Sales Development Intern - College Athletics

About TheLinkU

TheLinkU is a leading NIL (Name, Image & Likeness) platform built to help college athletes, universities, and businesses unlock compliant, revenue-generating opportunities in today's evolving collegiate sports landscape. We provide the infrastructure, relationships, and execution needed to drive sustainable NIL revenue while maintaining transparency, compliance, and operational efficiency.

About the Role

TheLinkU is looking for outgoing, competitive, and highly adaptable Business Development Interns to support our growing Sales team.   You will work directly on generating new business opportunities across several major college athletic programs by helping us connect with qualified companies and decision-makers. Our Internal Sales team identifies the companies, fit, and initial partnership strategy. Your role is to consistently reach those prospects, build relationships, and turn qualified leads into introductions, meetings, and opportunities.

This is a hands-on sales role, not a shadowing or administrative internship. You will receive structured training before taking ownership of an assigned school, prospect list, and outreach pipeline.
What You’ll Do
●       Contact executives and decision-makers at qualified companies.

●       Execute consistent phone and email outreach and follow-up.
●       Navigate gatekeepers and identify the right decision-makers.
●       Understand why each company is being targeted and clearly communicate the potential value of the opportunity.
●       Generate qualified introductions, meetings, and partnership opportunities for TheLinkU’s sales team and individual school representatives.
●       Track prospect activity, conversations, follow-ups, meetings, and pipeline status accurately in the CRM.
●       Assist with proposals and follow-up after meetings while working directly with the appropriate school representative.
●       Represent TheLinkU and its university partners professionally in every conversation and written communication.
●       Attend weekly training, coaching, check-in, and pipeline-review sessions.
●       Support occasional events, gameday activations, and community initiatives as scheduled.
●       Escalate student-athlete compensation, NIL terms, contracts, and compliance questions rather than negotiating those areas independently.

This is a unique and constantly evolving area of college athletics, so we need people who are willing to learn and able to adapt their approach to different companies and opportunities.

You should be:

●       Outgoing and comfortable talking to people you have never met.

●       Competitive and motivated by results.

●       A strong listener who can adapt instead of simply reading from a script.

●       Coachable and willing to learn TheLinkU’s approach.

●       Reliable and able to commit 15 hours per week.

●       Comfortable working in a fast-moving environment where every opportunity can look different.

●       Willing to participate in some evening or weekend events when scheduled.

●       Comfortable using CRM and learning new sales technology.

Current seniors are strongly preferred, although exceptional juniors may be considered. Majoring in communications, sales, or entrepreneurship is also preferred. Communication ability, work ethic, competitiveness, and adaptability will ultimately determine success in this role.
What Success Looks Like

●       Consistently meeting weekly outreach, conversation, meeting, and follow-up expectations after the initial training period.

●       Generating qualified meetings and new partnership opportunities for assigned university partners.

●       Building relationships and maintaining a healthy pipeline beyond immediate opportunities.

●       Accurately tracking every meaningful interaction and next step in the CRM.

●       Responding to challenges, limited progress, and rejection by working with program leadership to adjust the approach.

●       Becoming eligible for additional responsibility, an extended role, a potential full-time position, and a strong professional reference.

●       Approximately 15 hours per week.

●       Primarily in-office in Houston.

●       Initial 12-week Fall 2026 term designed to work alongside a semester schedule.

●       Some evening and weekend availability for events or gameday responsibilities.

●       Potential for additional hours, responsibility, and consideration for future internships or full-time sales positions for top performers.