During the professional development plan I was able to understanding the things that require immediate attentions as well as my strengths that make me unique and especial. I will allow me to develop into a better business person and take advantage of my skills.

This class thought me how to communicate professionally while writing and email, during a video call, recording a video presentation or simply networking. Speaking about networking it told me the importance of doing in it and how to go about it. It also taught me the challenges that marketers are facing currently with COVID and the things they did to adapt. I also learned how marketing can help small businesses succeed and to understand the challenges that they face.

Rubin-Live-Webinar-Certificate-Explore-the-World-of-Digital-Marketing-November-30-2021

Professional Development Plan – Fillable

Informational Interview

For this assignment I interviewed my ex-boss’s boss, Pete Belk who has been a mentor and a friend of mine during the year that I work has a student ambassador at JCCC. He is the director of admission for the community college. He is a natural leader who leads by example and works very hard. He got his Bachelor of Business Administration from the Missouri Southern State University and his MA in educational Administration from UMKC.

I found many things very interesting about his career path. One of those things is that he told me that he told me that he regrets going for his MA immediately after his bachelors. He explained to me that he couldn’t contribute to the discussions for a whole year. At the same time, he also told me that he would have started a PhD earlier. Even though he doesn’t need one he told me that it allows you to do even more things. An interesting advice that he gave me is that you don’t need to be afraid to be overeducated because if you apply for a job that doesn’t require a higher degree then just don’t add that to your resume.

I think that If I decide to pursue an MBA in the future, I will start it after gaining a few years of professional experience so that I have real life experience to write about and discuss during my classes. But I would like to have the successful career that he has at a very young age.

One of the things that he told me is that he regretted was that after his master he basically took the first offer, and it was a very bad decision. This job was for a tech company. So, know that I am about to start my career I will make sure that I take my time selecting the job that I want and not just accepting the first offer I receive.

I think that I need to develop my conflict management skills. Has a director he mentioned that he had to deal with difficult employees, and it was thanks to his calms personality that he was able to manage those employees without letting things escalate. I feel that I need to learn how to address different situations properly. When the employee is upset, using a calm voice to calm him out and knowing how to be more direct and use a more serious tone when I need to correct and employee.

I don’t know if it changes the way I perceive my immediate future, but it gave a lot of insight in what I should expect as well as things that I should avoid doing and how I should go about continuing my education if that were something that I would like to do in the future.

1. Share your key insights from everything you learned about Buyer Personas this week.

There were many things that I learned about the buyer personas this week. I learned that it is important to understand that the majority of the decisions that customers make when making a purchase come from emotions and not logic, so it is important for marketers to send a message that will make the target customer emotionally involve with your product or service. I also liked the marketing wheel that Stormie showed us during the presentation since it allows you to see where you need to improve has a marketing team. I was especially interested in also removing all other options away from your product or service so you are the only option that customers will think of when making a purchasing decision. This however is not easy since you have to study your company, your services and products and what makes you better than others. In one of the short videos that we had to watch this week I also learned that your job as a marketers is not to change how your customer thinks but understanding it and adjusting your message to your customer way of thinking.

2. Choose the company you currently work for OR a company/nonprofit you would love to work for in the future. Develop at least one persona for their target audience. Perhaps it’s a company or brand where YOU are the target audience (buyer) and you create a Buyer Persona about “you.”

I am definitely the target audience for Apple products. I feel like a persona for them would be a young individual, who you use Apple products for their college degree, job or personal use. It would usually be someone who is usually a little better off financially and has a little more money to spend on quality products. The buyer persona cares about products that are reliable and also would protect them in terms of privacy.

What insights did you glean from the webinar you attended/watched? How will/can you apply these new insights/knowledge?

I attended “organizing 101” by Nonprofit Learning Lab. The purpose of organizing is to bring people together to build power. It is also transformational, since it is not only about getting what you wanted but also transforming the community, otherwise you are not moving forward. Organizing is also based on consent and consensus, meaning that the strongest campaigns are base on relationships, which are is formed by using consent and consensus. It is also important for the leaders of the movement to be close to the problem. Organizing is all about strategy and some of the elements are: how will this campaign advance our values of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, what are the goals, what organizations are at work, what are the constituents, allies and opponents are going to think or do, who is the target of the campaign, and what tactics are most effective?

I think that what I learned with this webinar is going to help me motivating and leading my employees in the future once I become a manager. I would try to use the elements of an organizing strategy to be able to set my goals and objectives to rally my employees to work with me on achieving them.

Kickstarter Worksheet Alex Cabriza

1. LinkedIn Learning (Sales Fundamentals + Preparing for a Career in Sales): What similarities did you notice between Sales Fundamentals and Marketing Fundamentals (Week 7)? Which part of the sales cycle are sales professionals typically the weakest? Based on the wisdom shared in “Preparing for a Career in Sales,” what specific tips/areas do you think will be most important for you to remember/work on personally?

One of the biggest similarities is that both required a certain level of trust and both try to get that trust from their customers. It is also the weakest part of the sales cycle. A lot of salespeople want to jump straight to their sales pitch without taking the time to talk with their customers a figure out their problems and needs, and create that sense of trust. I think that for me personally, I need to work on learning how to get to the root of my customer’s problem and then using that information to make sure I explain how much value my product or service will have in solving the problem.

2. Sandler Training: Which training/webinar topic did you watch? Why does what you learn, matter? How will it help you in your career?

I watched “2021 Playbook for New Sales Managers”. Because what I learn now will help me throughout my career. In this particular case, I will be a lot more ready than my colleagues to transition to a management position.

3. SalesPower Webinar: What is one key takeaway or strategy you gleaned? How could you apply/practice what you learned? Did you connect with anyone from the webinar on LinkedIn and/or write a thank you? 😉

The one key takeaway for me was that the metric that will best your success in sales is the amount of meetings one has scheduled by calendar day. Whenever I get a role as a sales representative I will make sure I schedule as many meeting as I can with many different prospective customers so I can know where they are in the buying process. I didn’t connect with anyone and neither wrote a thank you card.

I chose Harry’s Old Kettle Pub and Grill. I wanted to do a Facebook post to make my customers aware of the addition of food offerings, But this can be adapted for and Instagram post as well. I decide to look at the logo to decide what type of background and what colors to use in my ad. I notice the the logo had a red circle surrounding it and that is why I chose this template. I also like the colors of the background and the font because it is very fallish so is perfect for this season. One thing that I know makes me look more deeply into an ad on Facebook is the picture of a delicious food item so that is why I selected to post the picture of Harry’s Philly Cheesesteak  that I got from their website. I believe that all of those working age people that live in or around Wabash that I am targeting will like this post.

1. What stood out to you during the Marketing Fundamentals mini-course?

Unfortunately I already used my on month free trial in another marketing course and I couldn’t watch the video without having to reactivate my LinkedIn learning and paying $30 for the month which I am not willing to do at the moment.

2. What course(s) caught your attention in LinkedIn Learning that would fit into your Professional Development Plan and Career Goals? How could you fit this into your schedule? Will you?

“Become a Social Media Marketer” sounds very interesting, especially with how important social media is for marketing these days. Definitely an interesting tool to have as a marketer today.

“Become a Content Strategist” also caught my attention because this course will teach you how to reach your marketing target. How to create content that keeps your audience interested in your product is so important and is one of the areas of marketing that changes the quickest due to all the advancement in technology and how customers consume information.

Well, the only way to fit it in your schedule is by seen the value that it has and making it a priority. It is also important to schedule the days and time you will spend on it and sticking to it. I think that it is important to divide the course in to sections that won’t be too long in order to not get burned out by the course.

I don’t I will at the moment just because these course require you to invest your time and money and for me it is important to first start my career and notice which of these will make sense for me to invest in.

3. Small Business Revolution: Wabash (S1E1)  Out of the six businesses to be featured in Season 1, which one would you be most interested in helping as a marketer? What did you think about, learn from, relate to in this first episode?

I think that the art shop will be definitely be the most challenging one just because it is the most niche type of store and in an area that is struggling. Usually people will spend money on art when they have a lot of discretionary money available, which doesn’t seem the case for most people living in Wabash. I think that this will be definitely be the one that will teach me the most as a marketing student.

I thought that it was a very well done video that threw some light into the the struggles and reality of today’s small towns. It reminded us of the lovely life that these people have in their small community versus the busy and competitive life in the cities and surrounding areas. There is a lot to be learn from these small towns.

The main focus of the webinar was to see how Covid had impacted field marketing since this is the area of marketing in charge of the marketing events or promotions that are done usually face-to-face. Clearly because of the pandemic, they had to move a lot of these in-person events online. It was a difficult change to make, especially with some events that simply cannot be made online such a wine tasting or a dinner night event.

The most beneficial thing that came up with all these changes is that they saw an increase in their reach. Now a lot more people from other countries were able to join their online events through their computers.

Some of the questions asked were:

How has field marketing changed over the last 18 months and what does it look like today?

What was your biggest win during the pandemic?

What are the challenges that field marketers face?

What are the biggest challenges we face today? And what might we expect for the future?

I would like to interview the director of admissions at Johnson County Community college. His name is Pete Belk. I would like to ask hime the following questions:

• What are somethings about your career that you would do differently?
• What are the things that you like/dislike the most about your job?
• Tell me about a time where you had a difficult employee and how did you manage the situation?
• Tell me about the best candidate that you ever hired… what made him so special?
• How do you lead?
• How do you motivate your team?
• How do you keep yourself motivated everyday?
• What is the best way to deal with conflict at the workplace?
• What are the top characteristics that you look on an employee?
• Tell me about a crazy experience at work?

I would say that in general, any projects, internships or volunteer work that has a good amount of leadership opportunity attached to them. In our field of marketing I would think that an internship that allows you to get your hands and experience with different areas of the marketing department will be very beneficial. It will give you a better idea of what kind of job you will like to have with your marketing degree.

I have done some projects with my business fraternity during my time at KU that helped me learn how to work in a team and also how to plan and host events. I helped with different recruitment events and activities as well as workshops. I do wish I had been more involved with different competitions that the business school offered. Some were related to sales and some with leadership.

I think that the more certifications related to leadership and many of the marketing tools (marketing programs) you get the more confident you will become. So I would focus on those, to grow as a leader and learn how to use the different marketing tools. I think that I will spend that hour between learning more about leadership and how to use excel and other technical marketing programs.

Mark Cuban is someone I would like to interview because of this previous role as a CEO of Sprint, a local Kansas corporation. I would probably focus more on his development as a leader and also to understand what a day to day looks like for a CEO of a very large company.

Another person that I think would be interesting to interview would Warren Buffett. I think his level of experience is hard to match. He lived and work through so many economical, governmental, and cultural changes that I think he will have a lot of interesting to share with a youngster like me. I am also very interesting in investing so I would love to ask him many questions about that too.