-: My name is Nathan Lavinka
and I am the director of collegiate market development
for Balfour.
So I am responsible for all the sales activity
in Virginia, Maryland and D.C.,
exclusively working with colleges and universities
and selling their class rings.
I work from home.
I'm based in Richmond, Virginia
and I directly lead a team of 18 people.
I could be sitting at a ring table
helping out my team.
It could be being on a conference call with corporate.
And we're based in Texas, so it could be
on a conference call with corporate learning new policies
and things to roll out to my respective team,
but really overall it's providing
the direction and the leadership to our team,
but then also advancing our relationships
within each of our schools.
So more often than not I'll be meeting with
a bookstore manager, an alumni association,
student committee, really whoever has a stake
in the actual ring program at the respective institutions
in which we support.
I'll be working directly with the alumni association
alongside the regional manager and the territory associate
that supports that respective school
and over the course of the summer make sure
that we have all of our dates set for the year,
make sure that we have all of
our promotion materials into our CRM,
make sure that we have everything that we need
to make sure that we get the marketing collateral
out on time to really support the school
in the best way possible.
We send out that collateral to our respective part timer,
the promotion specialist who's gonna be
sitting at the table, to make sure that they're aware of
what we send out to attract people to come to the table.
And then they're the ones who actually
convert that into an actual sale.
So a student comes up to the table.
He or she educates the student on the rings,
on the selection of rings and really figuring out
what type of metal and what type of ring design
best fits not only their lifestyle, but also their budget.
So I would say it's about four days a week
and probably in hotels about two or three nights a week.
So a lot of domestic travel,
a lot of windshield time, as they say,
but really it's a great territory.
We're in the second largest in the country,
so it's always something going on.
If I'm sitting at home for too long
it means that there's probably something going on
that I (laughing) should probably pay attention to.