“Coup de Pouce de la FLSEG”

Last year, I founded a humanitarian association with 7 classmates as a university project. This was a beautiful project that we started although we had no idea of how constituting an association was difficult. Not so much the juridical aspect of this, but rather the fact that we had to work on our vision seriously. Here are the goals we finally defined: :

“help the children during their stay at hospital, raise funds to finance the hospital needs for children, and get the students of the Catholic University of Lille more conscious of children’s hospitalization”.

This vision is also stated in the name we chose for the association: “Coup de Pouce de la FLSEG” (a little help from the FLSEG, our University Department)

Steps we needed to take:
- Creating an association and establishing its requirement and status
- Defining each member’s roles (I was chosen as the president)
- Finding hospitals ready to work with us. This was the toughest part. We visited at least 8 hospitals in Lille, and finally chose to work in one of them, Saint Vincent de Paul in Lille. The specificity about this hospital is that it is part of the Catholic University of Lille, so it made it easier to work with them.

The core of our mission
- Our main activity was to read stories in the children’s waiting rooms of the hospital. It was a delight for each of us to see how well the children reacted. Even if some were very shy, others didn’t hesitate to make  friends with us!
- We also played the little piece of “The Little Three Pigs” from Patricia Seibert. We spent 2 evenings to work out this piece and make the set. I will keep deep in my mind the memory of a little 3 year-old girl that laughed during all our piece, even when the nasty wolf came trying to eat the pigs…

One year later, our association has grown from 8 to 20 members and it is still reading stories to children, every week!

One day with me in Normandy

In this post, I will describe chronologically the different actions (within the limits of confidentiality) I took today as a salesman for General Mills in the French region of Normandy. This will help you to nderstand more about my everyday life during this 6-months internship.

For each supermarket that I visited, I made a report on each of the products (quantities, prices…) of the range supposed to be in the shop.

1) Proposed an additional tray to the department supervisor of the Monoprix in Rouen for a period of 6 months in order for the brand Häagen-Dazs to be more visible. Proposition accepted! This will grant the supermarket around 5 times more income for our ice-creams.

2) Went to the Monoprix in Lisieux… again to offer a tray. But this time I will have to wait for the director to come back from holidays to have his approval. As several products of my four brands were missing, I convinced the 2 department supervisors to reintroduce them.

3) Early afternoon: Super U of Ouilly-Le-Vicomte. Settled some point-of-sale display for Häagen-Dazs pints, told the grocery manager that several products were missing for Old El Paso and Géant Vert.

4) Mid-afternoon: went to Monoprix Trouville/Mer (Very nice city by the way). Talked with the director to arrange a period for the tray and also a sales event. This latter will take place mid-July: During two days, one person will offer discount coupons to people buying our Ice-Creams. If the sun gratifies us with its presence, the business will be great as Trouville is a very touristic place.

5) Went to Champion of Tourgéville and Deauville. Took my report concerning my own products but also some on several competitors. Made several actions in order to get back the missing products.

6) Came back home at 9 pm to transmit by the Internet the informations collected and to inform the headquarters to deliver the trays and put in place the sales event.

Summary:
- 6 supermarkets visited
- 2 trays accepted
- 1 sales event planned
- 350 kilometers driven

This was a long day, but I even didn’t realise it. Time is passing by very fast when work is so interesting and challenging!

Who does the MBTI test say I am?

Last year, I had the opportuniy to take the MBTI (Myers Briggs Typological Approach) test with the other Bachelor students. When the results were given, each of us found himself into one of the 16 typologies defined by the test.

I am an ESFP person. ESFP stands for Extraverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving. And these reveal a part of my personality. You can find very informed websites about this test (here or here), and even can take the test online for free!

Here is a summary of the personality of an ESFP, which I found amazingly sharp in my case, I’ve outlined in red the most relevant assertions.

ESFP – THE PERFORMER

The ESFP is warm, outgoing, optimistic and caring–a cheerful person who’s always ready for a good time and avoids the company of dreary “doom and gloom” people who take themselves too seriously. Count on ESFPs to settle in occupations which let them be “people people”–working in sales, human services, business, nursing, crisis intervention or the performing arts. They are naturally gifted at observing human behavior and figuring out what others want. Whatever the ESFP’s work choice, talking must be part of the job! To be at their best, ESFPs need to be around other people–and this type will go to great lengths to avoid solitude and isolation. ESFPs believe that life, work and relationships should be fun and rewarding. ESFPs are unlikely to stick around when clouds darken the skies for too long at a stretch. Charming, clever and open-minded, the witty ESFP is likely to be seen by others as a party person–so much so that this type may be ill-at-ease in business fields which expect seriousness, formality, logic, conceptual thinking, organization and punctuality.

Häagen-Dazs

“Macadamia Nut Brittle”, 20% of all Häagen-Dazs sales

By hearing the name of this brand, I would have imagined it to come from the most withdrawn areas of Norway or Sweden, created by a certain Gü Steffansson or any other nordic name.

The truth is far from all of what I would have “imagined”. One name: Reuben Mattus. One place: New-York (Bronx). One period: the 20ies. This young man had the idea of selling his mother’s delicious ice creams. Years later, his brand is now sold in 70 countries, and owns 652 shops. Nice success story, isn’t it?

Oh, I was about to forget, you want to know what Häagen-Dazs means? You may be disappointed to learn that the name was totally invented for its nordic consonance. This very common marketing technique is called “foreign branding”.

This post won’t be a full marketing review on this ice-cream but a reminder of the key factors of what makes its success:
- Natural and Premium ingredients: eggs, milk, crème fraiche (thick sour cream)
- Unique recipes: joining the brand’s main values (quality and innovation)
- Smoothness: creamy and intense, just taste it if you hadn’t yet.
- Know-How: more than 80 years of experience…

There is a lot more to be said, with quite interesting facts about brand strategy and global strategy. For instance: in France, Häagen-Dazs belongs to General Mills whereas in the USA and Canada it belongs to Nestlé…

Rush Hour

These last weeks have been more than intense! It started from the week we had to prepare our final exams dealing with everythin we had learnt during a whole year. It was also during this busy preparation week that I found my internship at General Mills. Immediately after this came a tiring week of exams (all in all 23 hours of exams in 4 days)… and I started my internship the following week. No time for a break!

But believe it or not, I don’t feel like resting. I’ve been given such a great opportunity to use my abilities and skills, and that “fuels” me! Well, I admit that the way I have been welcomed at General Mills is more than satisfying. I really feel that they want to help me reaching the goal, their goal, my goal.

Let me explain myself:
In order to accomplish my mission, I am given the perfect tools to excel. I had an intense formation-week with the 18 others trainees, where I learned every detail about the four brands I was going to represent in supermarkets: Häagen-Dazs, Old El Paso, Green Giant, and Wanchaï Ferry. We were also trained by the National Sales Manager to sales techniques, which I found brilliant in its methods by the way.
But I have also been given the “practical” tools to work. Need help to guess what they are? The main one has four wheels and… YES, you’re right, it’s a car! Without it, nothing would happen. Indeed, just to give you a slight idea of its necessity, I will have to drive around a thousand kilometers a week! But I like to drive so I take it easy.

To sum it up:

I’ve been and still am in a rush, but I am very pleased to do my internship at General Mills as a regional salesman because I am given the means to work in a field that I highly appreciate.

Internship at… General Mills!

It’s done, I’ ve found my internship for this year! I will work as a regional salesman in Normandy for General Mills, representing their four brands in 77 supermarkets during 6 months.

This job is quite hard to define because it is specific to the French hypermarket distribution. Simply put, the French department supervisor decides on the products he wants to be present in its department. Of course, he has recommendations from his central buying service, but at the end it’s he who choses.

Concretely, my main actions will be:

- to increase the number of references in the 77 supermarkets I am assigned to

- to develop the visibility of my brand

- to put in place merchandizing actions

- to keep an eye on my competitor

I will develop on those points in further posts… soon to come!

Innocent Smoothies

Do you know what is a Smoothie? No? You should!

Yes? Great, but have you ever met an Innocent Smoothie?

I did once, and I will always remember. I was in my favorite supermarket, wandering around, and just next to Sunny D. juices, I found a funny bottle. The juice was packed in a big 1-liter carton, and as far as I can remember I never laughed that much “reading a bottle”. The carton was very imaginative, with a short story on how the banana fell in love with the strawberry, and how they decided to be a drink… and plenty other elements that put me far away from a boring fact-reality (like “enjoy by” instead of the traditional “best before end”).

And it all goes this way with their communication. I advise you to have a quick look on their website which illustrates accurately what I said. You will have more informations on how the success story began in the UK, how they make their (delicious) smoothies and more…

This is the kind of firm I would feel very comfortable to work for because it corresponds to several values I highly consider:

- Quality (premium ingredients)

- Simplicity (funny and clear communication)

- Ethicality (respecting consumer and environment)

Communication assistant for Alcan – 2007

I was part of the internal communication service in Aluminium Dunkerque factory between April and June 2007.

I organized the Open Days of this 600-employees’ factory that produces more than a half of France’s Aluminum production. The event gathered 3000 persons, who were very happy to visit and understand more about the process of Aluminum making.

The difficulties were numerous, as I had to deal with many security issues. Indeed, the plant uses many dangerous tools and chemicals. For example, one of the danger, is that you never know whether an aluminum bar is cold or (very) hot, even when approaching the hand. The result is, in the worst case, that your hand sticks to the bar as a result of the contact between extremely hot metal and the skin. But no incident happened during the visits, safely handled.

I learnt a lot about leading a project, and meeting deadlines… and also about me and my own life project. I feel that even if industry pays rather good wages, it is a world mainly made for engineers, it is their environment and their decision will always prevail.

At last, this experience is now very useful for me as I understand more of the  functioning of an industrial unit, and the major relationship between the core activities (production) and the support areas (HR, Finance, …).