Last Lecture

It’s hard to believe this is my last journal entry for the semester. I have learned so much over the last few months about entrepreneurship, particularly as it pertains to start-ups and small business. If I were to give advice to someone wanting to take the entrepreneur’s journey, I would tell them first to start reading. I really loved the book “The E Myth” by Michael Gerber. In he talks about a couple perspectives that we may have as we are considering going into business for ourselves. He talked specifically about the technician’s perspective. This is the person who works for someone else and is probably pretty good at their job. Because they do well with their technical work they feel that they are qualified to run a full business themselves. Gerber points out that being good at your job doesn’t qualify you to run a business and more often than not this perspective can put someone in a situation where they are in over their heads. This is valuable advice, to consider the technician’s perspective in comparison to your own, before starting a business. I would also advise upcoming entrepreneurs to find a mentor. We had several assignments in which we were to interview existing business owners. They each brought up things about running a business that I would never have thought about. Like how the hardest thing about keeping a business going is hiring the right people, or how purchasing company vehicles rather than pocketing extra cash would be a good tax benefit. It pays to find someone who already knows what they are doing. They can help you avoid pitfalls that would otherwise get the best of you. Last but certainly not least I would advise to always go to your Heavenly Father in prayer when considering a start-up or any other type of business venture. He will be there to guide you as you make such big life decisions. This course has been a good experience for me and I look forward to/dread what will be coming next in B383!

A Safe Place to Admit Failure

As I read “Strategies For Learning From Failure” I was fascinated by the idea of creating an environment that is safe to admit failure. According to the article it takes “strong leadership” to create such an environment. I thought about my time in the corporate world (10+ years) and I would not say that we had this type of culture. As difficult as it was I still always admitted my mistakes, I found that if I came forward and admitted to failure the consequences were less severe and in some cases even positive. One of the results was that I became a trusted member of my team because people knew that if I failed I would not try to hide it or blame anyone else but I would own up to it and try to do better next time. Money can’t buy the kind of trust honesty can bring. I think as subordinates we can do our part by admitting our mistakes but I agree with what the article states, “Only leaders can create and reinforce a culture that counteracts the blame game and makes people feel both comfortable with and responsible for surfacing and learning from failures,” This actually made me think about myself as a leader in my household. Am I creating an environment where it is safe to admit failure? I am so glad to have read this article. I am going to discuss this with my husband and find things that we can do to make sure our kids feel safe in admitting their mistakes and where we can help them learn from those failures.

Regarding my $100 project, I thought it was very beneficial to put together a narrated presentation and then get feedback from the class. I received some very helpful comments from my classmates. I really liked the question, “What would you do if you had more time?” That really helped me ponder and think through what I would do with my project if I truly intended to make it a large successful business. I signed up for B383 next semester and if I have a similar assignment, I think I will try to take this business to the next level.

Succession Plans

This week I really enjoyed the assignment “You be the Consultant”. We read a case study about a man with a family business. He was in the process of trying to come up with a viable succession plan. He had three children, each with different ideas about how they would change the business if they were in charge. Our assignment was to give the man advice on how he should proceed. This assignment really made me think about what being the owner of a business entails, especially for a second-generation entrepreneur. As I thought through what I would do in his place, I also thought about the long-term employees at his shop. How would naming his successor impact them? Is there one that they like more than the others or one that they feel is more qualified? Ultimately the man should choose the one he deems the most capable to run the business, but it is important to consider what impact his decision will have on his current employees. What would I do? I know I would want to pass my business on to my children. But I would want to make sure that my business was in qualified hands for my self and for the security of my employees. You need good leadership and good employees to make a company successful and I wouldn’t want any of my good loyal people leaving because I made the wrong choice for my successor.

Regarding the $100 challenge, I have started working on my presentation for the class that is due next week. I’m glad we have the opportunity to share what we would do with the business if we had more time. I have learned so much and I believe I could be at least somewhat successful if I had more time to produce, market and sell my product.

An Honest Living

This week I really enjoyed reading, “Making a Living and a Life” by Elder Lynn G. Robbins. In his talk Robbins warns us of pride just as the last couple of talks we read had done. I don’t think you can read enough about how awful pride is and how important it is to stay grounded and not give in to that sin. One of the points Robbins made in his talk that really stood out to me was in the section, “motives in the workplace”. He talks about the fact that we are not only learning how to make a living while going school at BYUI, but also that we are learning to make an honest living. Robbins said that our focus should be on what is most important to our Heavenly Father:

-       Building the kingdom, including strong and valiant families

-       Being honest in our dealings and using our God-given talents in the service of our fellow men.

-       Filling our lives with good works that positively impact our community and the world.

I know that I can keep myself in check and on the right path by regularly asking myself if I am doing these things.

Update on the $100 challenge: At this point I finally have a good pattern for a bean bag that I really like. I was going to knit seasonal bean bags but I couldn’t get my egg pattern just right and I wasn’t going to copy someone else’s. I had better luck coming up with my own unique pattern for a regular bean bag. Attached are some pictures. I really like how they turned out. Now the question is, will anyone else like them enough to make a purchase?

Inconspicuous Consumerism

This week we read, “United in Building the Kingdom of God” by L. Tom Perry. It had a similar message to the article we read last week by Elder Wirthlin. Elder Perry talked about riches and how easily one can give in to pride when they have material wealth. I thought about myself and wondered how I would keep myself grounded if we came into large sums of money. Right now we live fairly conservatively. I personally believe that we should not be flashy with our money and focus on buying the big brands and what is “in”. I wrote a paper about inconspicuous consumerism last year. I really believe that life is so much easier for many different reasons if you do not advertise the fact that you have a lot more than you really need to survive. For example, as I did my research for the paper I wrote I found a dissertation that included an interview with a few people who had gone to jail for robbing others. When asked how they chose their victims, the inmates consistently answered that it was all in the appearance of the person. They said you could look at someone and tell quite easily if they had money.  We send a message to others whether we intend to or not with what we are wearing, driving and living in. I also think we start to send a message to ourselves when we spend our money on the vain things of the world. We tell ourselves that we are better, that we deserve what we have and that those who do not must be lazy or doing something wrong. That is why it is so important to be comely and not vain. We can and should use our excess fund to help others on this journey we call life.

As far as an update on the $100 challenge, I have been learning that it is so very difficult to launch even the smallest of businesses with everything else that is going on in my life. I am so impressed with the successful entrepreneurs that I have gotten to know. It is an undertaking to carve out time from family, church, work and school to run a business. I have been knitting up my product and now have a little inventory and was going to go with it but I don’t completely love the pattern I have created. I am looking at my product with much more scrutiny than I would normally because I intend to sell these to customers outside my family and I want to put out something that an unbiased customer would be happy with. I am redoing my pattern and adding just a basic square or round bean bag in addition to the egg. I will post pictures next week.

Higher Ground

I enjoyed this week’s reading. Something that I thought was particularly appropriate was Elder Wirthlin’s talk, “Journey to Higher Ground”. In it he talks about pride and how no matter how successful we get we need to rise above it and stay humble. The quote below stood out to me as I read:

“There is something about prosperity that brings out the worst in some people. In the book of Helaman, we learn of one group of Nephites who experienced great loss and slaughter. Of them we read, “And it was because of the pride of their hearts, because of their exceeding riches, yea, it was because of their oppression to the poor, withholding their food from the hungry, withholding their clothing from the naked, and smiting their humble brethren upon the cheek, making a mock of that which was sacred, [and] denying the spirit of prophecy and of revelation.”

I thought this went right in line with everything that we have been learning in this class about how to be successful entrepreneurs. It is so important to stay humble and remember what this life is really about. I can see how easy it would be to be prideful about the success in our lives but I know how wrong that is. If we are blessed with more than what we need to sustain ourselves, it is our obligation to help others. I think it’s as simple as that.

Regarding my business for the $100 challenge, I am working on marketing. So far word of mouth has been the easiest thing to do. I read on one of the blogs that I am following that it is smart to start advertising with the group of people that you know and with whom trust is already established. That has proven to be true.

Leadership

This week the lesson material was on leadership. Something that stood out to me as was “Leadership with a Small L” by Kim B. Clark. He described this as:

“…the kind of leadership that builds and lifts and inspires through kindness and love and unselfish devotion to the Lord and His work.  It is the kind of leadership that we need at every level of every kind of organization in the world and in every ward and stake in the Church.  It is the kind of leadership you will need to build an eternal family.”

I am a mother; this is by far the toughest leadership position I have ever had. I feel the obligation I have to raise my children in righteousness and to work with my husband to lead them as President Clark describes above, with kindness and love. I want to always be found leading by a good example, with a vision and leading with love. We read this article in Pathway last year but I was grateful to be able to read it again. It was a good reminder of the kind of leader my children need me to be.

Speaking of children, I have a newborn who just turned 6 weeks old. My life has changed as I am now a mother of two instead of one. I am currently a week behind my goals of inventory and launch of my business for the $100 challenge. The clock is ticking. My new more realistic goals are to complete these tasks by Wednesday of next week.

Easter Egg Nog

This week I am working on inventory for my $100 challenge business. I decided to call it “Strings and Beans” since I will be knitting bean bags. Since Easter is coming up I will be knitting Easter egg bean bags. I’m trying to decide how many colors I should offer and how many I should have ready to sell. I have never attempted or even thought about launching my own business so this is new territory for me.  I would rather err on the side of knitting too much than not enough. I have plenty of children in my life that I could give these bags to if I don’t make a lot of sales. On the other hand, if I receive more orders than I am able to knit up myself, I have a friend who volunteered to help me. She has been knitting longer than I have and does quality work. I plan on setting up my online shop on Etsy by next Saturday.

Our reading this week included the story about Stew Leonard and his “customer service rock of commitment”.  Leonard was working at his store a couple weeks after grand opening when a customer came in with egg nog that she had purchased earlier. It was sour and she demanded a return. Leonard was taken a back, questioned the customer and told her that couldn’t possibly be. She was furious and said she would never come back to the store again. After relaying the incident to his wife, he realized that there were dishonest people out there but the majority of them were honest people. He knew that if he was always trying to defend himself against those who were not honest, he would lose loyal paying customers. He purchased a huge block of granite and engraved 2 rules on it: 1. The customer is always right, and 2.If the customer is ever wrong re-read rule 1. I thought this was valuable reading. It is the customers who keep people in business and I agree; most of them are honest. This is good to remember as we work to start our own businesses.

The Purple Cow

This week we had to submit an elevator pitch for our business ideas. I chose to do mine on the idea I have for the $100 challenge. I have to admit this assignment was a challenge for me. I am someone who tends to get lost in the details.  I over explain things and say a lot more than I need to in order to get my point across. I had to really think about condensing what I had to say to do my elevator pitch in 60 seconds. We submitted our pitches to the class and we were able to give each other feedback before submitting it to our instructor. I found this to be one of the most time consuming discussion boards but also one of the best.

In our lesson material this week we read an article called, “In Praise of the Purple Cow” by Seth Godin. In his article he explains that a purple cow is something that stands out, something extraordinary and worth talking about and paying attention to. He gave several examples in his essay about how certain products or services stood “out from the herd”. This really made me think about my product for the $100 challenge. What can I do to make sure it stands out from items that are already out there? I am currently working on a few ideas to make my product unique and hope to create a “purple cow” myself.

Provident Providers

This week we read and watched some good material in our lesson plan regarding funding/debt. Something that stood out to me this week was the article by Elder Hales, “Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually”. Elder Hales talks about excess in his article, not just spending money that we don’t have but he focused on addictions to things such as food, drugs and pornography. He said that giving in to the excess diminishes our freedom and negatively impacts our family relationships. He talked specifically about debt and said that some debt is acceptable if it is for a modest home, vehicle or an education. As I read I reflected on my current financial situation. Something that my husband and I have always agreed upon is living by the counsel to stay out of debt. We have strived to live within our means and only incur debt for the types of things that Elder Hales mentioned above. We have been very blessed as we have heeded the counsel of our prophets to manage our money wisely. I know being on the same page regarding our finances and spending wisely is something that contributes to a strong marriage. I know that we can also be examples to our children and teach them that wise money management will result in the avoidance of unnecessary trials.

I am currently testing patterns for the $100 challenge and am narrowing down what I want to make to sell.  I want to make sure that I can produce items that I can knit up quickly but that are still quality items that fill a need. I will finalize my choices in the next two weeks.

The GEM Model

This week’s lesson material included a lot of good information. As I was reading, one particular article stood out to me. “The GEM Model” by Stephen W. Gibson was a clear cut article outlining three things that “can help your business grow and grow”: Gathering, Enhancing and Marketing. Gibson explains this using a lemonade stand business as an example. In the gathering phase, the raw materials such as sugar, lemons etc. are purchased. The enhance phase is where the lemonade is made (the raw materials are enhanced). The marketing phase is where the signs are put up, the stand is built and friends are sent out to wave down cars to buy some lemonade. This was a simple straight forward article with three necessary steps for business growth. I thought about my small business for the $100 challenge as I read. I would like to open a small gift shop online selling handmade unique knitted gifts. As I read the article I checked off the steps that I had accomplished. I currently have my raw materials ready to go. I spent a week winding yarn getting it ready to be knit and making sure I had all of my needles in order. I now need to enhance my raw materials by deciding on the patterns I want to use and start establishing my inventory. Marketing will be the last and toughest step for me. Of course I will use word of mouth and start it myself, however, I’m not sure how else to go about advertising my business. There are many small knit shops on the site I am going to use so I need to figure out how I am going to market my particular shop to make it stand out from the rest. That is a challenge in and of itself.

Be Specific, Keep it Simple, Ask Women

This week’s lesson material contained good reading and videos. Something that stood out to me was Guy Kawasaki’s video called “The New Business Model”. He said there were three main components to the new business model. The first was to be specific. He said it used to be about capturing as many eyes as possible and somehow you would have a customer base to buy your product. Now it’s about targeting a specific set of people. The second thing he said was to keep it simple. Create a product, put it out there, people buy it, that’s it. The third and last component was to ask women. He went on to explain that men have a genetic flaw; they want to kill things. His point was that many men will go into business simply to “kill” their competitors. Women do not have the same nature and his suggestion was that their business plans would be better thought out. When Kawasaki suggested asking women it reminded me of research that was done at a retailer I used to work for. While trying to determine who their customer base was, the found their most valuable clients to be women. Regardless of age, they were found for the most part to be the ones who held the purse strings. This retailer did a complete overhaul of their branding to make it more feminine and target women. There is something to be said about asking women.

For the $100 Challenge I have been working on a couple different patterns for my small knitting business. Once I come up with some designs I like I will be able to narrow down what I would like to offer.

Intro to Small Business Creation

I just finished a class called Intro to Entrepreneurism and I am now taking a course called Small Business Creation. In the first unit we have been introduced to all of the projects that we will be working on during the semester. To be honest I’m both overwhelmed and excited. Something that I know will force me from my comfort zone is the $100 challenge. The challenge is an assignment we have to create a small business, generating $20 start up and then working to make $100 or more in profit. I have never been in tune with my inner entrepreneur. I don’t find it exciting to think about being my own boss and creating my own product to sell to the world. I know this project will stretch me and that I will learn a lot.

This week we had the opportunity to read and discuss quite a few great business blogs. They are all written and maintained by entrepreneurs. Already I have gained some good insight into what it means to be an entrepreneur and found some great tips for becoming successful. One post that made a particular impact on me this week came from Seth Godin’s blog. He wrote an entry called “Hiding” in which he talked about how all of us our hiding when we avoid things that will change us and when we let up people speak up to lead. He said that we live in fear of feelings. It is simply put but so true. I love how he ended the post, “We rationalize in extraordinary ways to avoid coming out of hiding. When in doubt, look in the hiding places. Olly olly oxen free.” I am someone who can be found hiding, especially when it comes to putting myself out there and embarking on the path of an entrepreneur. I will certainly be following Seth’s blog and several others throughout the course for guidance in addition to the insight of my teacher and fellow classmates.