I'm a little late posting but...

..it's only because we have been so busy on Saturdays lately! The weather has been gorgeous so our dealership has stayed packed and we have been participating in some really awesome events. So let me catch you all up to speed on it! :)

We had our Motorcycle Boot Camp last Thursday night. If you didn't come out, you missed a good time! Kimber Cleveland performed and was wonderful, as usual! We had free pizza and wings, plus beer! Everyone had a great time and left with a lot more knowledge about our dealership and Harley-Davidson overall!

Then on Saturday, we had a LOT going on! I was able to go to an off-site event at Billy Dunlop Park with the Buffalo Soldiers for their state ride. The Buffalo Soldiers is an elite motorcycle club and were so much fun to hang out with. We were able to meet some really awesome people and I got some great stories as to why they chose to ride a Harley and why they decided to join a motorcycle club. We had a great time and are looking forward to setting up at this event again next year!

Here is a video of one of the Buffalo Soldiers, Row, who was nice enough to talk to me about his decisions involving Harley-Davidson and The Buffalo Soldiers!

Appleton Harley-Davidson also set up at Ink'd Out Loud on Friday & Saturday. They had a ton of fun and met some really cool people. The one thing I've noticed about interning up here, Appleton's is so highly involved in the community, which is such a cool thing to see!

Now on to some more upcoming events, this Thursday we will have the Harley Hotties set up and helping at The Clarksville Young Professionals Business After Hours at Rivers & Spires. If you have never attended a Business After Hours event or been to Rivers & Spires, you need to come out! Such a great festival full of things for the whole family! I look forward to Rivers & Spires every year so I'm excited to help be a teeny tiny part of it this year!

Next blog I will catch y'all up to speed on our Spring Open House! Until next time..
xoxo ;)

Motorcycle Boot Camp, Read to Ride, and everything in between!

So I'm a little behind on my blog post this week because we had so much going on this past Saturday! I'll start with talking about that and then we will move on to Motorcycle Boot Camp, an event we have going on this week!

Saturday we sponsored the 2nd annual Read to Ride event. Motorcycle riders bring a book to participate in a ride. This year's ride went out to Hazelwood Elementary where students, parents, teachers and staff were playing games, eating concessions and cheering on as the books arrived at the school! Riders returned to Appleton's for a free lunch. There were 54 riders and 6,000 books donated! Being able to go to the school and see how excited the kids were when they unloaded all the books absolutely warmed my heart! Such a great event and hopefully it will continue to grow each year! 

On to Motorcycle Boot Camp, I know I've kind of talked about this event before on here but it is coming up this week so I thought we could re-visit it :) The event will be Thursday night from 6-9. There is FREE beer, pizza, and wings (that should make it worth your while right there..) plus Kimber Cleveland will be here performing live music! Plus everything you need to learn about motorcycles, so come party with us!

PLUS, you get a chance to enter to win some amazing prizes from Harley-Davidson! These include a Marvel movie red carpet event, attending the 110th Anniversary Party with Kid Rock, and a chance to go see a UFC fight, so BE HERE!!

If you can't make this event, come in and see us during our extended hours! We will be open until 7:00 Wed-Fri! Until next time.. ;)
xoxo

A post for the interns :)

I've posted a lot about what all is going on up here at Appleton's but wanted to make sure I'm keeping my fellow interns up to date with all I'm learning up here too! So this post probably won't be as entertaining as the others, just a heads up! :)

I have learned SO much here in such a short time, but what I have learned as definitely helped prove to me that I've chosen the right career path. It helps that I work with such awesome people too. Everyone up here at Appleton's has welcomed me and made me feel a part of the team which is something that a lot of interns don't get the chance to experience. I decided the best way to let you all know the key things I'm learning is to do a "top 5" list.

1. Planning is everything. To my APSU PR friends, I know we hear this all the time and we think we grasp the concept but it really is such a huge help. The more you can plan ahead the better. The thing I've found that helps me the most up here is to type up any notes you take from the beginning, that allows you to make a more permanent check list when the event comes up. I'm a pretty visual person so when I can look at a list and check things off I feel a lot more accomplished.
2. Research! Of course this is another thing we hear in class all the time but I've learned how important it really is. First, make sure you research the organization or company you are working for. You don't want to be presented with a question and have no possible answer. Not only does it help to research the organization, take it a step further and research things related to it. You never know what you can learn that will help you.
3. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Ever heard that phrase "the only dumb question is the one not asked?" well, it's pretty much true. If you are unsure of something, just ask. It is better to take the initiative to try to find something out than it is to just slide it off or give a wrong answer. The people you are working for want you to represent their brand just the way they do and aren't going to mind if you need to ask a question to do that properly. 
4. Take notes! There is so much to learn that the best way to retain information and remember what all you are doing is to just write it down. I've kept a notebook the entire time and make a page for each day I'm here that way I don't forget anything. You might learn something the first month and not have to get around to it until weeks later but you are expected to remember it. This is just a way to make your own life easier!
5. Always go a step further. If you are interning for part of your schooling like I am, don't just look at it as "okay I need to just log my required hours and be done with it". Be an active participant, if you can make the time to volunteer to help with more events or whatever is needed not only are you helping our your organization, you are helping out yourself. The more you can learn, the better. I know a lot of us had the mindset that we have learned all we need to in class but once you get in this position you quickly learn that is not true. You are preparing yourself for a professional career in this field and this is the best way to do that. If you get the chance to do more than one internship, DO IT! As a senior graduating in May I really wish this is something I would have had more time and more experience with.

Okay, to my non intern readers I'm sorry if I bored you! Hopefully the St. Patty's post below this will be more interesting to you and of course I'll blog more next week about the fun stuff! To my intern friends, hopefully you all are experiencing the same things I am and maybe took something from that post! Until next time...

xoxo :)

St. Patty's Weekend & Upcoming Events!

So I missed my blog post last Saturday because we were having too much fun with St. Patty's festivities up here at Appleton's! I'm going to update y'all with all the fun we had with that and then fill y'all in on our next events coming up, including one at The Gilroy Neighborhood Pub!

We started our fun filled St. Patty's weekend with our Pre Patty's Party here at Appleton's. As I mentioned to y'all in a previous blog post this event had free green beer and snacks served by our Harley Hotties! We had a really good turn out for this event and had a lot of fun. To make the night even more entertaining we decided to make our own "Harlem Shake" video. Unless you are living under a rock, you have heard all about this viral video dance craze that is all over the internet. It basically gives you the opportunity to show off your best dance moves and wear crazy costumes and accessories We wanted our customers to be involved in making our video so this event was the perfect occasion. Here is our version of the Harley Shake.

We also used this event to unveil the new 2013 Breakout and the 2013 Screamin Eagle Breakout. You can see the unveil videos by checking out our YouTube channel under Appleton Harley-Davidson. Until then here are some pictures from the Pre Patty's Party...

Make sure you check out our Facebook page to view all the pictures from the event!

On Saturday we went to the Irish Day Celebration in Erin, TN. We had our Harley Hotties in the parade as well as set up to sell t-shirts and other merchandise. We also gave out free coozies and keychains to those who signed up for our text club. We met some really awesome people and had such a good time! If you have never been to this event, I highly recommend it. It is a lot of fun and something for all ages! And of course I'll share some pictures from this too!

Okay, enough about St. Patty's, let's talk about some of our upcoming events up here at Appleton's! To finish out the month of March we have another Service Seminar on March 30th at 10 a.m. which will offer you seasonal tips as well as a session about LED lighting from our parts manager, Scott. Plus free breakfast!

Also on March 30th, Appleton's will be setting up at The Gilroy Neighborhood Pub. We will bet set up with a motorcycle, prizes, and our Harley Hotties! We will be there from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. so make sure you come out and have some fun with us! This is an event we are super excited about!

Sorry for such a long post y'all, had to play catch up! Until next time...

xoxo ;)

Ladies Garage Party!

This past Thursday up here at Appleton Harley-Davidson we had our Ladies Only Garage Party. This event is for the women to come in and learn all about our dealership, learn some motorcycle safety tips, see all of our Motorclothes and accessories, as well as learn about Harley-Davidson as a brand. We also had Cindy Maier come and speak to the women about her women’s self defense class. Plus, there was free wine! 

We had a great group of women show up! They all were extremely enthusiastic and were ready to learn. They rotated in groups to our four stations and at the end of the event filled out a survey, where we gained some great feedback.(INTERN TIP- surveys are such a quick and easy way to learn what worked for the event and what did not, you definitely need to incorporate these into your future events. It can be as simple as you need it to be)

The most consistent comment we got on the surveys was the fact they all found the “bike lift” to be the information they found most helpful. Here is a video where Luis, our Master Service Technician and Jamie, our Service Representative help one of the ladies learn the bike lift.

Even 3 of our dedicated Harley Hotties came out to learn more!

 

Overall the night was a success and the women had a great time! As an intern I also felt like I was able to gain a lot of the knowledge that the women did. It’s definitely never a bad thing to learn as much as you can!

To view all of the event photos, make sure you go check out our Facebook page and view the album! 

Until next time...
xoxo ;)

Just a Reminder!

Just a reminder, the Ladies Only Garage Party is this Thursday here at Appleton Harley-Davidson!! This is an awesome event for all women who are riders, interested in riding, or just curious more about the Harley-Davidson name to come out and learn a lot. There will also be wine & cheese, so make sure you come out and have a good time while you learn all about us and Harley-Davidson!

The event will be from 6-9 p.m. Thursday night and you can register online at our website www.appletonharley.com . Just click the web banner on the home page to register. We hope to see you there!

Until next time..
xoxo ;)

St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner and we are pretty excited about it here at Appleton's!

We are going to be participating in the Irish Day Parade in Erin, Tennessee. We will have a booth set up with t-shirts and koozies as well as having our Harley Hotties in the parade. Speaking of the Harley Hotties, we recently wrapped up a St. Patrick's Day photo shoot with a few of the girls and it turned out awesome, I'll even share a sneak peek with you guys...

In addition to the celebration in Erin, the night before we will be having our own Pre Patty's Party up here at Appleton's. This event will take place on Friday night from 5-7. We will have our Harley Hotties, snacks, and FREE green beer! Maybe you'll get lucky??

And if you are looking for something to wear to these St. Patrick's Day events make sure you come in and check out our Harley-Davidson St. Patrick's Day shirts that just came in!

Before I wrap this up, LADIES, if you are a rider, interested in learning to ride, or just interested in motorcycles in general, be sure to join us at our Ladies Only Garage Party. This event takes place March 7^th from 6-9. You will be able to go around the dealership and learn about each department. Plus there will be cheese and wine! Make sure you go and register on our website!

Make sure you are staying updated with all of our events and promotions by checking out our website www.appletonharley.com and liking us on Facebook!

Until next time...

xoxo ;)

Everyone needs to watch this video and listen to Heath's story. Talk about a true American hero!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnVR9-8cQL8&feature=youtu.be

Make sure you share this with all of your friends!

Until next time...xoxo ;)

Harley Hotties!

Time to talk about our wonderful Harley Hotties!!

The Harley Hotties here at Appleton Harley-Davidson are a group of gorgeous and fun girls who attend our events on and off site. They mix and mingle with the guests, take photographs, serve food and drinks, and promote our business. In the past we have had different girls to different events (I’m proud to say I actually have been a Harley Hottie at our Men’s Casino Night the past two years, so I know the importance as well as the fun these girls have). This year my supervisor wanted to have a set group of girls to rotate at the events. This allows familiar faces as well as lets the girls have a more extensive knowledge of the business, events, and our clients.

As I mentioned in the last post, the girls auditioned at our Hotties of the Year Contest at the annual Chili Cook Off. They were judged on various aspects and even had to answer an on stage question they were not prepped for, and I have to say they all rocked it. We picked a great 6 girls and are excited to have them for all of our events.

Make sure when you are visiting Appleton Harley-Davidson for one of our events you find our Harley Hotties, and even get your photo with them! You can check out our Facebook page for all of our event photos!

Until next time…

Xoxo ;)  

A little something about events.

So I promised y’all we would talk about the events I’ve worked at so here we go! I’m going to start with some event tips for my fellow and future interns first :)

• Planning is key, but don’t always expect everything to go exactly as planned
• Go into the event with an open mind and your game face on
• HAVE FUN! Remember “do what you love and love what you do” You have chosen this career path because you want to pursue it, take it all in and learn to have fun with it. It will make for a much better experience
• Do an evaluation after the event. Whether your internship makes this a requirement or not, it’s important to remember what all you had to deal with during the event and will help you in future event planning.

The first event that I was able to be involved in was one of our Service Seminars. This event allows customers, Harley owners, and potential owners to come in and learn tips about their bike. This particular Service Seminar focused on winter tips, storage tips, and spring conditioning. This event also offers breakfast to the attendees. To prepare for the event we utilized all of our social media as well as our website, receipts, and throughout the dealership. With my supervisor, we created a survey to pass out at the end of the seminar. It was a fairly simple survey but allowed us a lot of opportunity for feedback.

We were expecting around 25 people based on previous Service Seminars, and ended up with a total of 47! This is where that tip of everything doesn’t always go as planned comes into play! Obviously exceeding expectations is always awesome! We made a donut run to make sure we had enough breakfast for all that attended and it all worked out!

This event was a perfect starter event. I was able to learn more about Harley-Davidson in general as well as learn some of our regulars, which at a locally owned business is super important! I also was able to learn how we set up for certain events and where I could locate the supplies used.

On to the next event…

CHILI COOK OFF & HOTTIES OF THE YEAR CONTEST!! This event was a super fun event. This is an annual event that Appleton Harley-Davidson hosts; it consists of a chili cook off with 10 different entries competing for the title of “most unusual”, “most unique name”, “wild game”, and then the overall winner of the best chili. But added to the chili cook off this year was our new event, “Hotties of the Year”. This contest was looking for girls to be our Harley Hotties. The Harley Hotties are a group of girls who accompany us to events and promote the business (don’t worry, you will learn much more about them in my next post!)

The set up for this event was a lot more in depth. Time for another Intern Tip; take photos of your set up at all events! This helps you remember what worked and what did not for next time, and will make set up much easier. Luckily for us, we have an awesome group of guys up here who were willing to help us set up tables and our catwalk runway stage (thanks guys, we really appreciate it!!) This is a dealership wide event so everyone is willing to help out with whatever needed to be done; it’s so nice to have such an awesome team of people who are ready to help!

My main part in this event was to run the Harley Hottie registration table. Each girl came to sign in and filled out a quick little information sheet that would be used during their time on the catwalk. After the signed in, I snapped a photo of them and took them back to their area were they could get ready.

This event once again helped me meet a lot of our regulars as well as a lot of great people from around town and surrounding areas. It also gave me the opportunity to work with all the other employees as a team.

I recommend that anyone here in the Clarksville area attend this event next year, it’s only going to get bigger and better! To see our full event schedule and pictures from these events and previous events, be sure to check out our website www.appletonharley.com or like us on Facebook!

Be sure to check back every Saturday for a new blog post!

 

Until next time…

Xoxo ;) 

As a first time blogger, you'll have to forgive me if I don't quite know what I'm doing. But what a perfect way for me to share and remember everything I'm learning as an intern! :)

This internship was one that I wouldn't have ever thought of having. I was approached with all the basic communications internships that seem to be passed from student to student at my university. When a good friend of mine mentioned they would be looking for an intern here at Appleton Harley-Davidson, I knew I wanted it. It helps that I've seen this said friend do all sorts of cool things through this business and it is such a well known and respected business in my small town, not many places are locally owned and family operated these days! I was pumped when I found out that I got the position and couldn't wait to get started. My uncle is a big Harley man so I knew a little bit about what I was getting into but started to do some research right away. (Tip for all interns: Make sure you RESEARCH your business or organization, you never know when something is going to be presented to you and the more you know ahead of time, the better!) Being a self proclaimed girly girl, I can honestly say I'm ready to mix in my high heels with the world of Harley-Davidson.

The initial meeting I had with my supervisor was great! I was actually a little nervous even though I've known her for years, but she made sure to assure me she was here to help me learn as much as I can. I've heard lots of fellow students who don't get to have a hands-on experience so I am truly lucky to have someone who wants to help me learn. So as of January 2013 I became the Marketing & Event Coordinator Intern here at Appleton Harley-Davidson!

I've only been here for a few weeks but have already learned so much. We have already hosted two events and not only did they help me learn a lot, they were tons of fun. I'll make sure I go into more detail about them in another post :)

I'm hoping to have a little something for everyone in this blog. Future interns, I hope to have lots of tips and tricks for you! My fellow Harley-Davidson friends, I hope to keep you as up to date and entertained as I get deeper into this amazing corporation. And to all you Clarksville and surrounding area folk, I hope you are able to gain more insight to the events and promotions that Appleton Harley-Davidson does in this community.

Until next time....
xoxo :)