Harleys & High Heels: Confessions of an Appleton Harley-Davidson Intern: 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!