Why did I choose this company? / How did I found out about this company?

I did not find this company by stageplaza.nl or other websites. I found this company actually with
the help of my little brother. He has a friend het met at school and one day his father came
to pick him up and told me that he needed an intern in a couple months. And he specifically
needed a Junior Account manager, so then I said 'here I am, at your service' and that is simply
said how I got to this company.

Before I knew this, I was already looking for other internships, but when I got this opportunity I took it with both hands, I did not exactly know what the company did and what I was going to do, but I did know that I could learn a lot in this business. 

Tasks and responsibilities:

In the beginning we had a conversation and I told my coach what I wanted to learn, I want to learn how to write a professional email and phone calls, we did not do the phone calls because we did not have enough time for that, that is because the company's industry is on such a high end technical level that I wouldn't be able to have a conversation with someone, they mostly would be chemists.

After 2/3 weeks I was responsible for sending out emails to customers or competitors. When I got a message back I needed to update the status in an Excel sheet that was already made, so that we know what the latest information we have is.

 

Together with another intern at the company we made two competitor analyses, we worked in Google Sheets so that we could work better together. We made a good overview so that we could easily explain it to others. We made sure that we only put in important information;

• Name of the company, to know who else sells that exact product
• Product information, to see if it is the exact same product, because else you cannot compare them
• Pricing of both companies, see if Caplinq needs to up or down their prices
• USP, search by competitors if they have something special to offer and see if Caplinq can offer the same or something better.

It was a good thing for us to do as we did not needed to know exactly what the product is or does, we just needed to see what other companies sell them and for what price etc.

I learned from making the competitors analyses, so with that knowledge I made several databases, ranging from customer databases to financial ones, and another competition analysis on my own. The first database I did, I got 3 completely different sheets with information about the customer, product and measurements that they ordered/wanted, when they were last contacted etc. I started with a clean one and put all the information in it, which my company coach was very happy with.

Caplinq now has an Excel file with all the customers in it and their information and can later edit the file or add new customers to it.

 

I would also do some other things;

• Making invoices
• Making and sending out quotes
• Doing research for other projects

Learning Outcome

What I learned from being an intern at this company are quite a few things.

First of all I learned how different work days are from school days. The days are obviously longer and you have more to do and need to focus more. On school it is kind of your own decision if you make your homework or study for a test, but at your internship you must do stuff like that or something goes wrong, a company is depending on your work.

 

Secondly I learned how to make a professional sales letter. My internship coach and I practiced with that. For my first letter, I needed to write it all by myself. We looked over it and it was a very long story, which is not how a sales letter should be. My company coach gave me guidelines on how to make it better; use bullet points to show the customer their advantages, and keep it short and simple.                This helped me a lot with my letters to come. 

 

Together with another intern at the company we made several competitors analyses. These were for several products; tapioca starch, different kind of tapes, and solder spheres. We did not needed to know exactly what the product is or does, because we only needed to find out what other companies sell them and for what price etc.

The customer databases and the competition analysis's were both made in Excel files via Google, so by these exercises I learned how to work with that program and how to make it organized so that people can find the information they need easily.

Ups

One of the ups has to be that the people working at Caplinq were very helpful, and not in a way that they do everything for you when you ask something, but helpful in a way that they sit with you, explain it, and correct you when it is not exactly right. That was very nice to have because if they would do it for me they might as well do it themselves in the first place and secondly, I wouldn't have learned from it.         Another thing they did was helping me with asking me questions, fore example, I did not quite understand it and then they would ask me ''How would you do this?'' or ''What do you think the best way is to do this?''. With this method I kind of figured it out by myself, and later on I used this method to figure it out by myself, so that I did not have to ask anyone.

One thing they also did, was simply giving compliments, and not only to me but also to the other intern and just the colleagues in general. I found it very nice to receive compliments for the work I had done, which motivates me to do my other work even better.

Downs

One of the downs was that when we practiced with the sales letter, that it took a lot of time for me to understand it and make a good one, and in the end it did not even work out that well. But that was mostly because of myself, and maybe because we, my company coach and I, had too high expectations for it.

Conclusion

At the end I can proudly say that I achieved all of my goals, apart from the handling complaints. But I made a lot of progress compared to my first day. At first I did not know anything, and day by day I learned more and more. Eventually I was able to do some of my tasks on my own and became my responsibility.

The emails and sales letter was a challenge for me, but in with help from my coach I managed to handle it pretty well. Something else I need to work on, is asking for help or asking questions. And bringing a notebook with me and making notes is also a thing I need to work on. No matter how many times I tell myself that I will remember it, I'll forget it still.

The making of the databases and the competition analyses was easier for me, at some point you have kind of a rhythm in it. In the beginning it was a challenge for me, but when I did 3 customers I understood how to do it. The same goes for the competition analyses, the first one I did with Jonathan, and the other 2 I did on my own because I had to do the same from the first one. Those were the things I could do well.