101 - Talking with Our Summer Intern Megan Callahan

Rich: All right, we are back with another episode, and this time it is our, uh, intern view. It's our talking with our summer intern, Megan Callahan, uh, from Morningside University. Still weird for me to call it university, but that's okay. Um, Zach is having some audio issues, so I'm gonna do the intro and then we'll, uh, run into the cocktail and move on from there.

So. What's it like to run your own e-commerce t-shirt store as a summer intern? Um, and what did you learn along the way? Those are the things we're gonna ask Megan. Um, basically for our interns, we throw them into a t-shirt shop that they run, uh, during their internship. Um, full scale like it is out there, you can buy things on it.

71 shirts.com, the number seven, the number one shirts.com. Um. And they have to deal with everything from product design to wet layout, to digital ads, customer service, like all of it. So that should be interesting. So if you're curious what it's like to be just dumped into e-commerce, um, this'll be a fun one.

Um, 'cause Megan's had, uh, had trial by fire. All right. So, um, I think with that, let's, uh, kick it over to Zach and Go ahead, Zach. And, um, what's our cocktail today?

Zac: Uh, today's cocktail is a favorite of Megan's. It's a Hugo Spritz, so some background on the drink. Italian bartender Roland Gruber, is often credited with creating the Hugo Spritz, which has also been called a saint germane spritz and an auto spritz throughout the years.

Um, this was actually created like not as like long ago as you would think. It was created in 2005 as a lighter alternative to the Apal spritz and all of that's according to wine enthusiasts. So I had to give them some credit there. And the actual recipe itself, which you'll get into Rich, is uh, from liquor.com.

Rich: Alright. All right. Very cool. I was at a game night with friends and um, somebody wanted a Hugo Spritz, so we did a Hugo Spritz. Um. It was really good. Although I think I feel like ours called for gin. This one doesn't. Um, I'll have to go look at the recipe that I used because I had to look it up. I'm like, I don't know what this is.

Uh, so ingredients you got a half an ounce of St. Germain. A little of that goes a long way. It's basically like boozy simple syrup. Um. One sprig of mint, four ounces of Prosecco, or like whatever you want, like based on your glass size, uh, an ounce of soda, water, or a splash, um, lotion. Both be chilled, of course, and then you'll garnish it with a mint, sprig and a lemon wheel.

So. You add the St. Germaine and Mtz brig into a wine glass, gently muddle and let sit for three minutes. Um, just get all that mintiness up into, um, the St. Germain. Add your ice and Prosecco and the soda water, and stir briefly and gently to combine. So if you're doing this in a normal sized wine glass, not like a ginormous one, but just a regular kind of.

You know, whatever you would put it in a Chardonnay glass or a pinot glass or something. Um, usually you can just like top it off with, you don't have to measure the Prosecco or the soda water. Just top it off to about where it looks like you've got room for a little bit of soda water. I do know some people who do just a splash of soda, water, some who leave it out.

Um, and some folks like, especially if you want it to be a little less boozy, you could cut back on the Prosecco in a little more soda water, but. Nice and fizzy. Um, it's super easy to make, like the muddling is the hardest part. Um, and it's really not that hard to muddle a little bit of mint with some St.

Germaine. So you garnish that with a MIT sprig, uh, and a lemon wheel, uh, for a little freshness and a sip perfect on a day that is 97 degrees like today. That's supposed to be for us. So that's it. Um, we will, um, let you enjoy your Hugo Spritzes and we'll be back with Megan to talk a little bit about, uh, running an e-commerce store.

Hey Megan, welcome to the podcast.

Megan: Thank you.

Rich: A little bit weird, right? Like, um, doing the video recording here and you're tucked away in that little room in our office in Sea City. Um, so let's start with who you are, where you're from, what brought you to this internship, like, give us the background on how you got here.

Megan: Um, hello, my name is Megan Calla. Um, I graduated in three years from Morningside, so I don't know, I kind of really didn't know where I was gonna be headed, like for job route, and Megan actually came in and talked to two of my classes. Um, one of 'em, which Jesse taught. So yeah, I just got a little background on kind of the internship and kind of what she does and it just interested me.

So, um, I think I reached out to her maybe, and she kind of sent me another follow-up email, like when you guys were doing interviews for the summer interns. Mm-hmm. And yeah, just kind of applied and yeah, here I am. And

Rich: here you are. So are you, um, a designer? Are you more of a business person? Like what's your background?

What'd you study? Um,

Megan: I would say business for sure. No, but, uh, I graduated with a marketing degree and a minor in business, so, okay.

Rich: Yeah. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Um, yeah, so, and obviously the bank you're referring to is me and Kyle, our, uh, graphic designer extraordinaire, who's been on the podcast a few times.

And then Jesse, our chief creative officer as well, um, who used to teach at Morningside as I did. So, um, kind of fun. All right. What were you expecting coming into it? Like you kind of read our background and you're like, Hey, you're gonna run a t-shirt shop. So what were you thinking, like when you applied?

What did, what were your expectations?

Megan: Honestly, I just knew that this t-shirt shop was kind of what I was gonna be doing. I didn't really know exactly what it would consist of. Um, I know they did, they asked me, like in the interview if I've ever created like a content calendar or anything like that.

Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, other than that I was kind of, I just knew I was gonna be doing something with a t-shirt shop and, yeah.

Rich: All right. How would you explain, uh, 71 shirts if someone's never heard of it? Like we mentioned it here and people can go to the website, but how would you tell like a friend, like if they're like, Hey, what is this 71 shirt store that you're working on?

Megan: Um, I would just say that it's a intern ledge shop that is very purpose driven. Um, every shirt has a meaning behind it. And yeah, I think that's what I like most about it is just 'cause. It has, there's literally a purpose behind every shirt that's made, so,

Rich: yep. Yeah. And it's all on demand, so you don't have to deal with inventory, which is great.

There's like 10,000 of every shirt or a hundred thousand of every shirt because they're just printed on demand. As long as the store doesn't, or the supplier doesn't run out. But yeah, so working on like designs and digital ads and social media and you know, the layout of the store and all of that.

Making sure the shopping cart works. Um. Yeah. All really cool. Um, so what tools have you used, like when you're working with it, obviously Shopify, the store's in Shopify, so you've been in there a little bit. Um, what other tools have you learned, um, and relied on for the internship?

Megan: Um, yeah, kind of like you said, Shopify.

I did a lot in HubSpot. Um mm-hmm. Uh, then like we did some Facebook ads and I did some stuff in Canva, so. Kind of did a little bit of everything,

Rich: but good Canva, not bad Canva, like original stuff. Not like finding crazy weird clip art and doing stupid logos or anything, just to be clear. Yeah. We've ripped on Canva a little bit, but I think that, um, you know, Megan and Jesse, we've been evolved on it.

It's, it can be a great tool if you use it. Right. Kinda like ai, right? Like AI can be awful or it can be amazing.

Megan: Yeah. Have

Rich: you used any AI with managing the shop? Um.

Megan: A little bit just for maybe like some catch caption in SPO or something like that. But yeah, like going back to Canva, Megan helped me and she was like kind of what she talked about, the bad Canva.

Like you kind of just can tell that it came from Canva too, like don't really do much to it. So yeah.

Rich: Yep. And I think it's interesting 'cause it, um, canvas is great because like if you're doing your social stuff in there, even ads, like it actually integrates with HubSpot and you can push stuff over. Um, so HubSpot's kind of the central point for this.

It's where like emails will go out or your social, I think is probably the thing you posted most on in HubSpot, but the ads can link there and all of that. Um, I think that's really an interesting thing, like the Shopify plus HubSpot combo, um, can be really, really powerful for small businesses because you can do so much with just like you're just one person Right.

Working on this. Mm-hmm. Um, and we give you advice and Megan helps you, but she doesn't do things for you. No. Yeah. You know, you don't tap the whole team. You're like a, a one woman show. Um, and I didn't know you graduated already. Like that's like wild. Yeah, uh, in three years. So I was supposed to graduate in three years, but I had a scholarship and so I found something to do in like the fourth year because I was like, why would I throw all this money away?

Um,

Megan: yeah, because

Rich: I was done. I had a, um, corporate communications major that I was finished with and a Spanish minor. Uh, and then I added a business administration with a marketing emphasis major because there was so much overlap. I could do it all in one year. So then here I am not corporate communications at all.

I'm doing advertising. Um, alright, so was there anything that, like what was your aha moment? Like you're, wow, this is so awesome or cool. During your internship so far, if you had one, I mean, maybe it was just a boring day to day internship. Was there anything like that was like, oh, this is neat

Megan: EI mean, honestly I would just say.

The whole process just 'cause I feel like I kind of like dig into a little bit of everything. Like social optimization, website optimization, um, kind of tried to do some, tried to do a little bit more graphic stuff, like mm-hmm. So, yeah, I would honestly say the whole thing, just 'cause I feel like I did a little bit of everything.

So everything was kind of like. And aha.

Rich: Internships are about learning, right? And so we let you make mistakes and you're allowed to make mistakes and it's totally fine. Was it, what was the biggest challenge, or was there like an oops where you were like, um,

Megan: help?

Rich: Did anything happen there?

Megan: Um, yeah, actually last week, so I was trying to, uh, update the Bitly page and um, I told Megan, I was like, yeah, I thought I was just undoing my last action and I actually deleted everything that I just did.

Oh, no. So I'm gonna try to work on that after this, I think. But yeah, the whole thing got deleted. I was like. That's good.

Rich: Yeah. So, and I do like it though 'cause we have a Bitly Pro account, so you can have like Lincoln bio stuff and you can have mm-hmm. You know, branded short links and all of those things.

Um, and we had that for the core business, so we were like, we might as well use it for 71 shirts. 'cause the core business doesn't really need Lincoln Bio. Zach may argue that we do, but, and we probably are using it actually now that I think about it. But, um, we'll, uh, we'll figure all that out. Um, alright, let's see.

Um, I'm just looking through the questions that we have. What, um, was this your first time like working with an, at an agency, like in a group setting like this, or had you done an internship or something like that in the past?

Megan: Um, no, and I was also, when I applied to, I was like, I just kind of wanted to see, because obviously my marketing or my major is marketing, so mm-hmm.

I just kind of wanted to see like the atmosphere of like a marketing agency, so. Yeah. Um, no, but I did two past internships. One with Drilling pharmacy as a basically social media intern. Okay. And then, um, opportunities Unlimited, which I still kind of go there now, but both two businesses that are, um, not marketing base.

So yeah, it was nice to get in and kind of see what you guys do, so.

Rich: Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Um, so what's the vibe? What's your rating on us?

Megan: Um, put, you, put

Rich: you on the spot, like

Megan: outta 10, what do you five Or in general

Rich: you can do it outta 10, like what's the vibe Just outta 10 when you're in our office there.

Megan: Um, uh, I would say this is a great vibe. Um,

Rich: okay, we'll take that. You don't have to give us a number. I would give it

Megan: 10 outta 10, but Oh,

Rich: that's very sweet. No, it is fun. Like, and I think, um, you know, like we just had a wedding reception there this weekend for one of our employees who got married. Um, he wanted to use the space and he put up some curtains to block off, or they put up, um, curtains to block off.

The desks, um, in that area. Oh really? 'cause you can't really move our desks around. Um, and it really was like this nice kind of event party space with the bricks and the furniture and the tables and like the big giant kitchen with all the food. Um, and they had tacos, which everybody appreciated. So my guess is there's tacos in the fridge still, I would imagine.

Um, if you, if you check that out. But. Um, very cool. Yeah, it's, I think that it's, um, it's interesting 'cause about like half of us are in Sioux City and about half of us are remote, uh, in other places, you know, exacts in North Carolina. I'm in Omaha, so I'll be up in Sioux City on Wednesday. So I'm, I come up there all the time.

Um, but it's interesting when you've got like the physical space and how to translate that like out, and I think that's something we still struggle with a little bit. Um, so what did you learn about yourself from, um. This experience, like sort of that introspection? Like what'd you learn about you?

Megan: I feel like that I can take on more things and I think I can juggle sometimes.

Uh, yeah. That's good. Like kind of mm-hmm. Yeah, like I feel like I just took on so many things that I've never done before, that it was kind of eye-opening and kind of gave me an idea of different things that I might like to do. So. Yeah.

Rich: Did it influence anything that you wanna do? Like, 'cause you're like looking for a job, right?

You want a full-time something somewhere. Yeah. Did this influence that at all, or are you still pretty much on the same path as before?

Megan: Um, I would say it did. Yeah. And I talked to Megan and she was talking about maybe like shadowing some of you guys. Mm-hmm. I think I would still maybe be interested in that just to kind of see what you guys do day to day too, to kind of gimme an idea.

So.

Rich: Yeah, and I think that's one. So we had an intern a long time ago, not a long time ago, well it was like five years ago maybe. And he came in and was like, he really wanted to do like digital ads and that was like his thing. And in doing the internship, he realized he really hates doing digital ads and it, he thought he wanted to do it.

And in school it was great, but doing it every day, he was like, yeah, I don't want to do this. Uh, so we went to law school. Like, and he's a lawyer or he is being, becoming a lawyer. Um, I think he's in law school right now. Um, and I think that's one of the valuable things of the internship, right? You learn new things, but you also learn about you like, like what you hate and don't want to do.

Mm-hmm. And being able to see the different roles in the agency. You might be like, you know, I, I've been doing some social media and some content and that's cool, but I really love, you know, managing clients or I'm a people person or X, y, z. Um, and so that's really great. Yeah. Cool. Um, I am, I know for a fact because I saw it in Slack.

You've been getting good feedback from Megan. Um, and she has a reputation for being a little bit tough, but very fair. Um, she's got very high standards, which, you know, um, so what was some feedback that you got that stuck with you?

Megan: Um. Well, I would just say that appreciate both Riley and Megan. Like anytime that I had any sort of question or anything like they were always right there to help me, which was extremely helpful.

Just 'cause given like a lot of it, the whole internship is basically just you do what you wanna do and yeah. So it was nice like getting some guidance too though, like when I needed it.

Rich: Yeah. Yeah. It's a big choose your own adventure, right? Like, yes. Yeah. No one says you have to do this, or no one says you have to create 10 T-shirts and they must be like this.

I think we control the pricing, um, because we wanna make sure we're not, you know, losing everything on that. Um, and the store does have, like, shipping is included. Sales tax is included except for Iowa and Nebraska. They get charged, set stacks, um, 'cause we have to, um, but yeah, so we wanna keep the pricing right, but aside from pricing, like it's like, you know, do what you want.

Mm-hmm. Um. Was there, was there something you wanted to do that you just couldn't get to? 'cause it's an internship, it's a short timeframe. Um, anything that fell in there?

Megan: Um, I would say maybe just having another t-shirt collection to kind of advertise a little bit would've been something that I might've wanted to do.

Just 'cause. Um, I don't know, given, we did like a 4th of July launch type thing. Mm-hmm. So, I don't know, it's kind of hard stretching that out. 'cause I mean, given you can be patriotic all year round, but

Rich: of course

Megan: just maybe like a new collection to kind of, I don't know, come up with some new ideas. So. Yep.

Rich: I think that's been my most interesting. Um, because the last collection from the intern right before you. Was all based on, uh, famous artworks, basically. Mm-hmm. And a reinterpretation of those, or like inspired by those. Um, and it just became, I think the spring 2025 collection because there wasn't really another name for it.

And then you guys really just honed in on like, okay, like we're starting this in late, may like, you know, pride month, we've got a bunch of that stuff. That's great. We can advertise that it's already there, but let's look at July and let's really go for this like summer barbecue and July 4th. And, you know, make that work.

And then rolling in some of the other red, white, and blue stuff that we had to make kind of this little patriotic section. Um, so the way people take the design and your designs or Lydia's designs, I guess the ones you guys did together were more whimsical and fun and like. You know, just a little bit silly versus the previous ones were like, very, like, artistic and like all of that.

Mm-hmm. Um, so it's, um, it's fun for me to see like when we stay out of it, where are your heads? Like what do you do? Um, but it's nice, nice to know that you felt like you had that support, but you also had the freedom to kinda go with it and do what you need to. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Very, very cool. Um, let's see.

Just looking through, um, the one favorite thing that you did, like a favorite project or task that you did during the internship.

Megan: Um.

Rich: Wiping out Bitly.

Megan: Yeah,

Rich: probably what it was before you wiped it out.

Megan: Yeah. I mean, I think just honestly, probably like the product photography shoot that we did. Oh yeah. Um.

Yeah, that was fun. Like me and Megan, I tried on the shirt, she took some pictures of me. Um, I kind of try to like do a little bit of editing to 'em. Nothing crazy. Just a little bit of brightness stuff. Um, and yeah, so I guess kind of going out like, actually I feel like all of the other past like social media posts, I've kind of just been like static posts of, I don't know, you know, just the shirt itself.

But no one's actually kind of seen it on anyone, so I thought that was really cool to do. Mm-hmm.

Rich: Yep. Yeah, and I think that's the other thing is how the store presents itself. We had one person who wanted everything to be like just a shirt on a background as the number one image. And then, you know, other people are like, no, I want it on models.

And then, um, I think a couple of times, this is the second time where it's been like, let's get some shirts and actually do a shoot, uh, which is, which is great. One of the other perks, and I'm just noticing like we've only got like three days left in the month and you can get another shirt. You just have to tell me which one you want.

Okay. Um, and I can get that ordered and sent to you, um, in Sioux City. I assume you got the previous one since you did a photo shoot with them, so. Mm-hmm. Um, all good. Um, I'll slack you about that. Um, alright. I feel like there's just one thing left. Um, I noticed we have another intern starting this fall already.

We've got somebody picked for at least one of the two roles. Um, what advice would you give them as they're gonna like step into this, um, this crazy t-shirt shop?

Megan: Um, I would just say just don't be afraid to make mistakes and just try to. Take on as much as you can. Like this is a internship. It's meant to help you learn in different ways.

And I don't know, I feel like for me too, I kind of like that given like everything that I've learned from school, it was really nice to kind of get some hands-on experience in it. 'cause I don't know, in school it's more textbook um, test and now it's kind of like, okay, now you go do it. So yeah, just kind of.

Take on everything and don't be afraid to make mistakes.

Rich: Good. Yeah. And I love that you say like, you know, that real experience because it's what this is, right? Like we don't Yeah. It's not like a test environment. It's not a simulation, which I know that they do in school now 'cause I've taught those and stuff.

Um, it's an actual shop where people are buying shirts, um, and you can buy shirts, your friends and family can buy shirts. Um, and you've gotta keep it running and up and going. And also just kind of move it forward for the next person because it's also a little challenging that like. It's management changes like, you know, every 13 weeks or so, like people are here for like maybe a 12 week internship or whatever it is.

And then like it turns over and in the, even in the between times it just runs itself. Like we've got some base level Google ads that run the Facebook ads stop, you know, social posts stop basically. 'cause none of us run it. And it just kind of sits there. And it's still available to buy shirts if people find it through Google or whatever.

Um. And then, you know, the next person picks it up and actually starts promoting it again. And it's fun to watch that traffic like fall off and then it comes back. Um, so yeah, I think experimenting is great. Like I know in HubSpot it's really hard to nuke anything. Um, you really don't have the permissions to nuke anything like I do.

And Jesse and Jessica do, I think. But, um, we try not to nuke stuff and you can always roll back and get things back due to that caution with Bitly when you like. Don't save it or you lose it, like you lose it. Um, but in HubSpot especially, and even in Shopify, a lot of that stuff we can roll back and pull a previous version of, um, and things.

So, um, the experimenting is the point and the experimenting in real life is a hundred percent the point. So I love hearing that. This is so awesome. Um, all right. Well, I loved talking with you. I haven't really spent much time with you 'cause I haven't been in Sioux City all that much. Um, and I think a couple of days when I was up there, either I was leaving and you were coming in or like, you know, you just weren't on, on that day.

Um, so it's been really great like working with you via Slack and helping get the technical things fixed, like right, like getting into Shopify and making sure that works. Um, all of those things. Um, so thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.

Megan: Yeah. Thank you for everything. This was a great experience and I would definitely recommend it.

Rich: Good. Perfect. All right, well that kind of wraps up another episode. Um, we will be back next week with something new. This is gonna be an interesting one since we are a podcast. It's gonna be all about podcast advertising. You know, is podcast advertising something you should pursue? Is it part of your small business plan or medium business plan or large business plan, you know, corporate plan, um, and how does it work and how can you do it, and all those things.

So we'll be back next week with that. Um, and I will now kick it. To Mr. Zach to take us home.

Zac: Thanks, rich as always. You can find our agency@antidoteseventyone.com with links to all of our socials there. And if you have a question you'd like to send our way, head to CTA podcast live to shoot us an email or even better, leave us a voice message on our hotline at 4 0 2 7 1 8 9 9 7 1.

Your question will make it into a future episode of the podcast.