Batch 7: Thank you letter

To Eily, Cara, and Bobette,

Though I'm more on the Bob side of the unusual name spectrum, Thank you for trusting me to be an asset to the wonderful tight nit team you have put together. Working with all of you every day has been an amazing experience.
Eily, thanks for being the best work neighbor/ Crab Person (even though the one got eaten by the other two- it was traumatic for us all).  All the training you have given me has been invaluable.
Cara, your determination and commitment to detail is something we could not do without here! Though I don't want to work in sales (or work out at the gym) in the slightest, watching you work this semester has made me more determined than ever to try to work as hard everyday as you.
Bobette, thank you for being our fearless leader. It is so refreshing to work for someone who exemplifies leadership as well as being so connected to the inner workings of our team. I hope I am as superb of a leader as you when I get to that point.

You guys are the best!
Nicol

Batch 7: Most important things I've learned

I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to work with the wonderful people at INFLUENCE AT WORK this semester. It not only has been a wonderful learning environment, but it has given me a chance to reflect about where I'm going.
I think the most important thing I've learned this semester is in regards to where I see myself in the future and what I want out of my career.
As I may have mentioned in previous postings, I have spent the last 5 years in animal welfare and even chose my major based on my intentions to stay in that field forever. My plans changed when I had an extremely negative experience while working at a shelter here in the Valley. I landed at INFLUENCE AT WORK entirely by chance, and it has caused me to re evaluate what is really important (as far as my professional aspirations).
The biggest take aways in this aspect have been the huge differences a positive work environment can make in my overall happiness. For the past several years I was feeling overwhelmingly stressed and might as well have written the book Non- Profit burn out. I was miserable doing what I loved to do. The work I do with INFLUENCE AT WORK isn't as fulfilling as finding a loving home for an animal found half dead a month earlier, but I find myself immensely happier doing it. I genuinely like and trust every one I work with. I am doing the type of work I enjoy (administrative), and I genuinely see room for growth without having to fight a political leadership to get there.
Basically, the most important thing I have learned this semester is how I can love going into work everyday without sacrificing a secure financial status and stress to get there.

Batch 6 - Freewrite: Holidays!

The lineup...

One of Dr. Cialdini's 6 principles of influence is the idea of reciprocity. In the most basic of terms, the means doing a something nice for someone will make them more willing to do something nice for you. From a business as well as interpersonal perspective, this largely means simply being nice. Dr. Cialdni recommends simply telling other people what you like about them (if they wore a nice shirt, tell them so!) as well as buying them a T-Shirt if it has their favorite sports team on it.

One of the nice things about working in such close quarters with Dr. Cialdini and his wife is seeing them practice what they preach (in every aspect, even though we are focusing on the reciprocity one at the moment). During the holidays, there are about 50 people to get gifts for. The last 6 months of developing my spreadsheet and shipping skills have all come to this. 

They bought me a special gift wrapping hat!

Initially, I was given 3 lists of people to buy for and what was given to them last year: a personal list, a inter company list, and a client list. The first thing I had to do was combine them into one file (still three spreadsheets, but I combined the documents so I can flip through them rapidly) and match formatting. Some people call it "neurotic", I call it "organized". In the end, there were several columns: Name, Address (international limited what we gave), 2014 gift, interests, 2015 gift, and "done?". Two of us teamed up to Facebook stalk anyone we didn't know well and added our findings to the "interests" column. 

About 1/3 of the gifts going out for
delivery!

One of my low priority tasks throughout the year is browsing Amazon deals for things that would be good general holiday gifts as well as holding on to any promising catalogs. A few weeks ago, we got an ad in the mail for a website called "giftbasketsoverseas.com". Normally, even for a small item, shipping internationally is over $100, plus the cost of the gift. Though this website didn't have the best deals on the gift baskets themselves, the amount we save on shipping was well worth it. Needless to say, all our international recipients received something from this website. 

They never end!

One of the more frequent Amazon "Deals of the Day" is portable power packs. We have a closet full of solar chargers, cell phone chargers, and Car jump-starters (I got one of these about 6 months ago and am very pleased!). We gave the outdoorsy clients solar chargers to use while backpacking, and several of them got the car jump-starters.  We've also included a few makeup brushes and flame-less candles. 

This is a huge undertaking, and I'm looking forward to combining my love for spreadsheets with my love for the Holidays!

Batch 6 - Freewrite: Amazon

The Tip Card Mug

When you go onto Amazon, you may notice that some of the products are "Fulfilled
by Amazon". When a company does a significant amount of online sales, they may choose to become an Amazon Advantage customer.  Before I started at INFLUENCE AT WORK, they did all the grunt work to get our products on Amazon. Once every couple weeks, I need to send in a bulk order of a product directly to Amazon. Recently, we started doing more frequent orders of our Tip Card Mugs.  Though doing more business is always great, we had to send them directly from our office via FedEx. This was tedious for me (trying to package them so they do not break), and for the customer who had to pay a higher shipping and handling fee - especially if they were international.

What our UPC code looks like

We decided it was time to get them onto Amazon with our other two higher selling products. To do this, My first step was to get them a UPC code. This was exceptionally easy as we already had an account with the official distributor of the codes. Surprisingly the most difficult part of the whole process was getting the tiny image of the code onto labels that were fulfillment customized to that shape. I finally fit about 36 on a sheet of label paper and printed them out. I then had to package the mugs in our special order Styrofoam, stick the new UPC sticker on them and tape them shut - all very time consuming.
Moral of the story, we were able to send 100 cups to 3 different Amazon  warehouses and have already sold a couple!

Batch 6: Strengths, and Weaknesses

Everyone and everything has strengths and weaknesses. INFLUENCE AT WORK is no different. That being said, this is my first job outside the Animal Welfare industry and have a ton to learn in terms of my professional development as well as Dr. Cialdini's 40 years of research to catch up on. This learning curve has definitely allowed me to see the many strengths of the group rather than the weaknesses. 
One of my favorite thing about working at IAW is the environment. My last job was all backstabbing and drama. At IAW everybody gets along. It helps that there are only 4 of us in the office, but it is nice to work in such a relaxed welcoming environment. Further, they also do a good job of not over extending themselves. There is only 3 people in the office because they have streamlined their process, and minimized costs. They also have been doing this work for years and years, so they have perfected their art through trial and error. 
Like I said before, I think it is too soon for me to say one way or another how I would run the company differently. It is especially difficult as the purpose of the company is to assist Dr. Cialdini and market his research. That aspect is going to have to be left unanswered for now!

P.S, I apologize for the short, picture-less post! I have been so busy during work, and with other assignments in the evenings that I haven't had the chance to do much else!

Batch 5: Freewrite - Research

For the sake of Consistency (one of the principles in addition to handy verbiage), all of our trainers use the same power point presentation when conducting a workshop. Though we have made small changes over the years, many of the examples are a bit outdated.  With Dr. Cialdini's new book set to come out soon, we decided it was time for a modernization. 

Our Vice President has been working with a graphic designer to give the power point and matching workshop a total overhaul. This has been difficult as she has had to make the designer an expert in our content for him to be able to design what we need. 

We have also been on the prowl for new examples for the content. I have spent the last several days on the QVC, HSN and EVINE websites to try to find a video (or videos) that exemplify a specific concept. This has been difficult as the hosts of the shows often use several of the principles in one sentence rather than focusing on using one to sell the product.  Once I found a few videos that would suit our needs, we had to gain rights to them. I had to do some investigating to find the contact person for each of those websites, then email them asking for permission to use the videos. We had to include what, when, where, why, and inquire as to the cost. 

Overall, A lot of work went into legally showing a video as an example in a classroom setting. 

Batch 5: How my work demonstrates Public Service or Urban Governance

When I first considered jobs outside the public or non profit sector, I was pretty sure I would find something to teach me skills I could then apply to a public sector job after graduation. I ended up here at INFLUENCE AT WORK and I am very lucky to have landed here versus another private sector company.
One of the major focuses of the workshops and training we provide other private sector companies is ethics. We stress in every step of the process why ethical marketing tactics and large scale corporate

social responsibility is important. It is not only important to your bottom line (bringing in new customers, and influencing brand loyalty), but it is important to overall efficacy. We discuss how a company cannot be perceived by consumers to be an untrustworthy, sketchy company if they genuinely are not. For example, the Monsanto corporation has many questionable ethical business practices, so no amount of charitable donation and positive PR will help that. When you look at Costco, however, you see that ethical business practices go much farther.
Currently, our workshops and keynotes are very expensive and out of the range for most non profits and public organizations to be able to afford. We are currently working on plans to help reduce the cost to be able to bring valuable training to organizations that would benefit from them. Once this is achieved, we are also hoping to custom tailor workshops to fundraising, grant writing, working with public funding, etc, as to better help the organizations that do so much for the community.
Overall, when working for INFLUENCE AT WORK, I feel almost
as if I am working for a non profit.