intern Fundraiser. FIREBALLS FOR EVERYONE!
What a journey, I cannot believe that 16 weeks has already flown by. I have learned so much over the past weeks as well as made some great friends. The internship started off so scattered for me I had a really hard time understanding the way everything went together. I would say that I got off to a rocky start and did not really start to grasp what I was doing until a few weeks in. I was assigned to be on the marketing and sales team. For marketing I worked with 3 other interns to try and accomplish getting 5000 Facebook likes, as of now we are only at 81% of hitting our goal. We are not giving up we are going to give it our all this last week and try and get our numbers up. I also got to work on Google Analytics, this is a marketing tool used to track how many visits Bamboosk8 website got. We were able to reach our goal for this and increase our page visits by 15%!!! I also got the chance to work with 4 interns from the sales team. I had to visit different skateparks around where I lived and beyond to try and spread the word about Bamboosk8, and how awesome their decks are compared to maple decks. I really enjoyed this because it allowed me to go outside and mingle with the skaters. I also got a chance to really test my sales skills and go into a few shops to try and get them to bring Bamboosk8 into their shops. I talked to a few shops but never got them to try any of our decks. I guess my sales skills needs some working on. I did however sell 19 decks throughout the internship to various people that I networked with. All of them love their decks!!!! .
Another part of the internship that I got to experience was planning and going to events for Baboosk8. My first event during the internship was on St. Patrick’s Day in San Diego. It was a Grind for Life event to raise money for families with cancer. It ended up raining but that did not ruin the experience for me, a ton of kids still came out to support the event, we ended up selling a bunch of decks and getting to chat with a bunch of Bamboosk8 fans. The other two events that I get to be a part of will be held this week during Earth Week. We will be going to an event at San Diego State University called Green Fest, we hope to spread the word about Bamboosk8 as well as sell a bunch of decks. The last event that we will be doing is one that all of the interns put together another Grind for Life event. This one we had to plan ourselves and could not have done it without the help of Tameka or Jessi, they really put a lot of energy into making this happen. We will be having a raffle and silent auction to raise money. This should be loads of fun, can’t wait!!
Lastly one of the coolest things that I got to be a part of was working with a group of kids at the Oasis School in Toronto. Bamboosk8 puts together a competition for them. They have to come up with an idea on sustainability, and then they have to explain their idea and paint it on a bamboo deck. We then choose first, second, and third place. First place gets to be recognized at the Bamboosk8 warehouse. I was totally blown away by the work these kids created; they all had such amazing talent. All of their ideas were really good and their art work was even better. In the end we chose one but might end up featuring a few others on our website. Such a cool experience!!
Now that my journey is coming to an end I can truly say that all of the hard work and energy totally paid off. Everyone at Bamboosk8 really helps each intern to succeed at whatever it is they are trying to get out of the internship. I have no complaints. I am leaving this internship much smarter and much wiser than when I came in, and with so much more knowledge about marketing and sales.
This is so bittersweet…We are almost done with the internship! Seriously, at times I wanted to pull my hair out because this internship is not for the faint of heart. However, I am thankful for the staff at BambooSK8 for allowing me to be apart of the first out of state intern group. Alissa, David, Gabe, Michelle and I are pioneers…or guinea pigs Either way, this was an experience that has taught me so much about, time management, goal setting, negotiating and how great this company is. I have never been pushed so much in my life but I’m stoked to know how much I can do and that I can handle more.
I have had tons of help with coordinating my events, especially since I have been setting up events in California…. from Illinois!! Crazy right?!! I appreciate all those who got to the events and educated people about BambooSK8 and got phone numbers ( I wont say any names…DAVID!) and for those who kicked butt and got tons on donations for our intern fundraiser event on April 26th. I appreciate you guys!! This week, will be full of finalizing details for events, helping organize literature for the incoming cycle of interns and mock interviews with GK.
Almost done!!Woo!! Bring it on!!! Initiating game face sequence!!
<—– This is her game face
Catcha Later,
~T
T-minus 9 days until in back in Cali and 10 days until the intern event…You’re invited!!!!
Week 14 of the Internship is here. That means only 2 weeks left! I will be traveling back to Oceanside for the Intern Event that will be in Week 16. I had such a great experience when I went out there for my Spring Break that I was easily convinced to come back for the Intern Event. I am going to reflect on my total experience with the internship thus far.
We have a lot of tools to market our skateboards. We can use Hookit, Facebook, and Twitter to reach new people. I do not think that everyone really realizes how these are all great tools to use. We have to stay up and up with the social media world because that is what the world is coming too! Social Media marketing is a completely new art form of communication. Master it will be vital in the companies of tomorrow.
I am learning that every lead and every connection is important. We had a lead for a shop in AU that was interested in boards. We went in the shop and BOOM they kept 2 boards! A kid on Hookit said he had a shop that was interested in getting some boards. I emailed the shop and again BOOM! That shop bought 2 boards from us! The power of Networking and the power of Social Media are awesome. Use them!
As for me, what is in store for me next do you ask? I have been applying to internships like a mad woman! I had two phone interviews this week. The next step will be a getting a face-to-face interview. I can directly see how this internship for BambooSK8 was a direct step towards my professional career. I will remember this experience forever.
It’s week 14 in the internship, we have done a lot to get here and it was worth it.
I’m already thinking f the next step. After all, this was a stepping stone to go onto greater things. Everyone’s putting in a lot of effort to reach the goals we were given at the start of the internship to pass the stage and get a good reference. Alissa, just found a way to get more active on Hook it, we just had a new deal for 2 deck for the price of one going online, Gavin has closed a deal with another e-commerce website called Krush who’s selling our gear for two weeks, Tameka has been organising our final event and it’s almost ready to go. Jamie has been working hard this week to get all he files uploaded to the network so we’re all up to speed with commitments, Michelle has been leading the way with the math for us in finding a way to make a future company works in an exam we took earlier in the internship. David has been killing it on Twitter with a 300 more people added to the account and getting some clips for the Panda suit. Jessi is driving people to Facebook like no other and numbers are going up and up.
The points are flying everywhere and in the meantime we’re finding new ways to improve the internship and make life easier and better to the next batch of interns that will start after us. We have now only two weeks left. Next week we’ll go ahead with a final interview to see how we use the STAR method and to get that hard to get job in the action sport or wherever others want to go. I wish I was there to party and the final event we’ve been putting together, but it will do just by passing the internship or I’ll be super devo because I’ve put so much effort into it.
To the new interns starting soon and whoever reads this blog and wonders if doing this or not I say just go and do it. The worst it can happen is that you learn more than you would think of regarding yourself and your professionalism. Sure it’s hard work and it’s free, but it’ll give you an edge towards other people looking for a job.
One last thing, go check our Hook it contest Prop My Deck
Exactly two weeks from today will be the last day of the internship. It has been one heck of an experience! I have learned so many things. It has not been easy, but I’m starting to see some light at the end of this bamboo tunnel. I want to talk about a few of the major parts of my internship experience.
Time management- This internship requires 20 hours per week, and you better be able to account for each of those hours and make them count! One of the hardest things for me every week has been figuring out how much time I need to spend on every task I have, and what it comes down to is efficiency. As Geoff (the wise man) told me, time is our most limited resource. It’s important not to waste time on distractions or being scared to do something. Take care of stuff and do it quickly.
Salespitch- After visiting a few shops and talking with owners, sales associates, and even other sales reps, the best advice I have when selling any product is not to sell people on options, but sell people on passion and what’s awesome about a product or brand. If you’re stoked, they’re going to be stoked… So stay stoked! Also, make that salespitch personal by connecting with whoever you’re trying to sell to. Don’t just ask about business, ask them about things they like to do. Get them to peel those layers, trust you, and, most importantly, make them want to buy from you.
Thinking outside the box- Just because we make/sell skateboards doesn’t mean we can only sell to companies in the industry. Because we have the capability to make custom heat transfers for our decks, we can print anything on them! Like a clothing brand’s logo, a brewery logo, non-profit logos, anything! Get creative with your resources- a little innovation goes a long way.
I could go on about a lot of other things, but I think that covers the most important things for now. We have two weeks to reach our goals and everyone is working their butts off to make them. I feel pretty confident that we can do it. The interns are all pretty amazing.
Until next time, please check out our pages on Facebook and twitter, then like and follow us.
One word…Wow!! This has been an amazing experience!! I literally have never worked so hard, and have never had so much fun with work.
I look back at the previous months and think what have I been doing? Attending events contributing to awesome causes, going out skateboarding promoting bamboo, talking to people about bamboo online, brainstorming new marketing campaigns and ways to reach more people, going to shops talking to peeps about bamboo…it has been awesome. I don’t want it to end
I had a blast at the EcoFest at CSU San Bernardino this last week. There was some really cool vendors and music. Got to talk to a lot of people about bamboo skateboards and skateboarding and sustainability in general. Always fun going to a cool event for a cool cause!!
This program really makes you push yourself to the limit. It gives you the chance to prove your abilities and skills and really make some cool stuff happen! It’s all on you, yet you have a ton of support from your team and your mentors.
Can’t think of a better way to have spent my time than skateboarding and representing an awesome company with an awesome mission with awesome people!!
Last Friday, Dave and I attended the Eco Fest at California State San Bernardino. The Eco Fest is part of a sustainable living tour to educate people on the benefits of sustainable alternatives. We thought this would be the perfect place to showcase our skateboards built of bamboo! Props to Tameka (PR) for getting us a vendor booth at the event! Dave and I were able to educate the masses on the benefits of using a bamboo skateboard. Everyone was really positive and receptive to the message we came to deliver. We even sold some decks in the process! Events like these are really great for spreading the word on BambooSK8 because it helps us build the brand and build a positive image. I hope future interns take advantage of opportunities like this and continue spreading the word!
Also, don’t forget to check out BambooSK8’s video feature on Soul Grind as our shop of the month for April!
What a ride!!! We are coming into the tail end of the internship and man have we done a lot. I have gotten the opportunity to work with some amazing interns along the way as well as had some amazing mentoring. I have been doing social media for Facebook and we just hit 4000 likes today, this is huge for us! Getting people to like you on Facebook is much harder than I thought. Hopefully we will reach our goal of 5000 by the end of this. I also have faced my fears of selling skateboards to shops. I finally went into my first skateshop; I did not sell any skateboards unfortunately, but just going in and talking with the guys was such a feeling of accomplishment. I am in the process of working with a few other shops and hopefully will get a sale by the end of the internship. I am super excited to attend our Grind for Life event on April 26th; hopefully we will have a huge turn out! I cannot believe all of the stuff that I have done and all of the stuff I still have to do in two weeks before this ride is over, wish me luck!!!
It’s almost the end of the internship and I can tell you that most of us interns are freaking out. We all really need to sell some decks to make sure we pass with flying colors.
It is getting to be hectic because we are running out of time to promote the intern fundraiser! Jackie is awesome and created the flyer, so we just need to get it printed so that we can plaster the flyer EVERYWHERE! We are all really excited about the event. We have awesome bands and great give aways!
As for our commitments, we are all working very hard to reach our goals. We still need to step up our HOOKIT game and we have increased a lot, we just need to make sure our points are there. Facebook is catching up. We finally broke the 4k mark on likes!!! I think a lot of it had to do with sending out an email blast to all the HOOKIT followers. We are also running a sweepstakes that utilizes the fan base we have to gain more likes. I think that has a lot to do with the spike in likes we have gotten over the past few days. Analytics is still going strong! So at least we are hitting those numbers!
We are about to have a Panda video go viral we just need to get the Panda’s name!! I vote for Eco Rico, but I don’t get to pick. (So if you are reading this, go to this link and vote!!!!! https://apps.facebook.com/opinionpolls/poll?pid=AB-mvukuQGE)
Today, Jamie and I are going to pick the winner of the deck competition with the Oasis Skate Factory! So stay tuned for the winner! It’s going to be SO HARD to pick!!!
You tell me how we are supposed to pick a winner when all of the decks look like THIS!!!
All in all everything is going well, we are just all in the rat race till the end, striving towards that elusive letter of recommendation!!
Till next time!!
P.S Don’t forget to Check out the video that Gavin created for this month featured shop.
Give props to BambooSK8 Rider Ryan Strader for KILLING it at the PHXAM!!!
Wow! I cannot believe that we only have 1 month left of the internship, time has really flown by. I have got to learn and experience so much along the way. I can now truly say that I am a Facebook expert I have learned a lot about how useful Facebook can be if used properly. The marketing team has really stepped it up and has got a large amount of new likes. We took our final last week; it consisted of an income statement and a cash flow statement. Man it was much harder than I thought it was going to be. I almost ran out of time, luckily I finished. Now that that is done I am really looking forward to our Grind for Life event at the end of the month, I hope it will be a huge success. Another experience I finally manned up and did was to into a skate shop on my own; unfortunately the buyer was not there like he was supposed to be. I hopefully will meet with him this week and seal a deal!
Well, its coming down to the wire. I cant believe its almost been 16 weeks already. Its crazy! Over the last couple of weeks, I have been really busy planning events, finishing up my PR commitment goals and getting things ready for the intern class after me. Yesterday, I got to go to the Ride the Beat tour hosted by Bam Margera! It was pretty cool to get to meet Bam, Greg Lutzka and a ton of other people who were diggin BambooSK8!
Alissa and I were spotted by the editor of a local skateboard magazine and he was so excited to see BambooSK8 there that he asked us to take some picture with his son! We talked to everyone and gave out tons of stickers that instantly appeared on everyone’s boards. It was such an amazing feeling to be able to talk to people about our boards or even have some just walk up to us to ask questions! I loved it!! BambooSK8 has taken over the Midwest!!
Speaking of boards….Bam and Greg were gracious enough to sign our bamboo boards!
It was a pretty solid day!!!
Next up…
OUR CHARITY FUNDRAISER EVENT!! ITS GOING TO BE AWESOME! CHECK IT OUT!!
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