Monday October 26th, three other students and I had the opportunity to attend the Buffalo Niagara Sales & Marketing Executives Student Day. Kourtney Shearer, Danielle Board, Taylor Tracy, and myself attended a day long conference, which included a choice of one of three tours, a special presentation by Bill Knoche, a networking opportunity, and a dinner presentation with Marc Adler. As I previously stated in my last blog post, I have decided to split the blog post into three separate posts and this is the third part in the three part series.

After our soft skills seminar with Bill Knoche, there was networking for an hour followed by dinner and a presentation, by Marc Adler. Each student who attended was paired up with a member from Buffalo Niagara Sales & Marketing Executives. I had the great opportunity of being paired up with Joseph P. Lojacono. Mr. Lojacono is the President of Valmark Associates, a Marketing Consultancy Agency, and he was also a former President of BNSME. Mr. Lojacono guided me around one of the banquet rooms at the Hyatt Regency, introducing me to the members of BNSME.

 I had the immense pleasure of meeting just a few of the many BNSME members including Eva Balazs, Anthony Blasting, a financial advisor for Northwestern Mutual;, and Tim Finney, a Human Resources Advisor. The diversity of members there was astounding to me and these are just a few of the amazing individuals I had the pleasure of meeting. Mr. Finney gave some fabulous advice about taking the opportunities you are given. He had said that everyone at those gatherings could be doing something else, like being home with their family or meeting with a client, but they choose to give up their time and come to the meetings. They come to the meetings to network, get to know people, and have a fun time interacting and learning. The point he was making was that if you are sacrificing your time to go to these meetings and events then make the most of it by interacting and not being a wallflower. The advice Mr. Finney gave can be applied to not just selling, but to life. Every opportunity we get, we must take advantage of that opportunity and use it to the best of our abilities because we never know how that opportunity could impact us in the future.

In talking about opportunities, Marc Adler, the special guest speaker of the evening, touched on opportunities in his delightful presentation. Mr. Adler’s presentation was called Why Not Marketing? The presentation showcased how we all are marketers trying to communicate some type of message. We are all our own little market and marketing surrounds us all. There are three questions we must ask ourselves in order to be successful in marketing:

1. What do we want and what goals do we want to achieve?
2. Who are you going to target?
3. How do you distinguish yourself from others and how you communicate those ideas?

Each of these questions, are influential to your success if you properly understand them. We all have goals, but we just need to define what those goals are. Once a week you should make it a goal of yours to open the lines of communication with someone you are trying to target. Be different and standout by honing in on the things that make you different. You can find out what those things are by sitting down and finding out what skills you have and how you try to prove it. Tell your story in an engaging way. If you are hardworking then don’t just say you are hardworking show how you’ve been hardworking in the past through examples.

Mr. Adler’s presentation was filled with anecdotes and it was a pure joy to listen to. There are five different points in the presentation that I loved and they were:

• Follow up- call and send a thank you note. He really emphasized this point!
• It’s all about the experiences you go through.
• Always strive to build a greater you.
• Exhibit the desire and energy to learn.
• BE PASSIONATE!

The Buffalo Niagara Sales & Marketing Executive Student Day was filled with the passion Mr. Adler was talking about. Everyone I met who was a part of BNSME was passionate about their career and they were passionate about the organization they were a part of. Being passionate about the organization and their careers just made such an amazing opportunity that much better. Buffalo Niagara Sales & Marketing Executive is a great organization that really does supplement the learning we are acquiring in the classroom. It is an incredible opportunity for students, professors, and anyone in sales or marketing should consider taking advantage of these spectacular monthly networking and learning opportunities.

I would like to say a thank you to Francine Brooks, FB Displays & Design, Bill Knoche, Marc Adler, Joseph P. Lojacono, and all of the BNSME Executives for this amazing opportunity. It was a privilege to attend Student Day! I would also like to say thank you to Professor Dudkowski for allowing myself and the three other students the privilege of attending the joyous sales and marketing day!

This past Monday, three other students and I had the opportunity to attend the Buffalo Niagara Sales & Marketing Executives Student Day. Kourtney Shearer, Danielle Board, Taylor Tracy, and myself attended a day long conference, which included a choice of one of three tours, a special presentation by Bill Knoche, a networking opportunity, and a dinner presentation with Marc Adler. As I previously stated in my last blog post, I have decided to split the blog post into three separate posts and this is the second part in the three part series.

After our tour at  FB Displays & Designs, Inc., we traveled to the Hyatt Regency in Buffalo to take part in our late afternoon and evening activities. Our late afternoon plans was a special presentation by Bill Knoche. Mr. Knoche’s presentation was on soft skills. Soft skills are personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Communication was the soft skill that Bill’s presentation focused on. The presentation was insightful and offered many useful tips to be the best salesperson you can be.

Growing up your experiences effect your soft skills, most specifically your communication skills and here are some useful tips about how to build your soft skills that we learned from Bill’s presentation:

• Sales presentations tend to be one sided and that is why communicating with the customer is very important.
• Start to understand your buyer in order to build a relationship.
• Conversation is key.
• Life is little pieces of selling.
• Breakdown walls.
• Engage people.
• Understand people.
• Understand the question.
• Understand the process.
• Stretch the truth.
• Give the customer opportunities.

This past Monday, three other students and I had the opportunity to attend the Buffalo Niagara Sales & Marketing Executives Student Day. Professor Dudkowski selected Kourtney Shearer, Danielle Board, Taylor Tracy, and myself to attend a day long conference, which included a choice of one of three tours, a special presentation by Bill Knoche, a networking opportunity, and a dinner presentation with Marc Adler. In order to do this amazing day justice, I have decided to split the blog post into three separate posts and will be sharing the rest of our amazing experience throughout the week.

Our day started off at 1:30 with a tour and the three tours we were able to select from were IIMAK, FB Display & Designs, and Rigidized Metals Corportation. IIMAK, a manufacturer of printing, imaging and marking consumable products with 1,000 employees worldwide. Headquartered in Amherst, New York, with additional manufacturing, distribution and sales operations in Belgium, Brazil and Mexico, IIMAK serves global needs for thermal transfer ribbons, direct thermal films, inkjet inks and related products.  FB Displays & Designs, Inc., is a full-service display and graphic design company. Their strength is “identifying and meeting our clients’ needs”. Their specialty is designing and constructing trade show displays and exhibits using modular components, thus creating flexibility, ease of setup and cost savings. Rigidized Metals Corporation lead ‘s the world in the development and production of deep-textured, three dimensional metals used in architectural, industrial and transportation applications. Rigidized® products are known for their attractive, economical and functional appeal. The Rigidized® process adds strength, impact resistance and the ability to hide scratches.

We selected FB Displays & Design and it was a fantastic decision. We met with the wonderful owner, Francine Brooks. She told us about her company and then she showed us around the office. Francine started the company in 1994 after being a stay at home mom, selling jewelry and doing aerobics classes on the side. When her daughter went off to college, Francine decided to go back to work and after a brief stint with another design company she decided to go off on her own.  Francine started off in a garage and now has a large space located in Williamsville, just outside of Buffalo, NY, where she has eight full time employees and two interns, one’s name is Zach! The company has been around for over 20 years now and has over 1000 clients.

FB Displays & Design’s goal is to help their client achieve their goals from beginning to end and in helping them achieve their goal they are responsible for:

• Custom Displays
• Preshow campaign
• Lead generation strategies
• Post show follow up
• Booth staff training
• Inspector repair
• Installation/ dismantle
• Logistics