Personal Reflection: Presenting to a CEO

What did I do?

This semester I had the opportunity to create a campaign for Wantable, a clothing subscription box company. It’s an amazing company with caring employees and really cute clothes. My team took on the task of developing a campaign to launch their Active Edit, previously their Fitness Edit. We worked for months doing research on the target audience, possible influencers, and what approach would best suit this company.

My Team

My team was made up of six students, all juniors and seniors at Marquette. I had a great team that really adapted to the changing circumstances and requirements due to COVID 19. Countless hours and group meetings on Teams later, we were finally in a place where we liked what we had. We had the opportunity to work with some employees at Wantable so we pitched our ideas to them and got some less than optimal feedback. We regrouped and decided that instead of dropping our idea altogether, we would conduct research in our target demographic and see if our idea could actually hold water. We loved the results we got from the survey we conducted so we decided to move ahead with our idea. The next step was just putting together our strategies and objectives and creating sample content for our tactics.

The Presentation

It was finally time to present. My team was nervous. We knew we were prepared but our situations had changed so much since March and we wanted to ensure that our work was still up to, or above the standard. We met as a group a couple of hours before the presentation to run through it ourselves and fix any last minute errors. With some nervous energy, we ended the call and prepared ourselves for the presentation. Our professor had told us that not only were the employees we worked with going to be on the call, but the CEO, CMO, Creative Director, and an active buyer were all going to be listening to our presentation. The nerves officially settled in and we waited patiently for two other groups to presented before us. Often when you experience a nerve-racking moment, you can’t really remember it afterwards. My group presented just like we had practiced, and slyly texted each other praises when we had finished our parts. Overall, I think we did a really good job and I’m really proud of my group and the work we were able to produce in uncertain times. We had great ideas and were able to back them up with research, which gave our presentation a unique touch and made us stand out.

This was an amazing experience that taught me how to cope with change and still produce a great product. Working with the employees from Wantable and then getting the opportunity to present to their company was a huge learning experience and I’m sure that the things I learned with them are things that I will use in my career for the rest of my life.