Introduction

 

The Texas Retailers Association is the voice of Texas retail. They represent what retailers want in not only Austin, but also in Washington, DC. They consistently keep up with legislation and break down whether or not this particular legislation will benefit or hurt Texas retailers. If it hurts retailers, TRA will find state representatives that have a similar viewpoint and try to fight the legislation. TRA also has an education foundation where they raise money to provide scholarships to High School Seniors and College Undergrads who are wanting to pursue an education in retail. The association has a couple different departments that include government and regulatory affairs, business development, and administration. Since the team is small and consisted of four employees, I worked with each department on a regular basis. The government and regulatory affairs dealt with the legislation being passed and seeing if it worked in our member’s favors or not. Business development dealt with acquiring new members and also planning all events and conferences. I worked most closely with this department because most of my work involved event planning and designing items for the event. Lastly, administration dealt with the financial side of the business. While I didn’t work much in this department, I experienced enough to know the basics of what was having to be done. Overall, having the opportunity to experience each department taught me a lot and made work interesting every day.

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Description of Experiences and Activities

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During my internship I designed various handouts, tickets, and promotional products for our 2017 Texas Retailers Forum and also helped around the office with whatever needed to be done that day. The major activities I participated in were designing the conference program, awards dinner tickets, handouts, and working the event itself. The 2017 Texas Retailers Forum is an event where our members spend a weekend of networking, listening to breakout sessions led by other members, fun activities to participate in, and partaking in Q&A’s where they can learn more about what the association is doing for them. Working this event was stressful at times but seeing everyone’s hard work come together was amazing to see. During the event I helped mainly with registration, taking payments for our raffle that benefited our PAC and also helping set up various rooms for the different events taking place. During my internship I also had the opportunity to attend George W. Bush’s Portraits of Courage Event in Houston. This was such an honor to attend, even though President Bush wasn’t able to attend. My team had already previously attended the event at the opening of his exhibit at his library in Dallas so they sent me as the representative for our company. It was great networking with Houston professionals and meeting a warrior who was honored in the book. I also had the opportunity to attend the first day of Special Session on July 18th. I got to sit in on the House and Senate meetings, sit through a property tax meeting with a state representative and meet about five other state representatives. It was a great experience even though I don’t foresee being a lobbyist in my future. My team truly made my internship one to remember by sending me to events that I never imagined I would be able to attend.

 

Smaller tasks I participated in included helping a coworker Diana file taxes and put together information on excel spreadsheets of potential new members we want to reach out to. Diana is in charge of everything that had to do with financials, bank accounts, and taxes for the association. It was great to be exposed to that side of the business just to see how it works. Another small task I participated in was finding mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for businesses that could be potential members. After compiling their information, I helped put together new member packets that would be mailed out to those businesses. While this task seemed a bit boring and repetitive, it had to be done. We always want new members and this was how we would start the first portion of communication with them.

 

In the end, I would love to do this for a career. It offered many various tasks and responsibilities that would keep a job exciting. There was always something I could work on if I felt the need to switch tasks in order for a mental break. I loved that because if making membership packets got repetitive, I could always go back to designing more of the program for a little bit. I also had a great team that made sure I wasn’t doing the same, one task the entire summer. I was always being asked if what I was doing was alright and if not, they would find me something else to do. If I had the opportunity to do this for a future career, I definitely would.

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Perception and Judgments about the Internship

 

My objectives going into this internship was to network and try to figure out what exactly I want to do in the marketing field. Both my objectives were achieved; I networked with so many great employees from different companies across Texas and narrowed down what I want to do as my future career. Networking is key to opening up doors for future endeavors and I definitely did that. I expressed to my coworker Jim that I would love to work for Academy Sports and Outdoors. Just by having a good relationship with him, he set up a small meeting with the Vice President of Tax to meet me at our conference. My network with Jim grew after meeting one of Academy’s top people and I am so grateful for that opportunity. After speaking with her, I knew being a buyer at Academy would be an amazing career that I would fall in love with. I also learned that event planning would be a career I would much enjoy. A lot of my tasks worked closely with our event planner Justin. Seeing everything he was doing got me hooked on the career.

 

This internship surpassed my personal expectations. My expectations for this internship were to get to work and have to do small tasks and jobs that they just didn’t have time to do; like making copies and punching holes in papers. I was completely wrong. Everything I worked on had a purpose and was work they would have had to do if I wasn’t there. I only did small things, like making copies, when they physically had zero time to do it. I knew I would have been happy doing whatever they needed me to do but it was great being able to work on things that actually needed to be done and went into the conference or into membership outreach. I also never thought I would grow so attached to the organization and the team how I did. They had such good chemistry between one another and a great work culture. If I was able to start my career with them in Austin, I definitely would in a heartbeat.

 

My team was very open to my ideas because I was a fresh face that didn’t know much about the industry. This helped with new members they were trying to recruit into the association, who also didn’t know much about what the association did. When we would have our bi-weekly meetings, they always encouraged me to speak of any ideas or concerns I was having so that they could help implement these into what we were trying to accomplish that week. I definitely appreciated that they were open to my ideas because I strongly feel that’s what a team is all about. Hearing everyone’s ideas and then building from there to make the finished product. It was also cool to see my ideas being used and accepted by the team.

 

I would absolutely recommend this organization to other interns. This internship provided so many different learning experiences that I couldn’t imagine many other internships provide. I learned so much from the beginning all the way until the end and am so thankful to have had this opportunity. The part I would want other interested applicants to realize, is the networking and unique experiences that came from this internship. I had the opportunity to spend an entire weekend networking with CEO’s, Presidents, and Vice-Presidents of top retailers that I would love to work for in the future. Not only that, but I also got to sit in on meetings at the state capitol, meet state representatives, and learn about a career I never even knew existed. It was an amazing opportunity that I hope other A&M marketing majors look into and consider applying for. 

 

This experience could have been improved if I had found a place to live closer to my work and if I had received a key to the office. When receiving my offer for this internship I never imagined how hard driving in the morning traffic would be. I decided that it would be okay to drive the hour and 15 minutes every day to work and then again to get home. I definitely underestimated driving on I-35 during morning and night traffic but in the end it wasn’t all that horrible. Living in Austin would have been much easier but spending time with my family this summer made the drive not too bad. Due to this long drive and unpredicted traffic, I would arrive thirty to forty-five minutes before nine and have to sit in the parking lot until someone arrived. Having a key would have been great for these days so that I could at least wait inside the office. They tried getting me a key but the landlord didn’t see a point of giving an intern a key so it wasn’t a possibility to begin with. Both are very minor improvements but other than that, nothing else could have been improved.

 

My greatest accomplishment was designing the conference program. The program was twenty-five pages and included information about the conference, the schedule, keynote speakers, ads, and information about our sponsors. The program is what everyone was handed the moment they walked into the conference. I was given some rough ideas of what they wanted but other than that, I was free to do whatever I wanted with it. It took a month and a half to make but the relief I had when it was finished was like no other. When I was finally holding the final product, I was so happy with all my hard work.

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Work Performance

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Prior skills that I had that were used during this internship included: writing, communication, and being able to work in a team setting. Being a marketing major, many of my classes have group projects where communication is a big skill needed, as well as being able to work with a team. These skills helped me prepare for this internship because being a team of five, almost all projects were team efforts. While everyone would have a certain task they worked on individually, when it would all come together, it was a team effort. An example of when I used my writing skills occurred when I was having to make handouts to go in the welcome bags for attendees at our annual conference. Having these skills prior to my internship helped greatly when it came to finding the right wording to put on the handouts.   

A new skill I acquired during this internship was being able to work better with excel and other computer skills. Before this internship I knew the basics of being able to do things on excel but I didn’t know much else. On my second day on the job I learned how to do a mail merge from Excel to Microsoft Word. A lot of their files were on Excel and some needed to be put on different documents on Microsoft Word. Before, I would have copied and pasted the items into the Word Document but they showed me how to do a mail merge and it saved me so much time and energy. I also learned how to do financials on excel. I’m not the best at doing them, but I at least got taught the basics which helped one of my team members tremendously.

 

I was very satisfied with my performance on the assignments and projects I worked on. Going into this internship I didn’t have a lot of marketing experience and this worried me. My first task was to create a handout for conference attendees to fill out if they wished to donate to our education foundation. My team showed me the basics of Lucidpress and then it was time to start designing the handout. It ended up being a bit challenging to come up with a design but I got the hang of it. They liked my handout so much that a lot of my responsibilities included designing many things for our conference. I was proud of everything I was designing and the hard work I put into each project. I believe I used my time very efficiently and asked for help when I needed it.

 

Showing up two months before our conference meant a lot of the tasks that had to be done had strict deadlines. I met all the deadlines I was given throughout my internship and I was the most relieved when I completed our conference program. It was the biggest task I worked on and had a hard deadline for when it needed to be sent to the printers. I spent weeks working on it and it got stressful towards the end but I got it done a day or two early. It was such a great feeling knowing it was finished, my team loved how it turned out, and that our attendees were impressed it was made by an intern.

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I believe I truly did a great job this summer. I am so proud of everything I accomplished and I know I worked to the best of my ability. Seeing the final products of my work, and knowing I had no previous experience in this field, was great. I believe I made good, quality products that they will be able to use for their next events.

 

Personal Benefits

 

My academic and career goals have changed in the sense of what exactly I want to do in the marketing field. Before this internship I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do but thought social media would be a fun way to start my career. This internship allowed me to see various areas of marketing that included social media, event planning, advertising, sales, and the legal side of retail. After having the opportunity to experience all these fields, I now believe that I would love a career in event planning or being a buyer for a clothing company. A big portion of my internship was helping plan our second, annual Retailers Forum and it was a great experience. The thought of being a buyer for a clothing company came about after meeting a buyer from a large Texas retailer at our annual forum.

 

I have grown tremendously this summer after completing this internship. I feel more confident in my communication skills and my creative capabilities. My communication skills were put to the test when I visited the Capitol with one of my supervisors, Jim, the head lobbyist on our team. In the two visits I made to the capitol, I met many state representatives and their staff members and also had the opportunity to sit in a property tax meeting with other lobbyists. I believe these visits helped strengthen my communication skills in a professional setting because I had never experienced any of it before. My communication skills were also strengthened at our annual conference. Our attendees consisted of very important people from big and small retailers. Speaking to them and representing my company meant I had to be my best self and I believe I did it well. I also feel more confident in my creative design skills. I designed our program, advertisements, and many other flyers for our annual conference and was given free reign when it came to the designs. Seeing how pleased they were with my final products was a great feeling. I never had taken Photoshop or any design course prior to the internship so it was a whole new world for me to be doing those tasks.  

 

Insights I gained regarding the marketing field is that it’s not as easy as what people think. I have known many people to say that marketing is the easy major in the business school and that any job you get will be easy and not have a good salary. I have caught myself thinking that marketing is the easy major when comparing it to finance or accounting but that simply isn’t true. A lot of the tasks I did this summer was challenging and took a lot of time to do. Regarding the pay, many of the members of the team I worked with have good salaries and they haven’t even worked for the company that long to get that salary. The marketing field has so many different aspects to it but each aspect comes with its challenges.