Working at Prime Advertising gives high school or college students an edge in a competitive business world.

As a recent high school graduate, I am preparing to leave Prime Advertising to attend the University of Minnesota. At the U, I will continue to study business at the Carlson School of Management. However, even as I move on and continue my education, I will never forget or undervalue the real-world instruction I received while at Prime Advertising & Design. I can never thank Prime enough for giving me such a learning opportunity.

Working at Prime Advertising has given me a valuable edge by providing real-world experience.

In a competitive job economy students need all the real-world experience they can get. Over the past 15 months, Prime has hired and worked with 6 interns—students from varying backgrounds and education levels, all with a core interest in business and marketing. These interns have been trained to produce high-quality work while establishing themselves as working professionals.

My position at Prime was entry-level. Most days, I worked to maintain the many filing systems I helped to develop. By holding such a position, I was able to build my career, literally from the ground up. Having been an intern, I learned all the humility that comes from being the most inexperienced person in the office. Through that, I learned the importance of asking questions and absorbing direction. Every day with Prime is a learning day—a chance to learn a new set of skills or to learn how to behave in an office setting.

With an open mindset, interns at Prime Advertising have been able to learn a variety of skills. In addition to offering multiple forms of marketing and advertising, Prime offers experience in business skills such as: sales, accounting and human resources. Personally, I have been able to hone my management and Human Resource skills. Not only have I developed important organizational skills, but I have also learned the recruitment and interview process by getting the opportunity to hire two of Prime’s interns.

Learning and growing at Prime Advertising has been one of the greatest opportunities of my life. It has changed me, shaped and molded me into a business professional.  As I leave the company, I know that the lessons Prime has taught me will never leave me.

If you are a high school or college student and are interested in business, please have them email Penny Monse at penny@primeadvertising.com for more information about available internships at Prime!

The food had to have a Halloween theme and was voted on for the most creative. Leave it to the imaginative minds of Prime to have a severed head spewing green chicken salad, alligator eyeballs, compost salad and green ice skulls floating in the punch. The winner was pretty clear once the votes were counted – the green chicken salad handwiches. Congrats Rob and Julie!

Participation was down a little with the costumes this year, but the best costume award was still given out. The award went to Ben who dressed up as our Vice President Nathan. Unfortunately our VP was not in the office today to get a side-by-side comparison!

Everyone at Prime would like to wish you a safe and Happy Halloween!

[View with PicLens]

I spent most of my time at Prime helping to update and develop new organizational strategies for the company. From filing ad agreements, to updating price-list verbiage, to emailing clients their prospective ads, I’ve done it all. While this work may not be alluring to most, I’ve come to appreciate its value. Without such efforts to organize, a system falls behind and important information gets lost in the cracks. Only by getting organized and setting a standard to uphold can a consistent productivity be achieved—a lesson well-learned from my mentor, Penny Monse.

At the same time, I supervised the front-desk/reception-area. This allowed me to be Prime’s official welcome-woman; essentially, I was the first impression new customers received of the company. With such a responsibility, I tried to convey to each customer Prime’s dedication to growing their business and its willingness to work hard to achieve that goal. Getting to interact with clients and help promote Prime’s professional image were my highlight experiences.

Most interesting of all was Prime’s climate. That’s not to say its temperature, (because as we all know that fluctuates between a sauna and a refrigerator) but rather the emotional temperament of the group. All the employees at Prime are dedicated to fulfilling their customers’ needs. I’ve seen the long hours they pull, striving for perfection, only to do the same for another client. It’s truly inspiring, the creativity and effort they put into their work. Their passion for their jobs reflects in their positive natures. Prime is its own family and one I feel welcome to be apart of.

Luckily for me, my time at Prime has not yet reached its end. I have been offered and have taken a fall position for after-school work. I am pumped to continue working with everyone and seeing what sort of projects Prime will send my way. This was definitely a learning summer, and with what I learned, I hope to make this fall, and this coming year, an equally educational one.

A potluck featuring dishes with names like “Severed Snake Parts” and “Bloody Compost,” was served, and we washed it down with eyeball apple cider. A ghoulish time was had by all! Have a safe and Happy Halloween!

The Prime Team

Costume Contest Winners (Mr Potatoe Head – Most Creative, Sarah Palin – Funniest)

Misc. Photos of Costumes

The beach balls were a hit as expected! The kids and parents alike were all screaming “BEACH BALL!” Everyone at Prime loves to participate in this community event. Prime plays a huge role in the community with the Guide, the Newsletter, and the Event Guides! As well known as our faces are by many in the community…Can’t wait for next year! 

Check out some photos below:

In March we asked Leslie Byzewski , a personal trainer and speaker, to come speak to our company about general fitness and heart health. In just one hour, she had our group discussing our resolutions/goals, how to manage change and even got us up doing exercises with resistance bands.

It is interesting how we look to our co-workers as team members to get our daily jobs done, but it quickly became apparent how they can also help with personal fitness goals. A big part of getting fit is the education. We know certain foods can be bad for us, but learning why and what is in it is very eye opening. To help us continue on this journey of fitness, we asked Leslie to come back and speak about nutrition.

To keep us on track and make it a little more fun, we will be starting a 6-Week Prime Fitness Challenge. During the next six weeks we will be tracking points based on a daily physical challenge, a weekly nutritional challenge and offering a 30 minute fitness class once a week led by Leslie. For each item we complete, we will get points to work towards a grand prize!

Be sure to check back as our active employees will be sharing their experiences throughout the 6-Week Prime Fitness Challenge.

I am guessing many of you have done a winter vacation to Mexico, but you need to check out Costa Rica. Not only was the weather nice, in the 90’s all week, but the scenery is gorgeous. And what is scenery without wildlife? We were entertained daily by the Howler Monkeys that hung out in the mango tree above our pool and you had to watch your step as the iguanas would pass by your feet.

One way our Web group has found helps build our teamwork is our Friday Lunches. Typically throughout the week we all do our own things for lunch, some of us go home, others run errands and almost always someone can be found eating at their desk while still working! But Fridays are different! We typically all take a break and reward ourselves with going to lunch together. We reflect on our week, talk about what our next week is going to look like and usually discuss our upcoming weekend plans (we can’t talk all shop!).

Having these lunches together allows us time to relax and enjoy each others company which eventually results in better work through teamwork. Some of our favorite spots to enjoy:

•    Solo’s Pizza in Plymouth, Great Pizza, ready in 3 minutes!
•    Luke’s new favorite Eddington’s in Minnetonka, unlimited bowls of soup. How can you go wrong?
•    Recently we explored The Sweet Taste of Italy in Crystal. Great Italian food, small diner appeal.

MMMMM! Writing this has got me thinking, where will we go today? Try it out. Take a break from your regular routine and try having lunch together – your work AND teamwork is sure to improve!

The front desk at 8:00am, all is quiet … for now. 

9:00am The Web group gathers for their daily meeting on projects.

10:30am Jeff is coding away at a website interface.
 

12:30pm Alicia on a sales call for the guides or chatting with friends?!?

1:30 Norm presents some promo products in the showroom to a client.

2:30pm Natalie & Addy work on a logo design, lots of pointing going on …

3:30pm Marilyn & Mark hold a "hallway meeting" … they’re so efficient.

3:35pm I caught the UPS man on film, what does Brown do for you?

5:00pm Abby R. & Jody review a project before days end.

Well, that’s a quick glimpse, I hope you had fun hanging with us for a day.  We’ll see you tomorrow and we can do it all over again, same prime time, same prime channel.