Sales Coordinator Review

**Please note that at the time this review was submitted We Brand It were trading under the name Buyking** Overall i would say that i enjoyed my placement. There were some very stressful times but the responsibility i was given, i don't think i would have experienced anywhere else.

I felt valued by my co-workers. As for management you got the feeling you were "only as good as last months sales".

On a day to day basis, guidance was very short term profit driven. However, i was given the opportunity to meet with many supplier we worked through meetings in the office or visiting various trade shows. We had a consultant who came and sat with us, offering sales techniques and tips, however most of the time i felt they took up alot of time, leading to lost time talking to clients.

This varied day to day. Some days you were very busy to the point you were constantly catching up rather than opening up new sales, leaving little time to account manage. Other days you were very quiet. As is typical, it always seem to be an extreme of one or the other and 70% of the time it was the former. It allowed me to boost my time management skills though, which is a very useful skill and other co-workers were always willing to help out.

I was given a lot of responsibility during my placement. I was the sole account manager for various clients which gave you the feeling of real achievement when an order is closed. No one else is helping, if the order comes off, it is entirely down to you and your actions. You are in charge of setting your own prices, bargaining with suppliers, negotiating with customers, basically following the sales process from the initial contact stage to finalising the deal. On the flip side of this, it is your fault if anything goes wrong, but that's the challenge you take on in this kind of sales role.

Time management is a particular focus at Buyking and effectively managing your time is imperative to university life. I have learnt new sales techniques and how to talk to people, convincing them to come round to your way of thinking. I have definitely learnt a vast array of negotiating skills, which if anything will be particularly handy when visiting bartering countries such as Egypt.

The atmosphere was very relaxed. When I worked there you wore casual clothes, although I think this has now changed to compulsory suits due to more frequent and spontaneous client visits. Everyone was friendly and you could go and talk to anyone in the office during less busy times. Nearly everyone in the office was under 25 and this meant you had similar interests to everyone and could have a joke with people.

It was organised in the sense that you knew what you had to do, however you sometimes got the feeling that because you were basically doing exactly the same as the full time people, which for us was good as it meant we learnt a lot, the company was offering the placement more so they could cut costs.

In terms of personal training specific to the job, the company invested a lot. We were involved in workshops that centred around the industry as well as meeting with suppliers to fully understand their products. In terms of our personal development, they invested little or next to nothing. I am not sure how much the majority of the training would be transferable to industries outside the promotional merchandise industry. If i was to come back to buyking however, it the training would be very useful.

I probably would not go back to work at Buyking. This is not to say that it was a bad place to work, but simply because there is no where to go from the level i was at when on placement. They could argue that you could become a 'business development manager' but when you strip away the title and look deeper, it is essentially the same work as what we were doing just with a different title to separate the full timers from the placement students. Above that role, there is nowhere to aspire to as the only level up is managing director.

Maidenhead itself is not the most exciting town in the world. There are a few good pub / bars around but the clubs are not brilliant. What makes Maidenhead socially good though is the fact that there were 16 placement students living in 4 houses around maidenhead. We made our own fun and i made some amazing friends over the year who i am still in close contact with. We played football each week and went on trips to surrounding areas such as London and reading and smaller places such as Cookham. We also had great drinking nights!

Being near London it tended to be very expensive.

This goes back to the previous section, the nightlife itself within maidenhead was not great but we made our own fun.

Nothing relating to Buyking, although we did have a christmas party and one curry club. As there were lots of people around the same age though, outside of buyking there were many opportunities to get involved in activities outside work. these included, going to the pub, going to the cinema, bowling, ice skating and playing football or visiting places such as london.