Welcome back to our final week! We've had an amazing co-op experience with Tri-County Copiers Plus Xerox. Everything we've learned here can be taken with us and applied to our future endeavors. We'll be going back to school very soon and are looking forward to starting our third year of university.
Throughout the week, we've been working hard to fill a few remaining spots in our calendars, in hopes that we'll gather enough information to be able to provide a meaningful analysis. The data that we've collected has given us a unique insight on the buying behaviours of local businesses, taking into consideration brand loyalty, and improving services. By the last day of our placement, we plan to create a research report based on the information that we have gathered from businesses in the Windsor region.
After a summer break of 4 months, we're heading back to school to begin our fall semester. After this term, we'll be more knowledgeable about the co-op application process and will know exactly what to expect. In September, all the co-op students who were selected for the chance to work for a company will be sharing their personal experiences on their placements. We are looking forward to reuniting with our fellow co-op students.
This placement has really been an eye-opener on what business field we'd both like to venture off into. We've learned and experienced working in Sales, Marketing and Data Management. For the most part, Sales is a difficult field to be successful in. With the right personality, right techniques, and a driven-mindset, it could be a great career. Data Management is an easier task, but is a time consuming activity. On the Marketing side, we both felt more comfortable. This included creating flyers, talking to strangers about Xerox, and gathering as much information about businesses as we could.
We came in with only textbook knowledge and what we've learned in school. This co-op placement has given us the opportunity to apply some of our classroom experience to this office environment. The real life work experience will benefit our careers and educational studies. Unlike our university classes that have a set agenda, the work environment was constantly changing and to be successful, we needed to adapt.
The biggest challenge that we faced was trying to convince business owners and managers to sit down with us, and have their equipment assessed for a sales opportunity. Our first approach was to cold call businesses as a team, and ask for an office manager or owner at the reception desk. We had some success with this method, but the challenge was that the receptionist would act as a gatekeeper. Often times, the decision maker was not always in the office during our visit. At first, we used a scripted pitch for our cold calls. However, we found that the script didn't always apply to the businesses that we visited. We had to continuously change our message to include a specific reason why their business could benefit from our products and services. When it came to the sales process we both had to step out of our comfort zones. For example, facing rejection and driving to unfamiliar places. These new adventures have built up our confidence levels, which will be an asset when it comes to speaking in front of a class presenting, networking, and job interviews.
On rainy and stormy days, it wasn't wise to go out and cold call but with our goal of contacting as many businesses as possible, we adapted. Adapted by learning how to generate leads over the phone. In our experience, calling businesses over the phone was a more efficient method for developing leads than cold calling was. We targeted a number of businesses based on specific industries or accounts, and cold calling them over the phone has given us the ability to reach more businesses in a shorter period of time.Adaptability is beneficial in the workplace, in leadership, in school, and in life. Learning new ideas and ways to complete tasks will help us become more efficient. It's about wanting to learn and putting ourselves out there. In the future, it will be easier to adapt to any environment.
Thanks for reading all of our blogs! We also want to thank the Tri-County Copiers Plus Xerox team for giving us this great opportunity and motivating us to better our careers.
Santeena & Michel
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