PLRB Conference Video

Jaime and I created this Marketing Video last week to post on our website in order to share the Bike Ceremony with Adjusters. We had a blast creating the video, but unfortunately I am a little tired of the song now... :(

Click on the link below and watch the video on our new CRS Blog!
http://crstemphousing.wordpress.com/

Action Plan

My internship with CRS Temporary Housing has far surpassed any expectations I had prior to starting. I hoped that my internship would provide me with knowledge that could not have otherwise been earned from a book, would challenge me personally and professionally and would teach me new skills necessary to succeed in this industry. My time with CRS Temporary Housing has met my expectations as well as provided me with confidence to perform tasks and projects that I otherwise thought impossible.

Upon completion of my internship in May, I am hoping to grow into a full-time position with benefits with CRS Temporary Housing. Ideally, I would like to stay in the Marketing Communication department and take on new responsibilities, such as event and conference coordination, with a new title. I am keeping my fingers crossed, however, if that position is not available immediately, I would like to explore other areas of the company as well. CRS Temporary Housing is an amazing company that is employee-centered and I am confident that any position in this company would be a blessing.

Last Thursday Sara Owen visited CRS Temporary Housing and spent an hour inquiring about my internship with myself and my supervisor Meagan. I shared some of my greatest strengths and challenges during this internship with Sara. I mentioned that my greatest strength was my growth of responsibility and taking on new projects, along with a new skill for time management and asking questions. I also mentioned my greatest weakness is knowing my limitations within my job at CRS Temporary Housing. It has been a daily challenge and humbling experience knowing just how far I can push myself. Being a “go-getter” I have had to remind myself that I cannot become the CEO in a matter of weeks, rather pay my dues and slowly grow with promotions.

When Sara and I spoke, I mentioned that one skill that sets the three full-time employees apart from myself is their knowledge of Photoshop & Illustrator and Sara mentioned that ASU offers classes that teach you how to use these software programs on all four campuses. I plan to research these educational opportunities in hopes of adding these skills to my resume before officially applying for a full-time Marketing position with CRS Temporary Housing. By continuously learning new skills, I hope to propel my professional success and continue to grow with CRS Temporary Housing.

I am pleased to share that once Sara’s Site Visitation was over I received an email from the Vice President of CRS Temporary Housing, Fawn asking me to evaluate myself in various areas of my job on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being expert. Below is my response:

Rate myself:
5-Lit fulfillment
3-View/Group creation in SFDC
4-Travel coordination
2-IYA email distribution
5-Collateral preparation for sales travel
Average Event coordination-3
3-Conference
1-Golf event
4-Cocktails/Happy Hour/Social Event
4-Unit meeting
There are some areas where I feel I have more room for improvement and growth, especially with IYA emails & Event Coordination. Shannon has gone over the process of IYA email distribution with me once before, but it is something I would need more training in before I would feel confident enough to do on my own. Along with IYA emails, event coordination is an area with need for improvement since I have very little experience with that as well.

Here is Fawn’s email response:

Hi Brianna!

Wonderful to hear! I am very excited to tell you that I want to give you more responsibility! It would be great to see you perform at expert level by the end of your internship so that we can evaluate you as such for a long-term position (provided you’re interested, of course).

I have asked Roxanne to provide SFDC training options for me so that you can learn to use SFDC as necessary for all MarCom functionalities. I will let you know what we come up with. In the meantime, I do want you to shadow each and every thing that Shannon does in SFDC so that you can take a portion of that responsibility from her. I will send an email out to both of you communicating this.

Additionally, I think the AICI golf outing next month will give you ample insight as to how a tourney works and what you need to do behind the scenes to prepare appropriately.

Thanks, Brianna, for being such a dynamo on our team!

Fawn Cheng
Vice President
CRS Temporary Housing

Pictures from the PLRB Conference

The girls posing with the bike they built backwards.... the brakes are backwards and so are the shocks! :)

Adjusters helping the Sales girls meet their goal of 20 Bikes.

My supervisor Meagan building a Disney bike for one lucky little girl.

Fawn & Meagan pose with a red bike. Fawn is my direct point of contact these days now that Meagan has been promoted to Business Development Manager.

The girls looking cute on day two of the conference. Meagan, Marisa, Rachelle, Fawn, & Erika.

All the bikes lined up and ready for the give-away ceremony.

At the give-away ceremony with the children from the Boys and Girls Club.

Matt from the Boys & Girls Club explaining a program the children are currently a part of.

Fawn presenting the bikes to the children.

Identify The Problem

Name: Brianna Vasquez
Major: Tourism Development & Management
Internship Site: CRS Temporary Housing
Brief Description of position: Marketing/Communications Intern

IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM: Lack of organization in the Mar/Com pod.

THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM: The Mar/Com pod is located directly across the hall from the President of the Company. There are two round tables in the center of the pod that we use as work space for projects and storage for materials. Under the tables are various boxes, flyers, baskets, and random collateral all in disarray.

WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM: This clutter under the desk is not appealing to the eye and makes the Mar/Com department appear unorganized. It is also very distracting and in clear view of the president of the company. The problem is, we need all the materials on the desk and below the desk throughout the day so they need to be accessible.

HOW THIS AFFECTS or DOES NOT AFFECT YOUR POSITION: This directly affects my position because I am the one person who mainly uses the items below the desks. I am frequently trying to organize the boxes and materials but the use of others causes them to become unorganized and cluttered.

THE BEST SOLUTION: I have thought up various ways to create storage under the table using bins and baskets to display the materials in a more organized fashion, which will make the pod, look much cleaner and will make the President of the company much happier.

IMPLEMENTATION: I spoke with the Presidents secretary last week about ordering some sort of organization system below the tables and she mentioned we might be able to custom design a workspace with storage that will be neatly hidden from the Presidents desk. We will be meeting with a designer later next week to discuss the design plans. I am very excited!

ASSESSMENT: Once the organizational storage workspace has been installed I will be in charge of organizing the materials and maintaining the cleanliness of the Mar/Com pod.

PLRB Conference

The sales girls left Sunday for Seattle, WA for the PLRB conference and I was so pleased that everything came together in time for this event. I wish I was able to attend and see everything that I helped create, but the girls have cameras and the new flip video camera with them to document everything. I am so excited to share those with you once I receive them.

The Picture Below:
The girls are at the PLRB Conference and busy working on building 20 bikes in 2 days! While wearing white I might add! :)

I will continue to post pictures as they are sent to me!

CLICK HERE Campaign

I have been working with our VP Fawn on our latest campaign the CLICK HERE campaign the past few weeks and have really enjoyed the experience and the positive feedback I have been getting from everyone involved.

We recently purchased this neat little Flip Video camera and have used it in our latest campaign. The Flip is easy to use and when you are finished filming your video you can pop out the attached USB and load the video directly onto your computer!

The campaign started as a cute little way to introduce our new BDM (my supervisor) Meagan to her territories. Her business card features a photo of her with her long hair before she donated it to Locks of Love. Below is the flier that we used to email to the adjusters and if you click any where on the flier it takes you to the video playing on our website. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to do it on our blog, so instead I posted the flier and the video separately.

Check it out!

Below is Meagan's adorable CLICK HERE Campaign Video. It is rather cheeky!! Meagan, Fawn, & I had a blast coming up with the verbage and filming! I hope you get a little laugh out of it!

20 Bikes in 2 Days

Five girls from our sales team will be attending the PLRB conference in March in Seattle, WA. We were in a meeting three weeks ago brainstorming ideas of how to get adjusters to our booth. We wanted a creative activity or eye catching display that would bring out more adjusters to our booth versus our competitor's booths.

We are celebrating 20 years of service and thought a great theme for this year's booth would be "Celebrating 20 Years of Service" and we decided this would be the year that we gave back. During the two days at the conference, the 5 girls from our sales team will be building 20 bikes to symbolize each of the years we have been a company. We will draw adjusters to our booth by simply asking them to stop over and help us build a bike.

We sent out a mass email to our adjusters with the subject line: Will you be there? And the body of the email simply stated: "Will you be at the PLRB conference in Seattle, WA on March 23rd & March 24th. If so, stop by our booth and help us with our heart warming activity." Right away we had many responses from people saying they were coming, but more so, they were curious to know what our "heart warming" activity was going to be. This planted the seed and helps Market our booth!

At the end of the two days we will be donating the 20 bikes to local underprivileged children. The day following the close of the conference we wanted some sort of bike give away ceremony where we present the bikes to the children. This is where I stepped in. It was my job to source the children we would be donating the bikes to and to plan some sort of short give away ceremony on Wed. March 25th.

I searched high and low and left many un-returned voice mails and finally got in touch with M.W. at the downtown Seattle Boys and Girls Club. After communicating for over a week we came up with the 20 kids from two nearby Clubs that we will be building the bikes for.

Boys 13-16 yrs: 6 bikes total
Girls 13-16 yrs: 4 bikes total
Boy 12-13 yrs: 1 bike total
Girl 12-13 yrs: 1 bike total
Boy 10 yrs: 1 bike total
Girl 10 yrs: 1 bike total
Boy 8 yrs: 1 bike total
Girl 8 yrs: 1 bike total
Boy 6 yrs: 2 bikes total
Girl 6 yrs: 2 bikes total

Total bikes: 20

Next, using the ages and gender of the children I had to source the bikes. We wanted to be sure that the bikes we purchased we not already assembled and we needed to figure out how to get 20 un-assembled bikes to the conference. Unfortunately, we cannot have them delivered to the meeting space because there are very specific rules and fees when it comes to booth supplies. So instead we purchased the bikes from Wal-Mart.com and ordered them "site to store" which means we basically bought them online and we are having them delivered to the Wal-Mart closest to our hotel in Seattle. We can then arrive at the "site to store" area in the Wal-Mart and pick up our already purchased bikes. :)

Next I had to source a place to hold the bike give away ceremony. I could not do it where the PLRB conference is taking place, so I called the Catering and Event Planning Department at the Seattle Sheraton where we will be staying in Seattle. M.W. from Boys and Girls Club will be bringing ten of the twenty children to the ceremony so our sales girls can present them with the bikes.

I have been a busy busy BUSY girl these past few weeks playing phone tag and researching and requesting permission for purchase along the way, but as of Monday everything has fallen into place and I am SUPER EXCITED!!!

I cannot wait to see pictures of the event (since I will not be able to attend) and of course I will be posting pictures upon their return from Seattle!