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High Point University
AJ Rodriguez
In the 8 month span from being hired to shutting down my business with Student Painters, I learned more than my entire time in college. The people skills you will develop cannot be found in a textbook or noted down from a professor’s lecture because it’s the real deal. I have learned many things with Student Painters in sales, marketing, and management, but most importantly, I learned to be comfortable stepping outside of my comfort zone and learned that running a business, like anything, is not difficult with lots of practice. No one gets the opportunity to open a business and have a “practice run” except interns with YEAA There’s no doubt about it that this is one of the hardest internships you can get involved in and only the extremely determined will succeed because it requires effort without immediate rewards. It takes the kind of person who can say no to a frat party to go market his or her business instead. I would recommend it for anyone in the business school at your University or College, but anyone can be great at it if you work smart. I sold $50,000 worth of contracts before I had ever put a paint brush to a house and that proves that anyone can do it if you have the right mind-set. Experience and resume building is always great, but what I got the most out of Student Painters is the people I meet, the stories I can tell, and the amazing feeling of being able to say “I ran a business successfully from scratch”. Good Luck!
Cameron McGraw
At the turn of the New Year, if someone asked me my summer plans the answer literally would have been “no idea yet”. If they went on to tell me I’d run a $39,000 business, I would have laughed at them. The experience I had this summer is unbelievable. I went from a normal college student to an entrepreneur in just a few months. I hired a crew through interviews, formulated a marketing strategy, learned valuable sales skills, and took away lessons that could never be taught in a business text book. Student Painters gave me the foundation I needed to be successful in the future and truly showed me that anything is possible in business with a lot of hard work. This summer I gained quite possibly the best resume story a twenty year old can tell. When I tell possible employers that I ran a $39,000 business in one summer, I know I will stand out from crowd. On top of that, I made great money that I am putting towards tuition and other college expenses. Student Painters is a win-win summer experience if you put your efforts in the right place. Thanks to Student Painters I now have a whole new definition of hard work and I cannot wait to apply it to school and business. Big THANK YOU to Joel Puthoff and the entire Student Painters Team!
Leah Larson
It’s hard to put into words all that Student Painters has given and taught me. I started out with Student Painters as a Marketing Manager, then a painter, and finally this past summer I was able to run a $50,000 business as a Branch Manager. This internship really gave me the chance to know what it takes to be an entrepreneur.I was able to learn and live all aspects of marketing, sales, management, customer relations, and everything in between. This gave me the opportunity to know my strengths and weaknesses in areas in which I never had previous experience.It is no lie that entrepreneurship is a roller coaster, and I was able to experience all of those ups and downs this past year. The incredible thing about being a part of this organization is that through all of those ups and downs, I had an amazing support system there to guide me, help me learn from my mistakes, and improve myself in the process.
What I am most excited to take away from this experience is the confidence I have found in myself and my abilities. I can look back and think of all of the sacrifices I made for this internship, all of the long days and late nights, and all of the difficult times when I had to take a deep breath and remind myself of the invaluable lessons I was learning. But far more than the low points, I remember the highlights of my year that will remain high points for the rest of my life: my first sale, the excellent, heartfelt reviews from my customers that made me excited to wake up every day, and meeting some of my greatest friends and mentors that I will have now for years to come. Looking back over the past couple of years, it’s incredible to see the transformation in myself, and I attribute it, with all the gratitude in the world, to Student Painters.