Editor’s Note: This blog post was written by Dionna Williams, Graphic Design Intern at Terminus. Dionna is a senior studying graphic design at Georgia Southern University. You can learn more about Dionna and her work at dionnawilliams.net.
Landing an Internship at Terminus: Account-Based Marketing
On June 26th, 2017, I became the first Graphic Design Intern at Terminus, an account-based marketing technology company in Atlanta.
I remember when I first got the acceptance email. I was so excited because going out of my junior year of college, I was the only one of my friends who didn’t have a summer internship. I wanted to give up, but I kept on persevering, going through at least 35 different interview processes around Metro Atlanta until that fateful day I found Terminus on Glassdoor Jobs. I applied and went through the interview process, and then that acceptance email came through two weeks later.
On the first day of my internship, I was beaming. I was excited to see what was in store for me, what I would learn, and the amazing people I would meet along the way. I realized right away that this was the exact place that I wanted to work for the summer. Everyone was so nice and helpful, and the laid-back startup atmosphere was incredibly refreshing.
A Crash Course in Marketing and ABM
The funny thing was that before Terminus, I had no idea what a startup company or account-based marketing (ABM) was. Sure, I was well-versed in the principles and elements of graphic design…but that’s not exactly a basis for a digital marketing role.
Before I got here, I was trying (and mostly failing) at teaching myself marketing for three years, but after being thrown into the marketing technology world, I now understand the fundamentals. What’s even more exciting is that I got to see firsthand how a marketing team markets a marketing technology solution. So much marketing!
I am thrilled to say that I have learned so much during my six weeks in the MarTech startup world. I learned about web design, SEO, marketing analytics, video editing, and how Sales and SDRs work within Terminus (which was nice to learn more about because my dad works in sales, but it felt so mysterious to me for the longest time).
The Startup Culture at Terminus
Nobody likes meetings, right?
Actually, that’s not true. There are two big meetings that I’ve really come to love at Terminus: the weekly Sales meetings on Monday mornings and the Terminus Tuesday All-Hands meetings (complete with catered lunch!). They are not normal, mundane company meetings. I had a preconceived notion that all company meetings were boring, but Terminus proved me wrong.
Between the energy of leadership like Eric Spett, Tonni Bennett, and Lucas Ulloque, the excitement of the sales team ringing the gong when they close a deal, and the musical stylings of the demo songs from the Spotify playlist that Lucas blasts, I’m always engaged and excited to learn about the accomplishments and goals of the whole Terminus Team.
I also love how the different teams at Terminus get together to talk about their weekly accomplishments and just check in on each other to make sure that everything is running smoothly. The marketing check-in meetings have been especially helpful to me. They’ve helped me understand the account-based marketing world as well as all the lingo used within it.
The fact that I got to work with the Terminus marketing team was a dream come true because it taught me more about real-world applications of graphic design and how a B2B MarTech company functions.
But the highlight of my time here was the community service project we did at the Atlanta Community Food Bank. I had volunteered there before with my church, but this time around was even more fun. The energy that we brought to the event was quickly noticed by the ACFB employees and the other volunteers. I really enjoyed putting together boxes of food for senior citizens, and together, we managed to make almost 700 boxes in three hours!
Thanks to All the Terminators!
And with all that being said, I am so grateful to every person on the Terminus team, especially my manager, Shannel Wheeler. I appreciate their patience with me and the motivation they gave me every day. I enjoyed working with them and furthering my own design skills by designing presentations, digital ads, social media graphics, logos, and so much more.
Here are some of my favorite design projects from my internship at Terminus:
I’m sad to be going now, but I am so thankful for all of the experiences I had and for all of the lessons I’ve learned. And I especially want to thank, again, the people I worked alongside the most: Shannel Wheeler, Lauren Patrick, Shauna Ward, Madison Bennett, Stephanie Kelly, Thomas Shields, Peter Herbert, and Kathryn Ewing, as well as the two people that helped welcome me from the start: Kipp Ramsey and Jessica Pachman-Hults.
