another day at EL CAP

Today at EL CAP we began working on a power point presentation to show potential clients. My mentor has me helping him set up charts and other financial data on the computer. He also is having me construct some of the power point slides because he does not know power point very well. We also meet with our website consultant for the last time and discussed the "our story" section of the site. His main point about this section is that is should make the reader feel like they can connect with you without offending or criticizing anyone. After the meeting he mentioned that he would like my interning services for a side project he is working on for the spring which he is very excited about.

I also am getting private investment lessons from my mentor which is really helping me better understand not only the investment world but the business world as well. So far we have discussed the feds new plan with QE2 and the general state of the economy. He sent me home with some hw to learn more about ETF (exchange traded funds) and an article that was written by his good friend David Rosenberg.

A side note about my mentor, he recently sent one of his reports to John Bogel who is the founder of the Vanguard group and was sent back a hand written letter from John himself. Along with that note another one of his reports was published in business insider.com if you want to read part of the report the link is as follows. (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-case-against-dividend-stocks-2010-10)

Photo Shoot pic

Me at the desk.

PhotoShoot

Today at EL CAP we had a photo shoot for the local Charlotte newspaper. We have recently begun to advertise in their paper and one of the editors is very interested in the business and wants to do a piece about us. She asked to send a photo of my mentor and his partner, my mentor has a obsession with photography and brought in all of this fancy equipment and lights because he wanted it just right. In reality it is just going to be a small black and white picture in a news paper. After experimenting with different lightings and poses we finally got the shot he wanted. After the shoot we met with our website consultant and talked about what needed to be changed on the site. The one main point I took away from the meeting was to be concise and not to bore the reader.

Another great part of this internship is that I am meeting a lot of people that are good to know in the business world next week I have been invited to a charity pig/goat roast and attending will be many important businesses heads from various local companies. This will be a great chance to talk and mingle with them.

Home Work

While I am away from the office my mentor is having me start a database of potential clients for the company. The companies have to have between one million and fifty million dollars in assets; and have to be local to New England. There are a few other limitations that my mentor required as well. In the end I went to the NCCS (National Center For Charitable Statistics) and found a list of over one hundred various companies, organizations, and foundations to include for the database. All the database includes now is the name of the organization hyper linked to their site then with the contact info along with total assets and total revenue.

Day 2 at EL CAP

Today I got to sit in on a meeting with a consultant who is helping my mentor start his business. we discussed mainly the website (elcapinc.com) and edited it down to a fraction of what it was. I am learning a lot about advertising in newspapers and online in various publications.

After our three hour meeting, we went back to the "world head quarters" as we call it and my mentor gave me some financial numbers to crunch. As he started telling me what he wanted to do I quickly realized that I knew what he was talking about and had no trouble doing it. I thought back to my financial management class and remembered Dr. J explaining these same types of problems and five min later I was able to give my mentor the answers.

I am looking forward to next week when we finally finish the website and hopefully have some ads in place.

Day 1 at EL CAP

Yesterday was my first day at my internship. I started working for a small investment advisory company named EL CAP. The company is real small and just starting out. I think this will be a great learning experience because I will be able to learn what it takes to start a business from scratch. Yesterday I helped with the marketing side of the business. Since EL CAP is just starting out they are working on where to advertise and how to reach their target market. We are meeting with various news papers about advertisements and other local publications in the area.

While discussing which papers to advertise in my mentor brought up an ethical dilemma he is facing. one of the possible papers that he is considering is written and published by a local man who has a less than great reputation and it is known that he spent time in prison. Do we advertise in his paper when everyone knows if this mans past?

Looking at the road ahead I can not wait to see how this business will develop and what it takes to make it successful.