The Moment of Truth

On the first day of my internship, the other intern and myself were given a list of daily responsibilities we would be in charge of throughout the semester. Most of them were just your regular office activities, but “Group Sales Prospecting” was listed and later on that day we had a presentation about what that meant. The Group Sales Manager gave us a semester-long project researching other arenas and sports teams to see what their group sales department was doing. Then sometime halfway through the semester we would present these findings to him. Since this was the first time they assigned something like this for their interns, there was really no pressure on me or the other intern.

I spent the next week on the websites of west coast arenas, the MLB and the NBA trying to find unique, new and exciting ideas that we could implement at the Wells Fargo Center. It was really exciting to me to have an internship where I wasn’t just doing busy work, but where I was always doing something meaningful to the company. However, as presentation day quickly approached, I became more and more nervous. Public speaking is not something I am afraid of anymore, but the idea of presenting my ideas and findings to someone who could actually hire me was extremely intimidating. To make matters even worse, one of the sales reps told me a couple of days before the presentation that he couldn’t wait to see what we came up with. Confused, I asked if he was attending and he said yes along with the rest of the group sales department. I became ten times more nervous than I already was but reminded myself that I had no reason to be. I was confident in my research and I practiced the presentation over and over again. When the day finally arrived, I learned that the group sales manager could no longer attend due to a change in his schedule and I was a little relieved but also a little upset. This was my chance to “wow” him and he was not even going to be there anymore, but I was assured that he would still receive the information.

As I began my presentation, I could tell the sales reps were genuinely interested in what I was saying and I became more relaxed. They would even stop me to tell me that they liked a specific finding and tell me to research it more so we can try something similar at the Wells Fargo Center. After the presentation was over, I felt extremely accomplished. I never presented anything that was not graded before and I was proud of myself for impressing the people I was working for. I was very grateful for this opportunity because of the practice it gave me for future assignments like this.