Hi, my name is Austin Simmons, Sales Manager at GreekYearbook. This is my story of how I went from freshman to president of my fraternity to Sales Manager at GreekYearbook.
It all started in 2000, Greek Life! Something that is widely unknown and many times misunderstood by most of the world as it was for myself as well. As a freshman at Towson University in Baltimore, MD I was forced with a tough decision. Pay for friends, or find free friends. At least that was the common thought by outsiders. I decided to join the Kappa Sigma fraternity and meet some of my closest and best friends that I could ever imagine. I remember my first day as a pledge my PE (pledge educator) told everyone to look around the room. He then said someone in this room will be in your wedding and someone will be at your funeral. That’s a pretty bold statement to hear as a stupid, uneducated freshman. Well, he was half right, so far. I just got married two weeks ago and two members of my fraternity were in my wedding. Also getting married to an AOPi, my wife had 3 of her sorority sisters in our wedding also.
In 2002 was time to grow up. I was now president of my fraternity (Kappa Sigma). Being president of Kappa Sigma at Towson University was no easy task. Some would compare it to being the quarterback of the Detroit Lions, very difficult. Taking a failing, unmotivated chapter and turning them around was no easy task. In 2 years we went from weeks away from losing our charter to winning Greek week, having the largest pledge class and having 89% of our chapter pay dues which at the time was much higher than the national average.
Being the president of my fraternity and now the sales manager at GreekYearbook go hand in hand. While holding the title as president I was forced to learn creative ways to motivate and demand respect from people. Organizational skills were most important. There are many moving parts in the life as student/fraternity leader. Learning how to balance life was critical. I would not know where I would be today if it weren’t for my decision to, so called “buy friends”.
As the leader of my organization I personally remember hiring GreekYearbook to photograph all of our events on and off campus. GreekYearbook ran things very differently than any other vendor I dealt with. They treated every customer like it was their only customer. When I was given the opportunity to join such a great motivated staff I jumped at the opportunity.
Being the leader of my fraternity is nothing new when talking about the staff at GreekYearbook. The majority of the staff at GreekYearbook are former leaders of the Greek community. This allows us to understand you, our customers. Being able to understand what our customers want in photography company has allowed us to become one of the most respected, talked about composite companies in the industry.
– Austin Simmons, Vice President of Operations