From TEDx to Real Estate: Jesse LeFevre '18 BSBA (Marketing)

Jesse LeFevre always had a passion for sales and marketing—in part because of his marketing logic. “Marketing can be broken down into three aspects: advertising, sales and statistics,” he says.

With this as his mindset, he became the president of the University of Arizona’s American Advertising Federation (AAF) his junior year. To build his leadership skills, he was involved with AdFair, an event put on by Eller's marketing department to celebrate advertising and connect UA alumni. This experience gave him great exposure and experience to the marketing field. “I introduced speakers such as Phil Hagenah—an Eller alum and founder of FilmHouse, a television commercial production company,” he says.

At the end of his junior year, LeFevre stepped into the world of TEDx and helped bring it to campus, overseeing the development and creation of the UA TEDx conference. “This was the first time the University of Arizona put on a daylong TEDx event to showcase new ideas and new ways of thinking—whether it’s in technology, innovation or education,” he says. Over 400 people attended the event. “TEDx is another way we can promote the innovation at Eller as well as across the UA.”

Even though LeFevre played key roles in TEDx and AAF, he had another calling, as well: real estate: “I felt a pull to real estate because of the sales aspects and the use of personal branding,” he says. “Real estate is a business-to-consumer (B2C) field, where you are face to face with your customer. And it’s more than just working with customers who are trying to sell or buy a house. It requires dealing with other real estate agents who are trying buy and sell, as well.”

LeFevre put this desire to learn more about B2C sales and real estate into action—he enrolled in the Arizona School of Real Estate to attain his license, which entailed 90 hours of coursework, or about 18 classes total.

“I worked 40 hours a week. On the weekends I would go to real estate school for eight hours a day,” he says. The hard work paid off: his summer internship in real estate with Alliance Residential gave him the opportunity to put what he’d learned into practice.

“I was involved in leasing and property management for Alliance Residential at its downtown Phoenix location in CityScape and also in Tempe at the Rio Lofts,” he says. “Having that experience really helped me in real estate school.”

LeFevre then proceeded to take the school and state test for his real estate license, only to be faced with another addition to his plans. He received a full-time job offer with Gartner, a research and advisory firm in the IT space. The job will take him to Florida after graduation. Yet real estate agents can only be licensed in the state in which they passed the test.

To land the job at Gartner, LeFevre went through an extensive interview process that included phone screenings, mock sales calls, a round of presentations and group and individual interviews. Once he arrives in Florida, he will be an account manager for small and medium businesses.

“At Gartner, I will be responsible for maintaining and building relationships with people in the technology community to strengthen understanding of how technology and data can help improve their business,” he says. Gartner has worked with Apple and IBM, among others, on consumer interests.

LeFevre is happy he’s kept an open mind during his time at Eller, feeling that his experiences at UA helped position him as someone who is both willing to learn and prepared to succeed.