welcome to the secrets of college planning and today we're going to get some insight in college my guest today is mark beal he's the author of one hundred one lessons they never taught you in college as well as the managing partner for teller welcome to the show great to be here no problem so usually it's not my guess where you went to college so when you go to school i interesting when i you know graduate from high school actually in the army  so when the army and i ended up going to the west point prep school which years ago was located at fort monmouth new jersey it's now located up in upper west point at the united states military academy so i went there for a year which might have been the best thing i ever did it got me real five then test them so let's go back into high school for ok so what happens when you get started in looking at college was a sophomore year freshman year was it senior year when did it all begin well for me i guess is a little bit different because my dad in one of his previous roles was actually in the admissions office at west point so he was a colonel in the army we i grew up at west point so i grew up on the military at the military academy so from kindergarten through just about high school and so he was you know he was one of those folks who had to go through to get into west point so i was always attuned to colleges college admission i go in his office and he'd had stacks he'd have every colleges catalog on his on his desk and so i was just kind of attuned to that from a young age and so i was always fascinated with visiting colleges touring colleges touring campuses i just enjoyed i enjoyed it so much and then in his role of west point he was also very active with  the track and cross country team to we traveled a lot to meet other campuses so i was kind of attuned to it at a young age because of his role there and i always kind of had an eye on you know universities and schools and got the chance to go with him on  various trips to universities across the country so now you get to rutgers university what's it like how did you like it there you know i see i think with with every high school student there's obviously  bunch of variables one of those is the size of the school i really enjoyed the idea that it was a big university because you've got to meet different people see different people try different things every single day i don't think i ever ran into the same person twice for for quite a while so i actually enjoyed that and then i also love the opportunity which you have at many schools you know to my case you know join the the radio station to call the games on radio so i would travel with the football in the basketball teams and call those games and i really enjoyed that but there was a lot of opportunity and like i said i mean all schools big or small probably have as much opportunity but there was just something about the bigness of it i enjoyed and the fact that you just met a lot of people i look back now some of my classmates who were in my communications or journalism courses then you know they're at the today show now they're on fox news they host national morning radio shows and back then we were just students but that's where they are you know twenty five plus years later  now you graduate college how do you go from there to being the managing partner teller well i between my junior and so when i was a freshman sophomore i worked in athletics i worked at the rutgers athletic department in what was then called sports media relations now it's probably called communications i also freelance for the asbury park press so they have me go out and cover local sporting events five k runs ten k runs and then i think starting my either freshman sophomore year i worked as i mentioned the radio station at rutgers so i was really into media and then the summer between my junior and senior year i had an interesting schedule i would get on a train early in the morning from new brunswick get to a i worked for a sports public relations agency that was located in the mid fifty's in manhattan called my cohen communications and mike was a former n b c sports public relations lead and i worked there and then when i got down around five thirty six o'clock i ran to thirty rockefeller center and helped produce what was one of the first sports radio shows in this country on n b c w n b c at the time which is now w f a n and we do that until midnight and then i would run as fast as i could to penn station and catch a twelve twenty or twelve thirty train back to new brunswick and then do it over so that's summer was a big summer for me and that was that some of that i really started gravitating more towards public relations i really enjoyed the work at the public relations agency because we were creating news and doing a lot of just interesting storytelling and once i came back from school to school i said you know that's what i really would love to find a career in public relations and sports too but it was really about public relations and fordham university that was my first job out of school actually was an erratic department handling public relations and they call and said you want to come over to what was called allan telecommunications at the time and i jumped at that chance so that was around march or april  harvard university actually wrote a case study about the transformation of our agency from a traditional public relations agency to more of a strategic marketing agency and some of the clients that people recognize i guess well this is one right there which is great so allstate has been a client of ours since two thousand and six but yeah a lot of our a lot of the what we call our client partners the brands that we collaborate with are you know we really focus on what we call category leading brand so allstate mercedes benz capital one procter and gamble companies and brands that you know most consumers are very familiar with yeah and so we're collaborating with those companies and brands on a daily basis developing campaigns to really engage the target consumer so how did one hundred one lessons they never taught you in college how did that all begin and thirteen rutgers university called and they said we're going to put more emphasis on public relations courses within the school of communication and would you like to teach and i absolutely would love the opportunity to and luckily like i said i've got three managing partners who  you know said go do it you know great opportunity and so i started an after each class every weekend by e mail and by phone i get these calls in these emails you know how do i start to network professionally how do i develop a resume how do i secure an internship how do i get a job after graduation and so now it's been five years and the questions continue i'm getting calls now it's interesting even last week from students who i had five years ago who are now looking at their second job after college and so they're calling me with advice on ok i've had this first job for a year or two i'm looking to make a move my career so now i'm at that point where it's they've actually already been in the workforce a year or two and now they're looking to maybe move on so i'm getting those calls now so between the sophomores who i teach and those i've taught who are now a year or two out of school all their questions inspired the book and as i was answering them i said really these answers can be lessons and i was getting them over and over that i know ok no one's really teaching yeah and so then i just started you know probably two years ago writing you know i said let's let's come up with a hundred lessons and when i submitted to the editor he said you know you have one hundred  here and i said actually that's even better i want to one even sounds better but it was truly inspired by students students who i teach as well as just students who i get calls from maybe friends of ours families we know and they said you might chatting with my son or daughter  you know they're either graduating or they're looking for an internship and it just was consistent this type of questions that were coming from you know eighteen to twenty one twenty two year olds so so everything that's in the book is really what you're learning in school but applying it for after college yeah i think it's it's interesting you know you go to school to continue learning and to get a degree and eventually to secure that job and so the one thing i think is missing and i don't mean that every university but there's not a course specifically about how do i transition from this university or college to a career there are career centers and you can go in there and get help and advice but i really think it would be great that every i would say sophomore year i think freshman year you're just there's too much going on too much of a transition i know by the time i got sophomore in to soften your i felt like i was now i know where i am i know my way around campus i understand how the courses work i think would be great right around that first or second semester to have a course on transitioning because at that point you can emphasize the importance of interjects and experience and beginning to build a professional  network not that that's too like come senior but it would be great if you can get a jump start on it sophomore year and definitely junior and so i just think a course like that should be mandatory for every student across the country no matter where they go to school and again about planning that transition from the four great years i'm having here to now a career right now some of the lessons i was reading in the book there really simple lessons it really just comes down to networking in different types of meeting interesting is i frankly taught a close to a thousand students over five years there are some who they've got this mindset and however it came about they are focused from their you know freshman sophomore year on this career in this job and i've got a there was a student who just graduated from an upstate new york school who's starting software reach out to me he knew me through a family friend and just consistently stayed in touch consistently asked for you know other people you can introduce me to consistently sent me a thank you note after you introduce them like that was and but though that's rare and so your point is you know just some folks just need you know some of this information some of this guidance some of these tips and i have had students and those who've recently graduated respond and just say this is just a great guy for me like i can pick it up the next time i'm going on an interview and i just refresh right how to approach it how to prepare how to plan all those things so it's it's meant to be i think a guide no matter where you are in that process whether you're a freshman or sophomore whether you just graduated and just to remind yourself again the process where you are and how to approach it now you were saying at the beginning that a lot of your friends are at the today show good morning america and so on and so forth all those kids were all you know they were all college kids it was time yeah so is that the network that you building is from the college that you're at i think and i think it's a combination one of the lessons in the book is that your you know your classmates and friends today are going to be decision makers tomorrow and i truly believe that and i don't think most students in fact i say the first day of class every semester i don't think most students realize that you know again when you're in college you're having fun you're going to school you've got maybe a part time job you've got a lot going on you don't realize that the young lady or the young man sitting next or maybe a c e o one day or maybe whoever you know whatever they might be so i do remind them that your networking should actually start here you probably have more than one class especially when you're in your major you probably have multiple classes with folks right in this classroom where you see them a few times a semester and then you know the following semester i said so it should start there you should start collaborating on getting on linked in together but then take it your point a step further so who you know who's a right there's a lot that maybe i as professor can introduce them to or i always say you know you know at a family barbecue this someone at their family barbecue can help you in your career or whatever it might be you just need to go out you actually do to need to be proactive shake their hand introduce yourself and then take it from there but there's somebody and then and that's some of the thing s that comes up in the book as well as is a lot of people don't like public speaking correct so what do you tell the students that are in college to help them with that public speaking yeah well there's t things i say one is that from now through the rest of your life the rest of your career doesn't matter what profession you get into you are going to be speaking it could be one on one interview it could be to a small group it could be two very large groups you know you you know not all of us are getting into sales but we are always presenting something or selling an idea or selling a concept to it could just be to your supervisor so i tell them to just embrace it as opposed to you know i don't speak well in public so i'm going to nor i had said i say embrace it proactively go out and find a course for someone who's kind of an expert in that you know speaking in fact i cite that as a great story warren buffett talked about he had a fear of it and he literally just went to there was an ad in newspaper for public speaking and he went and took it and he helped him overcome his fear because he knew for the rest of my career i'm going to be speaking in public in one form or another so i think it's a poor night it ties to a lesson here where even when you go for that face to face interview to be able to walk in look someone in the eye shake their hands with confidence i know that sounds basic but it's you do have to remind i remind my students all the time i said w we can't say i've already made an impression and should bear or not i've made an impression correct you know so so what can a student expect from like a class like yours what what do they get out of that plus you know i have  currently there's two courses that i kind of rotate teaching at rutgers one is a public relations course so it's you know it's communications majors who are you know interested in public relations and so in that course it's  world kind of case studies work we're doing for our clients it's things that are happening in the marketplace in real time so if there's a story that breaks that morning i bring it in the class and hey did we see what this branded today or that brand so it's more about  and what they're doing to market themselves to engage consumers but some of these you know lessons do come up and they're i mean probably the biggest one for that class is just writing i think writing is a lost art here and we spend a lot time on writing like writing for business writing professionally writing professional emails and we do spend a lot of time on speaking and speaking publicly i actually bring in five guest speakers that course from  various areas of local communications might be an expert in social media and expert in marketing advertising and they come in and present to the group and talk to the group so that's that's one side but the other course that i think really inspired the book was  it's a course that mostly these seniors just about all seniors and it's called leadership in organizations but it's really about understanding how to when you do get that internship or that job how did she really understand even if it's a supervisor who's only a year or two older than you how do they communicate how do they manage communications how should i communicate with them to they prefer email to they prefer face to face it's all those kinds of things and that's the course that is interesting for me because i have those students right before they graduate so most of them then are the motive i need to get a job i need to interview so we do spend a lot of time on preparing them for interviewing and interviewing is even change it seems like now compared to when i interviewed years ago in the first interview is a phone interview so it's a screening and i tell them and it's logical but i don't think they realize it i said they're judging you on one thing your voice they can't see you so are you confident over the phone or your ticket are you expressing kind of confidence that they say wow i want to meet this person and then if you make that around now it seems like they go to like a skype interview so now they can see you but you're on skype so we talk about things just like the technology working is if you're coming in and out on it they might be added it wasn't a great interview and then ultimately you know bringing you and inviting you into their company to walk the halls to meet and i tell my students all the time it's equally as important you're interviewing them you're checking out their culture so when you walk in there look around this the kind of place where you can see yourself for a year or two or three and that's what you should be doing when they're interviewing you you're you're also in essence interviewing them you know i know you you brought up social media a couple times what do you think of social media  should students be utilizing it to their benefit to what what is that actually paying absolutely i have a note in here and one of the chapters i say use it to your advantage and what i mean by that is you know if we think about or facebook they're all approximately eleven twelve years old now so if a student now is twenty they've kind of grown up on this you know they might they're probably more verse and fluent in it than the fifty year old executive w am and so they should use that to their advantage the other thing they should do and i again i say i start you know sophomores is i don't teach freshman but sophomores the sophomores do have a good sense of you know i want to get into you know fashion music finance whatever it might be and if they know that that's their passion i strongly suggest ok well let's start either using your social channels or create a specific social channel so let's just say it's a twitter handle that is specific to that industry so if i really want to current fashion well start tweeting about it sharing content about it sharing news about it to the point by the time we're sophomore junior senior you've got not just a following but use something they love which is social media but use it to their advantage as far as focused on whatever industry they may want to get into and so i do highlight that here now doesn't mean again by time you get senior to life but that's what i would do you know when i'm using my social channels especially something like twitter i'm typically you know sharing content about brands who are out there marking marking selves in a unique way in a different way to disrupt the way so that's kind of how i'm sharing content and it's just because that's what i'm the i'm in marketing and i so i love every morning getting up and reading about brands and sharing that information and so i think students can do the same thing depending on what category what industry they want to what they want to give so that brings up that brings up another point then students  the agency i give them about twelve trade publications to read all on lying on like again when i was in school these are all online now so from ad age to ad week to sports business journal you know all marketing business entertainment business and it's the first time they probably have even heard of any of these outlets or seen any of these outlets and within a month and now we do we have them each day view them we actually have them create kind of a daily newsletter that goes out to our whole agency about what brands are out there doing within about a month they're like i've taken in so much information it's great and i go back to school and i talk about this brand or that fran and my my you know my fellow students are looking at me like you know where you're getting all this information but they love it and so it's the idea that i think no matter what industry you go into or immerse yourself in the trade outlets that cover it so if you want to get into automotive well there's you know i mean when you put a motive you know you just need to log on and there's probably plenty of free ones too but then each day read on what brands are doing in the automotive category how they're innovating how they're introducing new products and responding to consumer needs that to me is the way to quickly immerse yourself in a category and become versed in it and how how big is a tailor right now how many how many employees the you have there so as i mentioned we've evolved quite a bit we have more than one hundred employees and you know we started in new york but now we have offices in los angeles chicago charlotte it lanta but i think the as i say kind of a full service strategic marketing agency so of those more than one hundred employees many of them come from ad agencies or digital agencies we've got script writers producers designers and so it's really about the idea of what i call channeling gnostic content so it's creating content or creating a platform or a campaign that could live you know it can live in the paid space it could live in the social space the digital space the current space and so that's been the biggest difference i'd say over the book well the book is an exclusively available on amazon which is great a lot of people have found it i had a in fact one of my my partners down leprous through a connection through his foundation and a connection back to his high school in upstate new york they purchased four hundred copies and they gave one to every student on the last day of school i guess two weeks ago and i was like wow that's so every freshman sophomore junior and senior at this high school and who's at fault new york and his foundation the jail  foundation they gave away one book to every student i thought was great so i had just people who i don't know have sent me an email or said you know i've purchased your book i give it was great timing for graduation season i've had a lot of folks and i first and i've given it away to everyone i knew who was graduating this spring or this summer and it's been a great gift to give them so yeah madonnas been been great it's a great place most folks you know what sam's on they know how to find it worked out well good well we're coming to the end of our show so usually i ask my guests what advice you want to give to the parents out there that their sons and daughters are graduating in what lessons the can they learn now this parents of high school students yeah school and college ok well i say maybe more advice for the students themselves i would say for high school students graduating about to go into to college you know there are no limitations anything is possible and i don't you know when i graduate high school and like i said i spent about a year in the army i don't credit credit it maybe maybe it helped but when i got to college i just to me there was there were no rules meaning try everything challenge everything you know you  know jumping on the radio station area i don't know if a year earlier i would have even tried that but so i think the idea that you know you've got freedom now and the freedom to go try things pursue things don't be afraid to go know network meet people you know try all that's that's my thing is really go out there and try it all you've got this opportunity between now high school and when you're going to eventually start a career these four years to really you know talk about the book you know become culturally relevant if if if sports is your thing that's great well then go visit the theater you know try some other things and then as we talked about earlier you know just i say  network you know and we maybe don't have to make it that formal but the the students you're sitting next to in class you're growing up in this together going to be in this career together you're going to graduate together start now don't wait til graduation day start now start collaborating start working together start sharing ideas that's what i would say to get more the probably the students and the parents but for the parents it's don't limit the students you know i got to me anything is possible anything is possible i saw my son go get his a from u c san diego and he started his own business while he was getting his m b a and happy came his first job so to speak out of school so nothing is impossible and then i think for students graduating college you know i i always say pursue your passion and i tell my students this all the time is if you love something if you love a brand or you love a category or an industry well there's a job there for you and so pursue it because it would be great to be out of work in music or fashion or or