Storage Scholars has been working hard to establish a positive reputation for the past few years in the realm of college moving and storage. From getting the deal of a lifetime on Shark Tank to partnering with a worldwide moving company, we pride ourselves on being the go-to for college students looking for an easy storage and moving solution.

But did you know we've also turned our love for student storage into a career path for some of those same college students? While moving boxes and ottomans, we've been simultaneously empowering our talented student interns to learn business and marketing skills for future careers. We set them up and empower them to be unstoppable in the workforce. In this blog post, we'll highlight 14 ways Storage Scholars gives their interns the tools and knowledge to succeed in the storage industry and far beyond it. So, grab your packing tape, and let's dive in!

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1. Provide comprehensive training with clear directives and goal-oriented tasks

The Storage Scholars internship program focuses on an intensive 8-week training on a learning management system. Interns are guided through weekly modules covering various aspects of the business, including backend operations and client-facing interactions. Doing so will allow them to become familiar with high-level information and specific, complex processes. While the LMS modules are structured to be manageable, they are also fast-paced, which is why we seek tenacious interns. Each week, interns meet with executive team members to go over their goals and individual and team metrics for success. Our interns have tangible goals to meet and take pride in crushing them week after week.

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2. Provide mentorship opportunities with experienced professionals

Our Georgetown interns have a unique opportunity to work alongside Clare from HQ. Clare started as an intern and worked her way up as the Head of Recruitment at Storage Scholars. While Clare has a hand in working with all of the interns in some capacity, the interns at Georgetown University work directly with Clare at times, as she, too, is a student there. For the rest of our interns, there's no shortage of mentorship. Interns meet weekly with executive members of the team to help them with each aspect of running the business, from training and modules to hands-on marketing, outreach, and even managing their own teams right on campus. They are never left to navigate the company on their own but instead have a personal coach within reach as they grow and develop into future business leaders.

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3. Allow interns to develop their own project ideas and initiatives 

While we give our interns the tools, we never put them into a one-size fits all mold. We fully encourage each to develop their own ideas and take the initiative to execute those ideas with their cohort.

When Ben at Duke realized how eco-conscious the student population was on his campus, he knew he needed to hone in on that aspect of the business. He went on to educate himself about the topic. He read up on our sustainability blog, reached out to his mentors, and searched for the sources and distributors of our materials to provide his customers with the information they were most interested in. That's taking the initiative!

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4. Inspire team building 

In the world of Zoom meetings and remote work, face-to-face meetings and the idea of team building can be taken for granted. Getting to know your team members and fellow interns can be hard when you only interact through text messages or work chats. We encourage our interns within each cohort to get to know each other. Working together and running a branch of the business will require building a solid work relationship. It's a crucial skill that can make or break a business. We can train each intern extensively, but if they don't have the business rapport and communication necessary to execute successfully, their customers will know it, and their business will suffer. Our SDSU intern team was eager to establish that sense of team and rapport with each other from day 1. They set a place, and a time, communicated effectively with one another and devised a plan. As a result, they have become a super strong cohort.

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5. Encourage interns to use their voice

We believe everyone, regardless of their position, brings unique knowledge, skills, and perspective that makes us who we are. All voices are not just welcomed but encouraged to be a part of the decisions and direction of the organization. At Storage Scholars, egos are left at the door, wins are celebrated as a team, and learning never stops.

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6. Get to know the community

While attending a university can be a community in and of itself, many students find it daunting to venture out and meet new people. As interns at Storage Scholars, students are encouraged to overcome this fear and connect with potential customers, parents, and even administration through their outreach activities within their campus. This could involve hanging flyers, tabling at campus events, speaking to organizations, or just striking up conversations about the business. Interns are the boots on the ground marketing and the success of the business will depend on the connection that interns have with the community. Interns are empowered to hone in on their communication and people skills, enabling them to grow both personally and professionally.

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7. Foster collaboration

Collaboration is an important life skill, and we're empowering our interns to do just that! Each intern has a specific role and set of responsibilities, but they only work if, collectively, the group comes together to achieve their common goal. By setting up their own table with merchandise and information, The Babson College cohort was able to create a visible presence on campus and engage with other students who may not have been aware of their business before. This is a fantastic way to build awareness and generate interest in their company, but it took collaboration on the part of each student to pull it off. By working together towards a common goal, students can build stronger relationships with one another while also achieving their objectives.

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8. Offer flexible work hours to fit within their class schedule

We know that college can be demanding. Adding an internship into the mix is often challenging with class and work while staying mentally strong. Our goal at Storage Scholars is to work in sync with the already busy schedule to prepare our interns for life after college in a beneficial and rewarding way. Thankfully students love the flexibility that comes with a Storage Scholars internship. Students can work around their class schedules and still make it to class. Hang fliers on their way to class, create their team agenda between classes, and schedule meetings when they have free time.

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9. Provide real-world experience that are meaningful and have tangible outcomes 

Nobody knows a campus better than the students who live there, and sometimes it takes an insider to understand what will work best. The intern team at Babson College knew that the tight-knit college would benefit from door-to-door marketing! So that's what they did. They knew social media was more straightforward and less intimidating. Still, they were fearless in jumping into a new (ok, well, old school) marketing. We loved that they didn't think twice about how to spend their weekend–and it paid! They got to talk face to face to customers, sign up some students, and show the campus the face of their business. 

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10. Encourage creativity and out-of-the-box problem-solving

At Storage Scholars, we provide plenty of training, but students are given a unique opportunity to become 'out-of-the-box problem solvers". We encourage creativity and love when interns run with their own ideas! At NC State, interns were tired of the old flier tasks. They created their own "flier" of sorts–a spray-painted message inside of a tunnel on campus. We don't know if it gets more creative or "out-of-the-box" than this!

And then there's Victoria, our intern from Columbia University. We don't think we've seen another intern come up with this idea! We love her silliness and clever way of attracting attention to Storage Scholars. She may have pulled off one of the most creative marketing uses for our custom-made boxes to date! For an intern who's literally in a box, she sure is an out-of-the-box thinker!

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11. Embody a growth mindset

At Storage Scholars, we believe in fostering a growth mindset among our interns. We encourage our interns to be gritty and do the things that no one else wants to do. We provide these growth opportunities to learn from their mistakes as they navigate their way through the internship program. By instilling a growth mindset, we aim to equip our interns with the resilience and adaptability needed to succeed in their future careers. We also provide our interns with regular feedback and guidance, helping them identify improvement areas and work towards their individual and team goals. Our focus on a growth mindset benefits our interns during their time with us. It lays the foundation for a lifelong commitment to learning and self-improvement. By nurturing a growth mindset in our interns, we empower them to become confident, self-motivated, and successful.

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12. Have fun with their role

It's never really work if you love what you do, and we empower our interns to love their role! At Franklin and Marshall, the interns didn't want to spend the whole day hanging flyers to spread the word, so they got creative and had fun with some chalking around campus. It brought some entertainment to their efforts and piqued some curiosity at the same time.

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13. Using knowledge of Social Media to make an impact

Let's face it; college students know social media better than the rest of us. They grew up on it and know what works and doesn't when marketing to college students. TikTok, Instagram, and even LinkedIn have become second nature. We empower our interns to take off and run with their expertise. Intern Sebastian used his design skill and LinkedIn expertise to post a graphic about the internship opportunity to his classmates. Many of our interns have taken on an entire Instagram business page to promote their branch on their campus. At the same time, others have created their own commercials to broadcast to various organizations and student clubs.

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14. Be entrepreneurs

Interns will be running their own branch of our company on their campus. They will have creative freedom and control over finances. They will do the hiring for their team and will drive the success of their company. Storage Scholars was founded on entrepreneurial dreams and we are excited to share that passion with the next generation. We empower all of our interns to learn the ins an outs of running a company and they will leave with the skills necessary to start their own. There's nothing more empowering than that.

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Final Thoughts

While Storage Scholars strives to be the leader in student storage and moving, we're equally fired up to develop the next generation of business leaders. That all begins with our dynamic internship program. We provide college students with opportunities to develop professionally and personally. Week after week, as they work on real projects with tangible impact, our interns learn to take ownership of their work, become more confident in their abilities, and prepare for their future careers.

If you know someone who would benefit from one of our amazing Storage Scholars internships, have them visit our website to learn more, send us an application, or reach out to our Intern department for more information. 

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