After talking to Marshall about the game plan for this week one thing became very clear to me, this was going to be a tough week. As I was very busy spending time at the office and on the road, I couldn't really find the time to keep you guys up-to-date on what's going on in my life.
Monday, 12/03/2012
As I spent my sunday chilaxing in Cold Spring, I was completely rested out to start my second week at the office. My day couldn't have begun any better: a beautiful sunshiny day with a temperature forecast of 22°C. The day itself wasn't very special as there were no meeting scheduled for that day. I spent my time conducting desk research on the business model for Gilt, a company who sells high-end products at a discount price; the same concept as Groupon but then with expensive products. On this site products are offered such as cars, expensive clothing, big holiday vacations...
Depicted here below are some pictures from the office, so that you can have an idea in what environment I am working in.
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| The office from the outside |
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| My desk |
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| Conference room |
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| My boss Marshall Mermell |
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| The logo of the company |
Tuesday was a very packed day with two meetings to attend to. A first meeting was with the editor of magazines for high-end products. Magazines you won't find in your regular kiosk our press-shop. Those magazines are aimed at very wealthy people and are only to be bought via a subscription. The magazine in question was targeted at people owning a private jet. The reason for our visit was to pitch the editor if it was possible for B&B Pools to place an ad in those magazines. As we were on a tight schedule, we were soon on our way to the following meeting with B&B Pools and Spa center.
The latter was a very interesting meeting as we discussed stuff on which I had to work on during the week . Such as the use and implementation of Hubspot for the new website of the company. As I am on a non-disclosure agreement with the school and the company, I am not allowed to go more into detail here. The meeting lasted about 2hours, which finished around 1pm. Afterwards we had some lunch and we headed back to the office to work.
It was again a beautiful day here in the USA with temperatures rising to 73°F/23°C, proof of which is depicted here below.
Wednesday, 14/03
Yesterday I had to wake up very early because the day was jam-packed with meetings with current and prospect clients. In the morning we met with Doc Rick to host a radio show on Hormones and Feng Shui. For the latter one we had to make contact with a Feng Shui specialist based in California, however due to some technical issues the we had to record and re-record the show three times; luckily everything turned out to be fine. Here are some pictures of Doc Rick and Marshall hosting the radio show.
In the afternoon we had some lunch at a typical diner on the I-84. Something very common here in the States is that almost all the diners are owned and exploited by Greek people. The restaurant may be owned by Greek people, but the food is still typical American.
In the afternoon we had meeting with a potential client in the Orange County Business Accelerator. The people we were meeting had developed a magnificent product called Frugaldoo but were lacking the managerial experience to really get promote the product and raise its awareness. The meeting lasted three hours in which we explained them how we were going to help them on solving this problem.
On the way home I shot some magnificent pictures of the Hudson area. After a very intense but educating they we arrived at the office around 7pm, finished our to-do list and went home afterwards for a good night sleep.
Thursday, 15/03
Today was, unlike the past three days, cloudy and fresh and we had a meeting to attend to in the early morning. It was a very interesting meeting with a start-up company on which we have to create a go-to market strategy and then hopefully implement our strategy. As I have only attended meeting of which the business is a clients already for so many years, it was really interesting and fascinating to see how MKTworks, Inc. can help these people bring their product/service to the market.
The rest of the day we spent at the office revising the meeting we had this morning and sharing some ideas with each other. I also had to conduct some research on similar concepts on Groupon and Gilt. I came to the conclusion there are plenty of similar concepts, maybe not as popular as Groupon but they are out there and thus can form some threat.
Tomorrow I have to get up really early because I have fill out some form for my social security number at the SSN-office in Poughkeepsie. As this place is usually crowded with people we decided to go very early so that we are the first one's in and first one's out. We also have a meeting to attend to at 10am and a Skype-session with the KHLeuven at 11am. I also have to do my laundry tomorrow, so busy day ahead tomorrow.
This weekend I'll be spending St-Patricks day in the city to watch the huge parade on 5th avenue as well as to discover other parts of New York where I haven't been before. Sunday you will all be reading about it in my blog. See you then!
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| View from the outside on my apartment |
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| Ron 'sceptic in chief' (81 years old) |
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