My Summer Internship at DMC Atlanta - Guest Blogger Bronwyn Carlson

GA Tech Marketing Major Bronwyn Carlson

Entering Georgia Tech as a marketing major, I was told over and over again how important it was to gain experience in the work field. While the concept is awesome, actually getting experience as a freshman is a challenge. It seems everywhere I looked, people require experience to get experience. I applied for internship after internship and eventually stumbled across DMC Atlanta.

Here was a company that brings everyone in entry-level and offers to teach training and interviewing skills. They also advertised that they had a great office culture which is something I was definitely interested in. After all, no college student wants to work in an office full of stuffy old people right?

I went in for my first and second interview and was very impressed with the way I was treated. My interviewers genuinely wanted to make me feel like part of the team. I got emails and phone calls asking how I was and inviting me to team nights even before I actually started. On my first day, everyone who walked by said "hello" and, during our meetings, someone was always with me and explaining everything. Not only was I treated like part of the family, but during the next four days of training, I was taught something most companies don't teach: The system of success. I was given all the tools I needed to be just as good as everyone else in the office. There were no secrets that others had that I didn't. My trainers took the time to make sure I knew everything they did and could execute it on my own.

While all companies do training, most just give you a few things to learn but leave you to discover the rest on your own. With the carefully crafted systems DMC has in place anyone can succeed with just the tools given that first week. The fact that I was only 19 with no work experience didn't matter at all. Instead of looking down on me for being young, I was treated like an equal, and everyone invested in me and made sure that I was doing the best I could. I knew that I could text anyone in the company and they would never hesitate to help.

DMC understands that getting ahead in business doesn't mean stepping on people to climb the ladder. They believe that you have to help others in order to make it to be successful – it is how their whole system is built – that the only way to move up is to help other succeed. That doesn't mean that results don't matter. Every office position is earned by work in the field as well as developing individuals around them. Such a method creates well-rounded leaders and highly-prepared managers – People who can do the job, duplicate themselves, and run an effective office.

Aside from the work environment, DMC offered me a different set of skills than any other corporation would have. After all, learning was the main reason I was there. In the end, it didn't matter if I broke any records; I just wanted to gain as much knowledge as I could. In college, professors can teach you in a classroom setting, but there are some things in business that can only be learned through hands-on experience. They have to be practiced over and over so they can be fine-tuned and perfected. So I took notes and broke down my days of fieldwork. I would consider how I trained each individual in order to perfect my skill and learn how I could improve in the ways I duplicated myself. I was able to learn how to train new employees and the importance of customizing how I taught to the personality of each trainee.

 Through meetings, one-on-ones, and leadership training, I learned how important each word I say is and that just a slight change in wording or tone can take a pitch from good to great. Words paint a picture in someone's mind and influence their thought process and emotions while motions create excitement and build impulse. Before I started the job, I felt confident in my ability to be friendly and put on a good smile, but this job helped me learn how to dig deeper and emotionally connect to all types of people, earn their respect, and make them comfortable with me in a busy inside-sales setting. Not to mention how it conditioned me emotionally to take rejection and still keep a smile on my face and a positive attitude. That had to be the biggest struggle for me. There were days when hearing “no” dragged me down and I wanted nothing more than to give up. But those were the days when the people around me and the culture that I had learned to love kept me from giving up. I would get texts of encouragement or someone would say something that would help me dig deep and keep going. In the end, DMC didn't train me to be a good sales person or even a good student. They equipped me with the basic tools needed to be a good manager and, eventually, a CEO.

Now that my internship is over, I have looked back over my experience and realized that the last few months I have spent with DMC Atlanta have taught me more than any business class ever could. My whole mindset has changed. The internship exceeded all of my expectations and I achieved the goal I set for myself to learn and grow. I could not have had such a successful summer without the help and advice of the people around me. Nowhere else could you find a better office or group of people. I am so thankful for Adam Dorfman and his team for helping me to grow and develop not only as a business woman but as a person.

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Bronwyn Carlson
Georgia Institute of Technology
Business Administration