Doing an internship at a startup like Sponsoo means having a high degree of flexibility, be part of the office Olympics or even having an after-work beer with your colleagues. But it also means being an important part of the team, taking responsibility and making decisions. Our interns Frans, Lukas and Jannik tell you about their experiences at Sponsoo.
Frans on his experience in the Sales Team
My sports and fitness management studies require an internship. I chose the sports start up Sponsoo and the sales department. On my first day, I received a friendly welcome from everyone and was able to get to know my colleagues. The sales team is currently the largest department in the company and at my time consisted of a Head of Sales, four Sales Managers and two interns. The size of the team was perfect for me. After a short training period, even as an intern you were a fully-fledged member and could always contribute your own ideas. You were given a lot of leeway for your own projects and could thus develop yourself further. Of course, you also had to do a lot of additional work, such as creating sales presentations for various marketing projects for athletes, clubs and associations in German and English. Another focus was the collaboration on measures for member acquisition for Sponsoo’s digital marketplace, such as researching and approaching national and international athletes as well as decision makers of sports clubs and events. Active collaboration on strategies to generate new sales and qualified leads in the area of sponsorship, including the maintenance of the company’s internal CRM tool Pipedrive, as well as support in acquisition activities was another task during my time at Sponsoo. Active participation in the project coordination of selected sponsoring campaigns with top brands such as McDonalds “50for50” and INTERSPORT “Keep Clubs running” were also part of my duties. In order to be able to work on all tasks in a meaningful way, I recommend a six-month internship to get to know all processes. In the end, I really enjoyed my time at Sponsoo and was able to learn a lot for my future.
Lucas about an Internship in International Management
During my studies, I had to complete a six-month internship. I was free to choose the company and the industry. But since I wanted to work in the sports industry and in a start-up, I chose Sponsoo. From the first day, it was clear to me that it was the right decision. I was immediately welcomed very nicely by everyone and after a short introduction I was treated as a full team member. I did my internship in the Management Support & Sales department, which is why I mainly worked with CEO Andreas Kitzing. Since a CEO of a start-up has different tasks to do every day, I naturally had the opportunity to look into many different areas, but also to take on my own projects. I supported Andreas with simple administrative tasks, but also larger sales projects, such as the 50for50 challenge from McDonalds, and my own small projects were on the agenda. I also had the opportunity to accompany Andreas to an investor fair in Amsterdam and had many interesting conversations there. At Sponsoo, I was able to work remotely from Bonn in my home office, which is not always a given elsewhere. The six months at Sponsoo flew by, as I enjoyed working in this team every day and learned a lot of new things.
Jannik about his time as a marketing intern
During my semester break, I did a three-month internship in marketing at Sponsoo. Sponsoo appealed to me directly because the start-up has a very interesting idea and vision and doesn’t seem typically conservative, and at the same time has a great connection to sports. In marketing, I got to know a lot of things. I would never have thought that you can make so many contacts and gain so much experience in three months! The more I became familiar with the content and the team, the more responsibility I was given. This meant that even as an intern, you could implement your own ideas over time! Not only did I work in my own department, but I was also in constant contact with colleagues outside the department, which I found very interesting. One of my main tasks was to look after all the relevant social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter. You get a very good overview of different target groups in the sports industry and how they react to the company’s marketing. Among other things, I was also given responsibility for an influencer campaign, where I had to deal both with the sponsor and directly with the influencers. To ensure good social media content, I also learned quite a bit about image editing and film editing. Overall, I am very glad to have had this experience and would recommend an internship at Sponsoo to interested students at any time!
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