On
October 25, 2017, the IUP American Marketing Association welcomed Sandy
Barsotti, president and founder of BarComm, LLC (Barsotti Marketing & Communications),
to come speak about her experiences throughout her career.
Sandy
has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism with a minor in history. She is a very active alumna here at IUP. She is on the IUP Alumni
Association Board of Directors, is a member of the Foundation for IUP, and she
was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award for Service in 2014.
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Throughout Sandy’s career, she had seven different jobs
before she created her own company, BarComm, LLC. She decided to start her own
company because, after five times of being laid off, she didn’t want any more
letdowns, so she decided to be her own boss.
Despite
all of these setbacks, she never gave up, and came out on top in the end.
Sandy
elaborated on the key point that you should take on any assignment that comes
your way—even if you don’t know how to do that specific assignment, agree to
do it, then figure out how to get the job done. She said to make sure people
aren’t walking all over you; but, the more opportunities you take to learn new
skills, the better off you’re going to be and the more suitable you will be in
the eyes of your employer. In the wise words of Sandy Barsotti, “Be a duck. Be
calm on the surface, but paddle like crazy down below.”
“Sandy’s
presentation was very comforting to hear,” said marketing student Minna Digon. “A lot of times people will tell you
that you should expect to have failure in your life, but they never explain what
you should do when it comes. It was inspiring to hear Sandy’s examples of
failure she has experienced and her tips on how to deal with them and keep
moving forward. And in the words of Sir Winston Churchill, ‘success is not
final, failure is not fatal’.”