Lucy Davis Haynes, MBA’88, meant for her sales job to be something of a timeout, a way to keep her hand in the business game as she relocated to Nashville while pregnant with twins. Seventeen years later she is still with the same company.
“I never did go get that real job,” she laughs.
Haynes is a Sales Associate and National Trainer for The Worth Collection, a leading women’s luxury fashion company that brings in $95 million annually through private, invitation-only sales. She ranks at the top of its 750 sales associates and conducts national training sessions for other associates several times a year.
Why is Worth so successful? Haynes believes many women find shopping in department stores to be time-consuming and frustrating. “With Worth you can shop for the season in 15 minutes,” she says. Haynes has a customer base of about 700 women, and about 200 clients attend each of her four annual sales.
Before joining Worth, Haynes loved her career as a Brand Manager for Schering-Plough, an international health care company, and The Promus Cos., a hospitality company. But when her mother, Caroline Davis, started Worth in 1991, she jumped at the opportunity to be a part of the sales team in Tennessee. Haynes was successful from the start. “The beauty of sales is the harder you work, the more you make. That appeals to me,” she says. The flexible, work-at-home nature of the company has been a bonus as well.
Haynes’ favorite class at Owen was a leadership seminar her last semester. That’s where she learned that the best way to manage people is to listen. She puts that knowledge to use every day: “The customer will always tell you what she needs and wants, if you listen.”
As any successful sales or marketing professional knows, first impressions make all the difference in business relationships. Having a clear, concise elevator pitch that encapsulates one’s resume and goals is often the key to securing a job. Not everyone, though, is capable of articulating that message and delivering it in the right way.
That is why CEO and Owen alumnus Tom Truitt, EMBA’97, decided to start YourElevatorPitch Inc., an innovative career management company based in Nashville. YourElevatorPitch works one-on-one with clients to create and execute a high-definition video presentation that best represents their accomplishments and helps them stand out in a crowd. Truitt and his team assist with scriptwriting, presentation coaching and image consulting. The clients then are filmed in a professional green-screen studio, and the video is deployed to a targeted audience via a proprietary software platform.
The Owen School is currently working with YourElevatorPitch on a pilot program to develop a new approach to the online resume book. Students participating in the school’s Board of Visitors mentorship program are the initial test group. Joyce Rothenberg, Director of the Career Management Center, says, “Tom is committed to helping students put their strongest presentation in front of hiring managers. We’re excited to see how recruiters react to this new technology.”
YourElevatorPitch is also offering special pricing for all Owen alumni. For more information about the company and the different packages available, visit www.yourelevatorpitch.net.
Owen-related groups are growing rapidly on social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.
In fall 2008 the economic crisis seemed to fuel a need for connection. At Owen we noticed a large spike in the number of people asking to join the school’s group on LinkedIn, a networking Web site for professionals. This got us thinking about Owen’s presence on other social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, and how we might help alumni stay in touch with each other and the school.
With help from the Marketing & Communications office at Owen, school-related groups are now growing rapidly and organically online. Alumni are reconnecting with classmates, discovering job opportunities and developing valuable business connections. They are also receiving the latest news from the school through Twitter feeds, a Facebook fan page, YouTube videos and iTunes lectures.
If you haven’t done so already, we encourage you to explore the various social media sites out there. Signing up is easy and free. Here are a few ways to get started:
Facebook
Facebook is a wildly popular and fun way to keep in touch or reconnect with classmates on a social basis. There are now more than 300 million people around the world who use the site. Facebook allows its users to customize their personal profiles by posting status updates, uploading photos, joining groups and becoming “fans” of just about anything under the sun, including the Owen School. Users receive updates regarding their friends, groups and fan pages through what is known as the News Feed, which appears on every user’s home page.
Sign up for a Facebook account. Be sure to add Vanderbilt and the year you graduated when creating your profile. This will help you and other classmates find each other.
Visit the Newsroom page on Owen’s Web site and select “Social Media.”
Click “Owen on Facebook” and then “Become a Fan.” From time to time, you will receive valuable updates about Owen on your Facebook home page.
Click “Owen Alumni Group on Facebook” and then “Join Group.” By becoming a member, you can connect with other alumni.
Search for other Owen groups. Try typing “Vanderbilt Owen” in the search box. You will find several “Class of” groups, some of which are more active than others.
Search for your classmates. Try typing a name within quotes (“First Last”). If you get too many results, or don’t recognize your friend from the thumbnail photographs, select “My Networks” from the drop-down box. That may narrow the results enough to reveal a classmate.
LinkedIn
The LinkedIn networking site is to business what Facebook is to friendship. The site now boasts a membership of more than 43 million business professionals from more than 200 countries and territories. LinkedIn users create profiles summarizing their professional accomplishments and then invite “trusted contacts” to connect with them and their networks. These networks give users the opportunity to search for job openings, collaborate on projects, and gain business insights through discussions.
The Owen LinkedIn group has more than doubled in size since October 2008: from 800 members to 1,900 members (as of early fall). Here’s how to join:
Visit LinkedIn and sign up for an account.
Visit the Social Media page on Owen’s site and click on “Owen on LinkedIn.”
Click the “Join this Group” button.
Start networking! LinkedIn can be invaluable for a job search. Try finding other Owen community members who work within your target industry or geographic location.
Do you have a business question? Post your problem to the discussion board and let other Owen members help you solve it.
Twitter
Twitter is a way to stay in touch with the world through short messages limited to 140 characters. Users send messages (“tweets”) to others who have signed up to follow their updates. Owen uses Twitter to send out real-time information about alumni events, such as happy hours hosted by the school in various cities around the country. Alumni news, like promotions, career changes and new business ventures, are also posted to Twitter.
Visit the Social Media page on Owen’s site and click on “Owen on Twitter.”
Click the “Follow” button.
Check your Twitter page regularly for updates from Owen. You can keep up with Twitter online or by using your mobile phone.
To find other people or organizations to follow on Twitter, click through Owen’s “Following” list.
Other social media sites
Owen also has a presence on YouTube and iTunes, with school-related videos and podcasts of lectures and campus speakers. To check out these sites, just visit Owen’s Social Media page.
Dive in!
These various social media sites may seem overwhelming, but don’t be afraid to give them a try. Keeping in touch with the Owen community has never been easier.
