My current company is a leader in its field, both in
technology and in sales.
It has competent management and qualified employees.
What it lacks, however, is the personal touch that I
see here at your company.
One friend of mine who works here told me about your
company and how it helps the community.
I also know that your employees enjoy being
involved with each other socially.
The position I've been most satisfied with is that of
Charity Liaison for my company.
Most years, we gave a holiday party for needy families.
Seeing the children's faces light up when they saw the
simple decorations and gifts we worked on made the long
hours worthwhile.
The first job I had was as an interviewer for a marketing
research company - you know, one of those people in
malls with clipboards.
I've never been a shy person, but this job taught me how
to present myself with confidence to total strangers.
I had to be polite, and accept rejection gracefully
when it occurred.
I also had to be thorough and accurate in filling out
the questionnaires.
This involvement with marketing research helped me
make the decision to minor in Marketing in college.
When a company I used to work for changed locations, I
found myself with a one-hour commute instead of the twenty
minutes I was used to.
I suggested to my boss that I arrive at work two hours
early, and leave two hours early, each day.
By doing this, I avoided the traffic, my disposition
improved dramatically, and I became a much more
productive employee.
When I began my career in sales, I was with a company
that had only two salespeople.
This meant a lot of quick stops visiting each of our
customers and not much time getting to know our customers
on an individual basis.
After a year on the job, I suggested that with two
additional sales persons, the company would be able to
excel at individualized customer service.
Six months after we put the plan in to effect, sales
increased by 30% and customer satisfaction nearly tripled.
In my previous job, I convinced my manager that we
should begin using the computer that we had bought
a year earlier.
Up until then, it had been collecting dust because no
one there knew how to use it.
I developed a database for tracking all the information
we needed about our customers, using software that was
already loaded onto the computer.
As a result, our paperwork time was cut in half, and our
written communications looked much more professional.
One of the programs I initiated was to save the
rejected pages from the copier, pad them, and use
them as scrap paper.
The local printer agreed to pad these for free as their
part of helping the environment.
So we not only saved money on purchasing scratch pads,
we also helped to save a few trees in the process.
When my boss was looking for a better way to meet
customers' needs, he would come to me, because I was the
one in contact with customers on a daily basis.
The most successful idea I had was to contact the
customers after the sale was made, to see if they liked
the products or if there was anything more I could
do for them.
Up until then, many of the customers only heard from
sales people when a sale was made.
The customers liked the personal attention.
We increased our repeat business by 58% in
the first year.
I am a member of a local charity organization.
We wanted to raise money to fund our activities, and I
suggested that we create a cookbook as a
fundraising project.
Four other people from our group volunteered to help
collect and proofread the recipes.
I oversaw the entire production of the cookbook.
We sold 90% of the cookbooks before the end of the first
month, and the remainder of them at a craft fair
in the summer.
There was no initial cash outlay, and we raised a
considerable amount of money.