The Learning Curve

Hello everyone! My name is Ryan Cannella. I have been working here as an intern for Major League Alumni Marketing (MLAM) for the past four months and am just over halfway through my internship. I will start out by introducing myself a bit — I consider myself a Colorado native having moved here when I was in the third grade. I live in Woodland Park just west of Colorado Springs and have been involved with baseball my entire life. I am currently attending University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) and majoring in Sports Management. I first came across this internship opportunity while attending a UCCS networking night back in October. After talking with Chris Spomer, Sales and Inventory Manager, and Kyle Matthews, Sales Manager, the opportunity to intern for a company that sells baseball memorabilia was right up my alley.

My time here has been outstanding; I have gained experience in promotions, marketing, sales, database management and much more. The opportunities I have been given are irreplaceable and will without a doubt help me in my future endeavors whatever they may be. My ultimate career goal is to be a general manager for a professional sports team. I understand that this is an extremely lofty goal but if you don’t set the bar high you will never make it. One of my favorite quotes comes from Michael Seander Jr. who said, “The moment you say something is impossible, it is.”

Everyone here at the office is phenomenal to work with and has really provided me with a lot of knowledge and insight. While each person here is more than happy to help me with different tasks I have been given, the reality is that they all have given me valuable pieces of life and career advice, from my resume and applying to jobs to different tips and tools you can use to help increase sales. My main responsibility here is to assist Chris in the creation, distribution and sales of our email based MVP Club promotions. These MVP Club promotions are emails that we create and send out to MVP Club members which include different autographed memorabilia items. Members then get in touch with either Chris or myself and we complete the sale. This experience has taught me a lot about promotions and sales, for which I am extremely grateful for.

During the month of March our office was a ghost town, with just about everyone conducting silent auctions at the many different Spring Training locations. That being said, Chris gave me the challenge of running the MVP Club offers by myself for the month of March. Along with running the MVP Clubs I would be responsible for hitting the goal of at least 8,000 dollars in gross sales for the month. The first time Chris talked to me about doing this I was pretty frightened, I didn’t want to be known as “THAT” intern that messed up everything! As time went on and we got closer to March I began to relax. Chris has been awesome to work with and helped me grasp exactly what needed to be done with each offer. I was able to get through the month of March without any major hiccups and was also able to hit the goal that had been set for me. When first realizing I had hit the goal I had the biggest feeling of accomplishment and relaxation — while also wanting to exceed the goal by as much as I possibly could. At the end of the month I was able to produce over 11,000 dollars in gross sales! I guess the saying is true that success breeds success.

All in all, I have had a wonderful experience here so far and would absolutely recommend an internship with either MLAM or the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association. You will gain valuable experience in many different areas and create relationships with amazing people. I can’t express enough how valuable this experience has been and how blessed I am to have been given this opportunity. I hope you all have enjoyed my insight to what goes on “behind the scenes” here at the MLBPAA.

Have a great day,

Ryan