Mentoring Blog: "About My Experience With Carl Neuenhaus"

Sorry for the delay in my posting, my internet would not connect and I was out of town most of the time, but luckly I am back home and able to post--

About My Experience With Carl Neuenhaus

During my field trip with my mentor, we visited Volunteers of America of Greater New Orleans, F. H. Myers Construction Corporation, and Lamarque Ford.

At Volunteers of America of Greater New Orleans, they are a non-profit business that helps out people in need; such as distressed victims of natural disaters like Hurrican Katrina, others who are mentally or physically disabled, and people who are recovering addicts. They have many employees who are paid, and plenty more who are volunteers. They make money by donations and a little money comes from the government; however, the money that the government provides them with is not even close to how much they need in order to ensure comfortable alternatives to the things they most need. What surprised me most about the business was the fact that they are able to keep rolling in this economy. And to help others as much as they do, I mean WOW! We met with the President/CEO James M. LeBlanc. He was kindhearted and very nice. Two pieces of advice that he left us with is be thankful for what we do have, and never take anything/anyone for granted.

At F. H. Myers Construction Corporation we learned so many interesting facts from the President/CEO Fred H. Myers. He explained to us all that he had been through and the many curves that life threw at him. It was interesting to find out how he ended up with a successful company, while he started off where we are today, and a little worse. He showed us pictures of his many accomplishments, such as designing and building the Audubon Zoo entrance. We were astonished by the many things that we had been able to see before that he had been part of, that we would have never guessed he had before meeting him. He was a down-to-earth "real" guy, who was once in our shoes. I think I liked this guy the best!

The last place we visited was Lamarque Ford. We met with President/CEO Ronnie Lamarque. He gave us all the ins and outs of the "fast lane". He told us of how he started and how he ended up where he is today. He gave us the advice of not to take life for granted. And we even got to see "THE KING'S ROOM" (his office). This place was fun, Ronnie had us laughing the entire time, and he also sang for us!

My favorite part of the whole day, though, was dinner with Carl. Carl brought his wife, who we met for the first time, and it felt like family. We talked, we laughed, we ate, and man did we eat! It was quite an experience and I wish we could do this every semester... I will honestly miss all my times with Carl!

--Lacey

Networking: "Cocktail Party"...Mission: "Collect 5 Business Cards"

On Thursday, January 15th, there was a mock "cocktail party" for my business class in which each student's goal was to obtain five business cards from business professionals. The way in which we introduced ourselves was through an "elevator speech".

My elevator speech went something like this: "Hi, my name is Lacey Volion. And your name is? ... Well, nice to meet you. I am a freshman here at Loyola University in the College of Business. My majors are Business Marketing and Management. My future plans are to open my own business particularly in that of the fashion industry. What do you do?..." And on to a conversation about the things that they have done/are doing, and the answering of questions that I had asked them throughout the course of the conversation.

At the end of the conversation, I asked if they had a business card in which I could get in touch with them. I aquired the following business cards:

Meghan Ryan Bonavita--a sales associate for the Carlisle Collection. She is in fashion merchandising.

Daphne Main, Ph.D., CPA--She is the Associate Professor of Accounting. She had a very inviting personality, and was very easy to talk to.

Dr. Mike Pearson, Ph.D.--He is a Professor of Marketing. He also was very nice, and stayed a while after to talk to my mentor and I. He seemed very outgoing and expressed his love for the Loyola campus and community.

Michelle K. Johnston, Ph.D.--Mrs. Johnston is the Associate Professor of Management, and is also the Director of the Executive Mentoring Program. Mrs. Johnston also teaches my Business Communications class and I am very excited to be spending a semester with her. She seems very intelligent and has many things to offer to us as students preparing for the business world.

Len J. Trevino, Ph.D.--Mr. Trevino is the Gerald N. Gaston Eminent Scholar Chair in International Business. He offered advice to me about being a Business major and that was, "If you are certain about what you want to major in, make sure you have something else to bring to the table that will surely sell yourself to the company in which you are trying to get into." Basically, he was saying make sure you have something to set yourself apart from everyone else.

Brian A. Gueniot--He works for a consulting firm to try and help businesses stay out of the courtroom. (This is basically how he described it.) He told a group of students and I that he used to be a football coach here in Louisiana, and he also enjoys the Loyola community and all that it has to offer.

Julie McDonald--Mrs. McDonald explained to me less about herself and more about one of her friends after I explained to her my future plans. She said that she has a friend with an "old-fashioned" lingerie shop down Magazine St. in New Orleans called "LiLi's". I explained to her that my future plans were to own a lingerie shop also, but naming it "LaLa's". It was quite amazing that someone else had done this, and also offered me hope for what I would like to do. I thought I was crazy about even thinking about doing something like this, turns out not. I am really excited to meet Mrs. McDonald's friend and find out some advice that I can use in the future.

One thing that I am sure I did well on during the networking event was handshaking and keeping eye contact. I offered each business professional a firm handshake as well as eye contact while saying nice to meet you along with my name. In the future at Cocktail Parties, or even business events, I hope I feel a little more eager to just jump into it. I was a little stand-offish at first, but towards the end I started warming up to the idea. It was an overall great experience that will help out in the future.

For further reference on what you should do while networking, check out some of the links at:

http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/businessnetworking/Business_Networking_for_Entrepreneurs.htm

or try http://www.businessknowhow.com/tips/networking.htm. These should point you in the right direction.