Slavyk Majewski liked being part of Enterprise, the car rental company that “will pick you up,” and did so well there that he earned the title of No. 1 intern in the region this past summer. The designation got him a $1,000 bonus, plus plaudits from managers who expressed hope that he will rejoin the company in a full-time job after he graduates.
Majewski, who is on track to graduate in December with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration degree, is focused on sales. He says he applied for several internships through the Jindal School’s Career Management Center, but Enterprise seemed like “the one that would offer the best experience.”
Wearing multiple hats during his time with Enterprise, he managed inventory, collected money and interacted with customers. “We learned how to give customers the ‘variable pitch,’ ” he says, referring to efforts to sell customers on the Enterprise brand and its many offerings.
“A lot of the time at Enterprise we had to adapt to our customers,” Majewski says. Interns quickly learned, he says, that each person is different, a vital lesson of the summer program.
“Some days we had management day. That was awesome. They put the interns in charge, and we handled everything in the store. We made all the decisions, moved cars to other branches, making sure not to hurt business in that branch.” Matt Overley, Enterprise Holdings area rental manager in Denton and North Texas, was Majewski’s supervisor, and called him “the most genuine, self-driven young man I’ve ever worked with.”
And Overley noted, he has worked with dozens of interns during his time. “From day one, Slavyk took ownership of the job, cared about winning and wanted to learn.”
Majewski worked primarily in the Denton Enterprise branch. He did initial one-week training in Irving and reported to the corporate office in Frisco.
JSOM, Majewski says, has given him a good start. He has been particularly impressed by his sales professor, Semira Amirpour, a member of the Marketing Area faculty. “She went over everything with us including closing the sale, dealing with people and different tactics.”
Equally impressed, Amirpour remembers “Slavyk placed third out of more than 110 students competing during Spring 2017 Rookie Preview. He is a highly motivated, hardworking and driven individual with an eagerness to learn. I am looking forward to having him in my Advanced Sales class in the fall semester.”
“The Rookie Preview,” Majewski explains, “is a sales competition for every intro sales student. Each student has a 15-minute window to close a sale.”
Rookies sell to company representatives who sales students with previous experience recruit to come to the event. While performing, each student is watched on a live camera feed by a room of sales judges — faculty and company reps — who ultimately grade each student on individual sales skills.
“To win your room,” Majewski says, “you have to place first out of 10 other students. I was able to win my room and get third place overall in the whole competition.”
“Winning the rookie award,” Majewski says, “gave me confidence and helped me with the Enterprise internship.”
“UTD really opened the door for me. I consider myself so blessed. I received so much support from UTD and Enterprise. Enterprise is a good culture and knows how to build momentum.”
One way, he recalls, was “a Shark Tank-like competition in which we had to restructure the company…to revitalize sales correlating directly with the new tablet technology. … My team was composed of three UTD students and one student from Texas A&M. We had to derive and increase sales, work pre-pay fuel options and find better ways to utilize tablets.”
Stephanie Richardson, regional talent acquisition manager at Enterprise Holdings, was directly in charge of all the interns, Majewski says. “She is a very committed person who helps make sure people at Enterprise reach their potential. She made the overall experience far greater than I expected.”
