The Online Experience to School

          

           Classes I take at San Francisco State will prepare me for my future career in Marketing.  Having transferred from College of Marin a semester ago, I have only completed fifteen units at State.  But the courses I have taken have been specific to my discourse.  A couple courses I’ve taken are International Business, Marketing, and Information Systems.  All these are required business courses that really introduced me to what exactly business is and how it affects the globe. 

            The odd thing is, with these classes being so important to my major, they were all online courses.  I never actually stepped into a classroom when I took these classes.  There are both advantages and disadvantages to a set up like this.  An advantage is that I don’t actually have to get myself to campus for a lecture.  This way I could schedule work with out having to worry about getting to a class.  Another advantage is I never had to print anything out and turn in a hard copy to the professors.  This saved paper, time and ink, which ultimately saved me a little money.  Chancellor of the University System of Maryland, William E. Kirwan, said that online courses cut costs by 25% and give students more personal attention.(Source) In my personal experience, I didn’t receive any more personal attention in online classes than I did during in-person courses.  I found that being away from campus made me more distant from the college.  

            Disadvantages I found to online courses is, as previously mentioned, the feeling of disconnection to the university.  I was only on campus one day a week that semester and commuting at the time so I never really felt part of the university.  Also from a more ethical point of view, if the costs to actually teach the class are lower, and we are trying to cut costs, then why does our tuition continue to rise?  My own expectation is that if a student participates in a cost cutting class, then their tuition should reflect that cost cut.  According to a financial aid guide, the annual cost of tuition increases about eight percent, which means it doubles about every nine years.(Source)  I believe that if students take the risk of an online course then their tuition should be lowered to reflect the lower costs on behalf of the university.

            Despite the courses being online, I did learn about business that makes the world turn.  International Business taught me about the downstream and upstream stages of the value added chain really affect the product’s quality as well as its price.  This will help me understand how different areas of the world have different expertise that makes their product more valuable than others.  Marketing is especially important because it is my major.  Marketing gave me a complete overview of what it takes to get a product to the market and how to make that product appeal to a certain market.  This is really important to making money and to stay in business.  Information Systems taught me about how to manage a business using a computer.  This class was really specific in its use of excel to manage business finances.  This is important for a company to have up-to-date reports of their finances so that they know if they need to make cuts, or whether they can expand.    All of these courses are connected because they all have to do with aspects of business.

            Overall in my experience with online courses, I would say it was a good one.  I passed all the classes and I got an overview of the business life.  I would not discourage others from going the online route because although there is that disconnect from the university that I felt, it does free up my schedule to do what I want and I get to complete the work on my own time.  And although I felt less teacher attention, I still learned what I needed and I will use it for the entirety of my career.

Reading is Caring

            Reading and writing are two very crucial aspects of business.  Being able to clearly state what needs to be addressed is a skill that is never undervalued.  Reading and being able to comprehend the jargon is necessary to conducting business.  The businessman I interviewed, Peter Santora, has to read and write many things daily.  Being a salesman, Mr. Santora has to read emails constantly.  But during his busy day, he usually finds time at the beginning and end of every day.  He has to read catalogs and magazines to keep up with the products he’s selling.   To go along with the catalogs, he also has the order sheets that his customers place.  All of this reading leads to him knowing the industry and making a profit, along with keeping up with personal relationships with clients. 

            Reading emails is important to placing orders and returns.  This is really the main thing he reads.  Emails are defined as a method of exchanging digital from one author to one or more recipients.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email)  Being able to write email “blasts” to many clients makes it easier to reach a lot of people instantaneously.  When I write emails I try to make them short but clear, and I always consider my audience. 

            Catalogs and magazines display the products that a company is offering.  Peter needs to read these because he needs to know what he is actually selling, which products he has in stock, which ones are new, and which ones are on sale.  Knowing the product line is one of the main jobs of being a salesman. 

            The order forms are necessary to read as a man in sales.  This is the actual point where he puts in the order.  If he gets it wrong, then he lets down his customers and is then forced to do more work to fix it.  I would think that this is where much of his time is spent, making sure that the orders is correct. Along with orders, returns also occur for various reasons.  He treats these like regular order forms when processing the requests.  “Being accurate and timely makes doing the order forms easier,” said Mr. Santora.  I agree with this in all aspects of business.  This creates a better image for yourself and the companies you represent. 

The Golf Wizard

            My own goal for my career is to be in sports marketing.  There are many genres to this field such as advertising and sales.  While I like the side of advertising, sales is also a huge makeup of marketing in general.  They are very similar to each other and I feel it would be good for me to see both sides and to learn about both.  Therefore, I interviewed an independent sales representative.  What is a sales representative you might ask? Well a sales rep goes to the different locations representing their supplier and sells them whatever they need. 

The man I interviewed, Peter Santora, sells for three golf apparel companies: Cutter & Buck, Imperial Headwear, and Sterling Cut Glass.  He goes around to all the different golf courses and pro shops in Northern California for them to place orders with those companies.  Independent sales reps are different because they choose whom they sell for and whom they don’t.  There is a circuit of courses and shops that he sells to and makes regular stops.  This keeps up the relationship and personal attention to the customers.  Mr. Santora said, “they won’t forget about you if you meet them face to face.”  This is a good motto because it is true.  I remember people better if I meet them than if I read about them online.  For my own career, keeping an open line of communication through in person meetings and online will be crucial in being successful.

Peter graduated from University of San Francisco with a Bachelors degree in business.  He started his career in sales the fall of 1981.  The day starts the same way is ends, looking at emails and phone for those first and last orders and returns of the day.  He always does this because he needs to stay ahead because he doesn’t want to loose out on orders.  One of the biggest problems is time management.  Keeping up with the orders and returns that happen overnight can put him behind for the day and he might not get to all the face-to-face meetings he had scheduled.  I can see this being very important because I wouldn’t want to sell something that I don’t have. 

Another problem he faces daily is inventory.  When customers want something that’s not in stock then he looses out on a sale.  The good example he gave me was if the Giants win and keep going in the postseason, then everyone is going to want the latest equipment with Giants logos.  Only so much can be produced and sometimes can’t keep up with demand.  He called these kinds of sales “time sensitive.”  I would think all sales people have these sorts of problems.  Keeping up with orders and knowing what’s in stock are important to being a good salesman.  Being prompt with putting in the orders to get it to the clients as fast as possible is also what makes a trustworthy salesman.  I want to be trustworthy in my own line of work so being prompt is just a good all around goal for anyone.

Overcoming these challenges can be remedied with the use of technology.  Online sales make it easier to place orders for customers.  More golf companies are going to online sales.  According to Mr. Santora, “Golf tends to lag behind when it comes to technology.”  More and more his customers are going to the Internet.  Using this to his advantage, email technology can send out “blasts” of catalogs to customers reaching many people in a short amount of time from far away.  As much as online sales are taking over the industry, it is still a personal industry.  Customers still want to see the product and hold it before they buy it.  Golf sales, in general, are still very much a face-to-face industry.  Sales aren’t going down but going up due to the Internet.  I think everyone these days are trying to find that piece of tech that will make doing business easier and more efficient.  Email, and online sales is just a portion of the potential that the Internet provides. 

After this interview I realized that sales is a very difficult thing to be really good at.  Learning all the products and clientele would take a lot of experience.  Having been in the industry for over thirty years, Mr. Santora knows his products and how to appeal to certain customers.  I hope that one day I can get to the point where I have a true beat on the sports industry.  I take away from this interview a better sense of what happens on the daily basis for a man in marketing. 

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Advertising in Sport Marketing

          My dream job would be to work in sports marketing for a team in the Bay Area.  With the limited amount of positions available in a certain area, I should keep my options open.  Similar to Mark Burns, a marketing blogger, when I think about sports business professionals, not an athlete, the thought of becoming the General Manager of my favorite franchise comes to mind.  The world of sports goes much deeper than the teams’ front office personnel or top-tier sports agency firm. Burns listed some potential jobs as a sports marketer; vice president for marketing, director of marketing, director of special events and promotions, director of new business development, and tournament operations manager.  Not to mention all the other positions not in the marketing field.  For example the administration, media, facilities and events, finance, public relations, and travel are all aspects necessary to a franchise.  So there are more opportunities to get involved with sports than I previously imagined. 

            If I were to ever get a job with a sports franchise, I would treat that team like I would a brand.  A brand has an influence over its loyal customers.  In my own experience, when I see 49er logo on a can of Bud Light, I think of going to a football game and getting drunk.  The marketers find out how and why people are attached to the sport and exploit it for profit, I don’t view that as a bad thing in this case.  According to the Matthew Buchanan, this is winning customers through sponsorships to achieve short term, or even long term relationships.  A brand should be able to create layers of communication that trigger al the senses of the consumer.  I want to make people remember, and really want the product I sell.  Through ways such as sponsorships, franchises can appeal more directly to a target market.  This is similar to something I would like to do.  Come up with clever, funny ways to appeal to fans, and gain new fans, through advertising. 

            Another example of this advertising through sponsorships is the Chicago Fire, a soccer team, teaming up with Quaker Oats.  They put the best player on the box of cereal along with his stats and then put it in stores expecting sales to rise.  This also gives the team more publicity.  Also with the partnership between the Fire and Quaker Oats, now they both have an obligation to each other to maintain in good graces with the public.  If Quaker Oats gets bad publicity, then the Fire could get some of that backlash.  So there are some risks to undertaking sponsorships. 

            After writing this post, I came to a closer realization of what I want to be as marketer.  I want to be involved in the advertising department of a sports franchise.  Whether that is actually doing the think tank and focus groups work, or just crunching stats to get the best market research.  Advertising is the genre of marketing where I would like to take my career.

Links:

http://www.sportsnetworker.com/                

http://shayboyd.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/how-sport-sponsorship-drives-brand-proposition/

http://joefavorito.com/2012/10/01/where-theres-fire-theres-a-good-promotion/