painter

painter/laborer

crew supervisor

marketer

laborer

College Works Painting

From start to finish, College Works Painting challenges your work ethic and your integrity to complete what you start! If you have the mental capacity to follow through, you have the potential to succeed here. However, for those weak of heart and ready to give up the moment they do not succeed YOU WILL FAIL. I learned a valuable lesson, one similar to that of a childhood tale - this program is not a sprint. It is not how you start, but instead how you finish. 

Outside of realizing the type of person I was, I did develop new skills. I was probably the most unorganized person in the world. I would just "go." I would not think. I would not structure. I would, "just do it," just as NIKE puts it. My district manager and the VP at CWP slapped me in the face with a new version of reality. The real world does not care about time or pure effort - obviously they matter as a fundamental to do well at anything in life. Sometimes you have to work smarter and not harder (Both of which are needed). So step one was restructuring my organizational skills. 

After fixing a couple minor logistical things that needed attention (Getting a planner, file box, organizing class schedules, study time, etc), my "soft skills" were then developed. I am a very hard-headed individual where things in life seemed to come easy growing up. I was definitely arrogant and some would say "cocky." Going door to door and meeting with clients for sales definitely humbled me out! I had to realize that I wasn't going to be perfect at everything. I needed to learn how to leverage my time. I had to learn how to delegate tasks. Conceptually this was probably one of the more difficult challenges in CWP. In this business, and I would believe in every business, finding the right employees can be a challenge. They do not come immediately. Management is learning how to push when needed and how to pull when needed. It also includes having the fierce conversations, even if we're uncomfortable to do so!

I believe the most difficult obstacle I saw among my peers in CWP was how they responded to rejection. No one likes hearing the words, "No," or, "We are going to go with someone else," or, "We want someone more professional." These were all discouraging notions. But, at the end of the day I believe learning how to respond to failure is one of the most valuable assets anyone can acquire. It's like Michael Jordan said, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Finally, I believe that the most enjoyable part of this job was being surrounded by a ton of like-minded individuals that wanted to face a challenge. Everyone that chose to do CWP did it because they're not the type that wants to be complacent and wait for life to come to them. Instead, those that strive for success are attracted to join the ranks of CWP to establish a strong results-based culture. There will be managers that do 40k+ and there will be managers that do 100k+, both of which are an inspiration to me because they all faced their own obstacles and had the integrity to complete what they started. The people I was surrounded by will be carried on into my future regardless of where I end. I know that their are individuals like myself with drive and passion to grasp life into their own hands!

College Works Painting (CWP) is not an internship for the feint of heart. It is not going to be easy, and it is not going to be a picnic. It will, however, be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life.

You will have the opportunity to start your own business from scratch, but without all of the liability and struggle of building your own brand. CWP has built a multi-million dollar painting company over the years, and through this internship they are literally handing you that model. All of the keys to success are given to you, but it takes a person who is willing to work hard, persevere, and go out of their comfort zone in order to be truly successful.

On the surface, CWP looks like a sales internship, but do not let this scare you away. Yes, you will be doing door-to-door marketing. Yes, you will be calling your lead. Yes, you will be going to people's homes and doing estimates. But, that is just the surface of what you will be doing.

You are going manage marketers and painters as well. You will be responsible for doing screenings, interviews, hiring, training, managing, and paying your employees. Purchasing all needed supplies (on account) for your job sites and making sure that your employees are happy.

You will learn the true meaning of balance as juggling the expectations of your parents, significant others, DM, homeowners, and employees becomes second nature. Do not worry though, as you will have time for friends, family, and hanging out. 24 hours is a lot of time, and this internship will help define those tasks that are priority.

CWP will give you what you put into it. It sounds cliche, but it is the cold hard truth. This internship is designed to give students the opportunity to have a tangible experience that builds leaders for tomorrow. You will not be pushing papers, getting coffees, or doing data entry. You are going to learn skills that you will use for the rest of your life whether you are a business major, entrepreneur, or art major. Everyone can benefit from learning how to run a business successfully.

The most enjoyable part of the internship is two-fold: work related and summer fun related.
- Work Related: Design consultation meetings are the most fun out of everything else. This is where you will meet with homeowners who have already booked with you. This means there is no pressure, no sales pitch. Just you and the homeowners really getting to know one another. This is where I personally had meals with homeowners, got life and business advice, and hung out with the kids. The work part of this is colors are picked, expectations are set, and dates are picked.
- Fun Related: CWP makes sure fun is mixed in as well. Our group went high speed go-kart racing, played broomstick ball, hicked a creek to a waterfall, played paintball, went to an in-door trampoline event, and much more. These events are awesome and really bring the group of interns together as a whole.

A typical of day at work is well atypical. Thats the part I loved most about this job is that its NOT your 9-5 desk job where you clock in and out and do the same mundane tasks every day. Any day could consist of any one of or combination of the following: calls, marketing, advertising, sales, management, training, networking, leadership, painting, hiring, interviewing, recruiting. 

All of these things I was taught by professionals in each respective field. MOST IMPORTANTLY I learned EXACTLY what I wanted in a future career. I found that I wanted something I could work directly with people, work with my hands, work outside, minimal desk and secretary work, and DID NOT want a job with hourly pay, uniforms, clocking in and out, sitting at a desk, and i KNEW that I HAD to have a job that challenged me every day and allowed me to grow and develop as a person.

On top of these things you will also learn a higher level of time management, stress management, management styles, and dealing with a more demanding workload than college will prepare you for in terms of your actual future job. 

The management of this company are so supportive of your growth. Literally its the life or death of the company- growth and development. This is one of the few companies built to consistently grow yearly and never become static. Not one level of management just does their "job" they are constantly training people to be better and to move up in terms of sales, commission, job title/position. 

The people that you work with range from college students in the same position as you, people who have already been in your shoes and are teaching you, your painters you hire, the clients you gain, executives you meet, and guest speakers you learn from. 

The hardest part of the job is keeping yourself motivated to keep performing. Everyone at every tier of the company must perform to keep their job. If you lose the motivation, you don't perform and therefore hate your job. Ex: If you hate door-to-door marketing and can't figure out a way to motivate yourself to do it, your business will go nowhere. If your too tired, sore, behind in school, lazy, (excuse, excuse, excuse) then you can't be successful here. This job demands high performing, highly motivated individuals. 

The most enjoyable part of this job is that it is constantly changing and keeps you on your toes 24/7. Ive never had a day where I woke up as was like: "I'm not going into work today." or "I can't believe I have to work again and do the same things."

Your a business owner, you make your goals, your schedule, your level of success, your business track. Its 100% on you and I love that level of control on myself and the impact I chose to or not to make in my future.

The recruiters talked about how you could start your own painting business. However, you were really just working for another manager, so it was not like owning your own business at all. Every day I would feel harassed by my manager about meeting their quota. They provided sales training, but I feel it was not enough. When I would do estimates for clients, I was not able to answer all their questions. I felt like I had inadequate training, and that made me lose a lot of potential clients. I also lost a lot of clients due to their ridiculous mark up. I couldn't compete with the competition because I would have to charge them at least double what the competition was doing.

The worst part of the internship was marketing. They kept saying the best way is to go door to door to get work. However, you would just get many doors slammed in your face. And to make things worse, for a period of time, each branch manager was given a section of the city and we had to stay in that boundary. So if you did not have a good section, you didn't have much work. 

Another irritating part was that they said that you'd make a profit on your jobs. What they failed to tell you, is that you aren't supposed to start painting until the summer time. This was a major problem for me in many ways. Because of that issue, I lost potential clients because they wanted the work done right away. Another way it hurt me is that because of this internship, I had to stop working at my other job. This meant that I only had student loans to rely on income. You have to pay for all your own expenses like gas and marketing tools. I used gas so much that it quickly ate into my students loans. Another thing that they don't tell you is that the way they reimburse you is that they take it from your potential profits, which is not guaranteed.    

Time management was another issue. There were two mandatory three hour meetings in which we'd have to call people and three phone meetings a week. On weekends, we'd have our estimates and knock on doors between our estimates. All of this consumed most of my time. My grades slipped and I put on a lot of weight because I only had time to get fast food.

Ultimately I decided to leave the internship because it was affecting my life in a huge negative way. The internship was hurting my health, my grades and the relationships with the people in my life. I think that College Works Painting glorifies this internship and forgets to tell you critical details upfront. Overall I felt cheated and lied to and I would never work for them again.

In a nutshell, College Works is the hardest thing I've ever done, but it was and still is the most rewarding. It has been a crazy journey learning how to run my own business from the ground up in 6 months, then having this year as a Regional Consultant to run my own business with a team of interns that do what I did last year. In 6 months as an intern, I learned how to market and sell, communicate with clients, hire, train, and manage teams of employees, and manage several projects at a time. Although I wasn't very good at it at first and I wish I had received more guidance and training during my struggles in the summer, I know that I played a role in the challenge by not asking for more help when I knew I needed it. And despite all of the challenges in the summer time, I gained problem-solving abilities as I tried to do everything on my own. As an RC, the hardest part is learning how to balance life with work, but I've learned that it's all up to me to figure things out in that aspect as well.

Originally, I didn't want to come back as an RC due to the time that I knew I would need to put in amidst all of my college courses, but CWP opens up so many doors. It's a great networking tool, professional skill-builder, and personal life skills builder as well. There aren't too many college jobs out there that give you that kind of experience. Above all else, I work with the most amazing people I've ever met. I respect and look up to the VPs and my co-workers who put in so much effort into what we do, and it pushes me to be better every single day. The hours seem long, but at the end of the day, you decide how you want your experience to go in life and in this company. If you want to see success, you have to be efficient with your time and efforts. If you want to be happy, you have to be grateful for your opportunities. This company teaches you about choices.

College Works Painting isn't for the faintest of heart. It takes grit, the willingness to change, and perseverance to get through doing things that no one else wants to do, but it all pays off in the end. Would I do it all over again if I had to? Yes. Would I want to? Not necessarily - because it's hard work, but I would because I'm thankful for the growth I've made as a person and an entrepreneur, and this company is made up of great teachers and leaders that make the program what it is. Couldn't imagine where I'd be without this experience.

The College Works Painting internship was easily one of biggest challenges I have ever faced. As a sophomore in college leaning toward a business degree, I was looking for an experience that would expose my weaknesses as well as develop upon my inherent strengths. As a three-sport athlete in high school and having held a part-time job since the age of 14 (average of 20 hrs/week), you could say that an above average work ethic was built into my DNA. This was tested every day throughout the course of the internship. Being 100% responsible for the direct marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction of a small business was a true test of self accountability and personal responsibility.

Through the program I learned a wide rang of skills that are directly applicable to everything I am involved with today - outstanding organizational, time management and communication skills are a few of the many that were cultivated in this internship. As a senior in college (being the General Manager of the Minnesota division, taking 15-credits and managing a social life) these skills have helped me to a live a balanced life. The work hard, play hard mentality that the company coaches has become a personal value I live by every single week. Skill sets aside; the biggest thing that one can expect to gain is a self-confidence level that will surprise most that are determined enough to see this experience through to its completion. 

Now don't think that I didn't have my own mountain of challenges to face here, because I did. But I assure you that the difficulties and set-backs experienced in this program are nothing in comparison to the perspective that is gained. This program is not for the weak at heart, but then again, is there anything actually worth attaining that is? I can promise that anyone who has the mental toughness and perseverance to complete this program will be happy in the end that they did. I highly suggest this internship to anyone looking to challenge themselves as a leader and looking to push the limits of what is personally possible.

Pros – The skill set you develop by running your own business with mentorship is something that cannot be learnt in a classroom. From communication, to selling, to closing, to managing, to customer satisfaction, to time management, CWP puts you in a position where you are forced to step outside your comfort zone, and that is the best way to grow and learn.

The people you meet are all motivated and driven, and are a great network to know for the future. I was part of the company for three years from 2008 to 2011, and some of my closest friends today are all from CWP. Friends that work at top companies such as Google, Mogl, Salesforce, etc, all who owe much of their current success to College Works, all who helped me land the perfect job when I graduated.

The experience looks amazing on resumes. I recently graduated from UC Davis in September and was able to get a few job offers in the field that I wanted within a month. Everywhere I interviewed, the management was blown away by my experience and success with CWP.

The culture is one that focuses on results and working hard, but also rewards the top performers and makes sure to play hard as well. Some of my best memories in college were with College Works. Whether it was a trip to Cancun or Las Vegas, or a sales conference in a hotel conference room, CWP makes sure to make everything memorable!

Cons – If you are not a self-motivated, driven person who wants to achieve more than the other 20,000 college students on campus, this might not be for you. You will be stepping outside of your comfort zone, performing challenging yet exciting tasks, experiencing things as a college student that many people ten years in the work field have not. From interviewing marketers and painters to firing employees to balancing budgets to working 30 hours while going to school, you are constantly going to be put in a situation where your will and your drive will be put to challenge. You will have to make some sacrifices, which is the case whenever you take on a new challenge. You are in total control of your success, so if you do not put in the work or do not perform, you will not do well and will fail. This program is not for everyone, but it is for those who know that it takes both strong skills and hard work to succeed in this world.

This job is very rewarding if you put in the time, but it is not for people who can't work hard and long hours.  Most importantly, this job gave me experience in so many different sectors, that it gave me leverage in almost all of my interviews for nearly any position I applied for.  Effectively, I found a way to relate any question to this position at CWP, and the interviewees are always impressed.  They are impressed for good reasoning, as I would credit my growth from this job as the most growth in my professional career to date.  However, you not only need to sacrifice time, but money, as this position is unpaid until you complete your first job (production), which was 5 months after I started!  As for those who quit before production, they didn't get paid anything.  Clearly, this job isn't for those who are uncommitted.  With that said, be prepared to work harder than you likely ever did, but note that the effort is forever rewarding (future possibilities and skills).  Once you finally start get paid (via production), the checks are decently large, assuming you book over the goal everyone should have at minimum: 70K of revenue.  Note that you will have a talented manager, who will "help" you, but acts more as a resource to answer your questions, to hold you accountable, and to push you!  However, don't be mistaken, they are usually talented people, so use them, but don't expect them to run your business or hold your hand.  These managers excelled in the entry position the prior year, so know what it takes to succeed.  Moreover, I can't tell you how many times I hear of successful people in varying jobs throughout the years that once worked here!  This job is exceptionally beneficial for developing sales talent, that is, if you do good, as it means that you are actually good at sales.  Besides that, you will learn how to do marketing via cold calls, door to door, and internet; managing via production or marketing teams you pay; recruitment via hiring crews; training via training them; and finance via paying them.  And no, it is not a pyramid scheme. 

I did the college works painting internship my freshman year of college. I found out about it through a clipboard that was passed around in my psychology class. I must admit that I was a bit skeptical at first.
Certain aspects of the program seems to good to be true. None the less, I was excited by the idea of being able to work on my own terms and make lots of money in the process so I chose to attend an information session. After being hired and going through a few trainings, the real work began on Super Bowl Sunday. With my district manager guiding me every step of the way, it wasn't long I felt comfortable going out and marketing the business and doing estimates on my own.

At first it was very difficult and since I wasn't obtaining my desired results I even considered giving up. But after I post my first job something clicked. From that point forward I felt very comfortable with the estimate process and became incredibly successful at it. In the midst of all the marketing and estimates, I was also taking 15 credit hours and working twenty hours per week at a part-time job. By the end of the spring semester I had booked nearly $80,000 worth of work.

As soon as school ended I started producing the work that I had booked. My roommates were my main painting crew and I also had two additional crews to help me with the workload. The first few weeks of production were rough as I had never managed that many people before. Once I got over the learning curve I was able to take a two-week vacation while my business ran itself At the end of the summer I had made close to $14,000 and had provided six people with full-time employment for the entire summer. I also got to travel with the company to Los Angeles to be on The Price is Right, go to Rocky point for a retreat, and be involved with numerous fun activities every other Friday when the entire division met up to do payroll.

The internship was very challenging at times but I am so glad I did it. It made me incredibly confident in my abilities not only as a sales person, but as a human being. I would recommend this internship to anyone who likes to work hard and play hard.

This company taught me so much about business and accountability. I knew it would take a lot of energy, perseverance, and pure grit to not only get through the internship but also make it worth my while.
This company showed me how to start my own business, and helped me realize that I would be the only reason my own business might fail if I do not learn how to hold myself accountable. For those interns who hope to start their own business one day: THE COMPANY INVESTS IN THE START-UPS/VENTURES OF FORMER INTERNS.

I was encouraged to take "small jumps" constantly in the initial stages of field training, and I learned to trust my District Manager and rely on her for any questions I had. Most of the time, her answer was "What do you think you should do?," which taught me to think for myself as a business leader. When I took those leaps and learned that I could produce the results that I wanted for myself as long as I tried, I ran with the schedule and expectations and became a top performer within weeks, which I was proud of and sought to maintain. When peers quit because it was too much work, too hard, too direct, they didn't like knocking on doors and hearing no, they didn't like talking to people they didn't know about a product they didn't understand, I laughed because YOU CAN, AND WILL, GET ONLY WHAT YOU GIVE IN THIS INTERNSHIP. 

IGNORE THE DOUBT, ERASE THE SECOND-GUESSING THOUGHTS AND FEAR, AND SUIT UP! LEARN TO BUCK UP, OR DO NOT DO IT!

Not for the faint of heart. Do not be naive. If you want an easy summer and a typical, unimpressive life after graduation... or expect to only work 35 hours per week developing a successful business for the first time,... get over yourself.

Before deciding to do this internship, you should absolutely think about WHY YOU CAN'T do this, and acknowledge the very real possibility that YOU COULD FAIL AS A FIRST TIME MANAGER.

Then, you should think about what could happen IF YOU DON'T FAIL.

And then you'll realize that YOU HAVE TO DO IT TO KNOW HOW ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT IT REALLY IS.

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