Ah the Joys of Finishing an MBA Program

First: Thank you to all of you like minded sales reps for making comments that I have published many of them. I appreciate very much your feed back and I am humbled that so many people are interested in my little part of the world.

Truly: Thank you; Keep contributing.

So, after my very long hiatus of contributing a single thing to this Blog I’m back! The world is my oyster! It seems that no immediate “MBA promotion” is in my immediate future so I have got to figure out what to do this thing…

First a few thoughts n the MBA program:

• It was without a doubt the most work I have ever put into any project
• It was the most rewarding education I have ever received
• The academic quality and the quality of students was very impressive
• It is no wonder why The University of Dayton wins the case competitions in the state of Ohio every year

Per the Motto of UD: “Learn, Lead, Serve” I guess I am entering the lead part of my life. For two years I have had nights weekends filled with team meetings, finance problems, Operations analysis and Marketing projects. Now I will have weekends filled with….well, I guess we shall see.

I have been trying to pick up some kind of hobby after I finish reading the three weeks of Newsweek, Business week and the Economist that I have been neglecting. My thoughts first went strangely enough to starting an herb garden, but that will most likely take about 2 hours to plant and I am sure I would be an absent minded gardner letting everything get too dry. Not the best way to eat up spare time.

I also thought joining some kind of cooking classes and getting really good at a few impressive gourmet dishes. That is much more likely, however it seems that should be something I should learn on my own….I mean come on…I have my MBA. :-P

Expect more posts soon. Life is getting exciting.

UD MBA Program wins accolades

As I am currently a member of the University of Dayton MBA Program it is nice to be reassured that the rigorous program is alive and well fulfilling its mission: To produce future leaders.

Some background: This case competition is open to all Ohio MBA Programs. UD has won First, Second, and Third place in a tri-fecta sweep for a number of consecutive years. UD has developed a sterling reputation winning 1st place 7 of the last 8 years with 6 of those coming in consecutive years.

See Link and the copied Text below:
http://universityofdayton.blogs.com/newsinfo/2007/05/mba_students_ta.html

May 17, 2007

MBA students take first place ... again

University of Dayton graduate business students continue to prove they are the people to turn to for that winning small business plan.

For the second straight year — and seven of the past eight years — a UD graduate business team won the Ohio Graduate Business Student Case Competition.

UD’s team of Lyalya Esadova, Amy Smith, Connor McCracken, Eric King and Chris Thunander won on the strength of its plan for Hearthstone Inn in Cedarville, Ohio. The team won $3,000 for its winning presentation made last month in Columbus.

“They did an absolutely sterling job that will help that small business into the future,” said Joe Schenk, associate professor of management.

Schenk and Tom Winning, a UD executive-in-residence, advised the team along with Mike Bodey from the Small Business Development Center at Wright State University.

The competition is open to all Ohio colleges with graduate business or accounting programs and students pursuing a master’s in business administration, master’s of science of management or master’s of accounting degree. Judges evaluate teams’ oral presentations, case studies and solutions for Ohio Small Business Development Center clients.

Ohio Department of Development officials hope the competition provides graduate business students an opportunity to work on practical business problems, contributes to Ohio’s economic development and enhances links between Ohio’s graduate business programs and business and industry.

Small Business Development Centers of Ohio, Small Business Administration, Palo Alto Software and Kent State University sponsored the competition along with the Ohio Department of Development.

Bachelor Party Basics

As I am now finding myself still single while my two best friends are getting married this summer I have been quite busy filling up my weekends with bachelor parties. Neither of my friends chose the typical clubs of ill repute, and in fact they both chose very different ways to celebrate their last nights as a free man.

Party#1 a.k.a. The All American bachelor party

The first bachelor party that I will attend will be an all day event. At noon we take a "party bus" down to Cincinnati. I am kind of frightened as to what exactly this entails as I have been on a few that were not exactly sea worthy. When we arrive at the Reds Stadium we will be pampered in the Diamond Seats (@ $202 a pop - I was not happy to find this out) and drink and eat ourselves silly as the diamond seats are all inclusive. We will do our best to get the $202 value from all beverages, I assure you. After we have had our fill of America's favorite pastime we will then party bus-it back up to Dayton where we will crash at the groom-to-be's house.

Total Cost: $350 with tickets, party bus, and beer on party bus.

Party#2 a.k.a. The UD style bachelor party

The following weekend I will be hosting a hog roast at the other Groom's house. Due to my best man responsibilities I will have a much greater authority in what happens. We will roast a complete hog in the driveway, and yes, apple in mouth, of his newly purchased abode. The bourbon spread will be diverse and luxurious as he is from Kentucky. Also, cornhole and other UD drinking games will be rampant (see flip cup). As many of our professors will be attending as well as: My dad; His dad; and the bride's dad. This may sound fairly tame, but I assure you the bride's dad will be the craziest of all of us, and after our parents and professors attended our UD graduation party I am sure they know what to expect.

After the hog roast we will then go to the Olde Tavern, which is where the Montgonery Inn used to be in Madeira. We will then finish off the night with a night cap and a bonfire in the back yard.

Total Cost: $350 - Bourbon ($150); Hog($80); Taxis($60); Bar Tab split ($60)

Two different styles, two different men. One goal: Party like it's your last night of freedom. Good luck Gents! I will leave you with a word of advice:

A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once.
-Phyllis Diller

Watch UD Basketball online for free

On the Dayton Flyers official site all of you Flyer fans from across the country can watch UD Basketball for free. They just added a feature supported by CSTV that allows you to stream the live feed onto your computer. I hope that this will continue with the NCAA tournament when we make it (Crossing fingers)

You will need the latest version of Internet Explorer (which pains me since I am an avid Firefox user) and the latest version of Windows Media Player as well. Unfortunately those are kind of annoying to upgrade to, but well worth it I assure you.

Other than the stiff software requirements I am pretty excited about this. I also was messing around on the site and found out that you can stream many of the games earlier in the season as well. So for all of you that missed a home game...enjoy!

Go Flyers!

Infiniti G35 Coupe Yuppie Mobile

Automobile
–noun

1.	a passenger vehicle designed for operation on ordinary roads and typically having four wheels and a gasoline or diesel internal-combustion engine.

Yuppie Mobile
-noun
1. an Infiniti G35 Coupe

Now that I have been making money for a few years I have come to the decision that after buying my house, the next thing I need is a new car. My dad gave me his Cadillac STS when I graduated from UD and it now has 157,000 miles on it. While I do enjoy floating around, and I do mean floating, in a Cadillac the time has come to change my ride. The Cadillac image is not exactly what I was looking for. After all, how many 24 year olds do you know driving an STS?

So, after a long search looking at Honda S2000's, Nissan 350Z's, and Lexus ES 330's I have decided that the Infiniti G35 Coupe is the car for me. A guy in my MBA class has one: black on black, 293 horse power, spoiler, harmonic exhaust, zero lift aerodynamics...I was in love. We went out one night after class and opened up the engine. I about swallowed my tongue. He had the wheels squealing up the entrance ramp to I-75. Damn! My Cadillac's 4.9l V8 could not keep up with this smaller, faster V6. I was impressed and a little shocked at the speed. Plus, most of the Infinity's come with upgraded rims and spoilers in the coupe model.

I was not expecting to ever own an Infiniti, but after my thrilling test drive I hope to be able to get one soon enough. Expect to see me bragging about it in 4 months.

*Crossing my fingers*

Dayton Flyers NCAA Basketball

I have been going to the UD Basketball games for about 15 years of my life. As my family is closely tied to the University of Dayton in a number of ways, we have been Flyer fans for quite some time. I can even remember back when we first got tickets in the nose bleed section so that my sister and I could run around be be kids without disturbing the game for anyone else who actually cared. I can also remember the senior season of Negel Knight who would later be drafted into the NBA. The Dayton community has supported the team with out reservation for many years and I am proud to be a part of that community.

Within the past week the Flyers have added another page to the history of Dayton basketball: Brian Roberts scored his 1,000th point. Only 36 other players for UD have achieved such a status. This accomplishment speaks for itself. I am normally not one to glorify athletes, but from personal experience Brian Roberts is not your normal NCAA student athlete. He is actually smart, lacks the ego that has become so tiresome in college sports, and he unselfishly produces on the court. In short; a leader.

In the most recent game on Saturday against La Salle how does Brian Roberts respond to breaking the 1,000 point barrier? He scores 34 points and wins the game with his unfailing free throw shooting. He is routinely over 80% at the line, but on Saturday, in the last 2 minutes of the game, he was 7 for 7.

Will Roberts have the same long term impact at Negel Knight? Maybe not. Will Roberts continue his basketball stardom into the NBA? Most likely not. In Dayton our stars come and go, and we only get them for a short for years. Our only chance is to watch them play in college, and that is why UD basketball is so special. That is why our fan base is so strong. The fan base roots for the team, not the players. It seems Roberts is rooting the same way.

GO FLYERS!!

Xerox - Finding A First Job

So you have graduated...now what.

I graduated from the University of Dayton in may of 2005 and had been applying for all sorts of sales jobs. I had applied to every type of company from American Income Life Insurance to a start up company that sold mobile bar-coding layouts for huge factories. I must have had applied for 30 jobs and had been through at least as many interviews. My search ended with my realization that I was going to be selling copiers for the first part of my life.

I had been contacting a number of businesses in the Dayton, OH area and had narrowed my search to a few well known companies: NCR, IBM, Xerox, Procter and Gamble, MeadWestvaco etc... I had high aspirations and was willing to do just about anything to not end up like some of my friends working for Localsmallcompany Inc. I wanted to be branded and have a pedigree so that when I left my first job, my second employer would say, "I want you to meet Kevin, our newest employee. He worked at ________ ."

When I was an intern at Reynolds and Reynolds in college I noticed that people always said that, "Kathy is our number one sales rep this year. She came from IBM." They mentioned that as if it was no surprise that she was successful here. I wanted that. Kathy was riding the coat tails of a company that she no longer worked for. She always humbly pushed off the compliment, which only made people talk about it more.

Well, IBM never returned my call even though I had the help of my sales professor, who worked for IBM for 15 years, passing out my resume to his old IBM-ers. In fact, of all of those companies mentioned only about half had contacted me at all. Xerox, however did. I must have sent Leah, Xerox's Dayton sales manager, three resumes and half a dozen e-mails from January to May and finally she returned my repeated request for a job. Lucky for both of us she was jsut in time. Another local copier company that sold Konica Minolta had been calling me and I was in the interview process with them as well. In fact they had an offer on the table before I had even heard from Leah. This was a huge advantage: I had ammo. Unlike most college graduates I already had leverage, and with a competitor!

I met Leah and toward the end of the interview when she asked me who else I had been talking to I made sure to mention Konica Minolta. She asked a few other questions about them and the rest is history. I started with Xerox and began a journey that I could only have imagined.

I thought I knew a lot about sales.

I was about to find out that I did not.