Sporting Kansas City Internship - Looking Back/Overall Insight

This is unfortunately the last week of my internship with Sporting Kansas City. Now, I will just be doing simple, miscellaneous tasks that come from the Sales staff. At the end of last week, I finished my sales project: selling tickets for Sporting KC's Indian Heritage Night game (idea developed by me), which will be on October 10th. I was able to sell 120 tickets to multiple Indian organizations in the Kansas City area. Along with the tickets that I sold for our US Open Cup matches in June, I sold approximately 220 tickets during the summer and generated $3,500.00 in revenue.

I am not sure how much my LSA experience helped me out during the internship. But I am positive that my overall experience at the University of Michigan definitely contributed to my success. When I entered as a freshman during the fall of 2012, I remember that I was the type of person who always had trouble communicating effectively with my new classmates. All my life, I had lived in comfort. I grew up around the same people for 12 years. That being said, very rarely did I have to make the effort to make a good first impression on people, and I never really had to worry about becoming friends with strangers. But coming school knowing nobody in 2012, I had to step outside of my comfort zone. I had to speak up. I had to learn to be the type of person who could build strong relationships with anyone. I had to learn to talk with people of all backgrounds. And going to such a vibrant school like Michigan has definitely allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone and talk to people who I don't know.

This helped me not only in the office, but also when trying to persuade people to buy tickets. I really feel like I was able to create personal connections with all my contacts. It wasn't about selling tickets. It was about selling an experience, letting people know that they're stepping into history when they step into our stadium. At times, people didn't trust me. Why would anyone wanna give their credit card number to a sales intern? But my knowledge and sense of professionalism helped me. Also, the fact that I was able to make good first impressions on people helped me. I am not saying I am an expert. I have a lonnngggg ways to go, with whatever type of business I get myself into. But I think I am on the right track in learning how to deal with people.

To be honest, I was not too surprised with anything. The beauty of this internship was that I knew what I was getting myself into. During my interviews, my supervisors did a really nice job of describing what type of projects I would be working on. That being said though, I was very surprised when my supervisor left in June and took on a new job with the Philadelphia 76ers. It just all seemed ironic. But that ended up being good for me, as I was able to acquaint myself with the rest of the sales team. I did my best to handle things when my mentor left. I started to talk to the rest of the sales staff. I started to ask all of them questions about their job. I took advice from all of them as I developed and executed my sales project. I am very thankful for the sales team here, because none of them were actually required to help me out. I think it just shows what a fantastic and passionate team we have here at Sporting Kansas City, including the soccer team and the front office team!