Lesson 9: Production, Operation, and Logistics

This week was fascinating.  I loved the case study about Burt's Bees.  Roxanne was a rockstar with what she was able to accomplish.  A fellow student mentioned that there was a video on Netflix that was a documentary on Burt.  I was interested to see what his views were on things especially since learning in the case study that he didn't last very long after they moved operations down to NC.  Roxanne believed whole heartedly in the company and in their potential and nothing was going to change her mind.  I think this helped her to make the tougher choices of up and moving the whole company.  Another takeaway I got was her ability to hire on people with more experience than herself.  She got top talent in NC and by giving them a piece of the company, she was able to help hook them and bring them on board.  I would also venture to say that those high value employees were more productive when they had skin in the game too.

$100 business challenge update:  I'm not going to lie.  This was a depressing week.  I've been trying to get info for the "About Us" page for the nursury and landscaping supply company but they just aren't getting back to me.  I know it's their busy season.  Plus I'm trying to get them to pay me.  I can't get paid if they aren't giving me what I need to finish the site!  Although I've been in sales my whole life, this is a new experience of doing all of the work and not getting paid!  Building websites can be very time intensive and part of me doesn't want to sell a lot more because this has been such a hassle.  Maybe I did it too cheap.  Maybe people would take me more seriously if I charged more.  It's been a great learning experience and I wouldn't change it for the world, even though it's frustrating and hard!

Lesson 8: Finding good people

First, I want to do a quick update on my $100 business challenge.  I’ve prospected another possible client.  I found out on Facebook that an old high school friend has started a small company selling canned goods.  They are selling their products at a local retail store in the town that I graduated high school from.  At the present time they do not have a website but they want one and would like to sell products from there as well.  As for the current client, Shoshone Nursery, it’s been challenging to hear back from the owner over there.  He also owns a landscaping company and this week was riddled with broken lawnmowers and trucks.  I’m waiting on him to get me the text that I need to write up the “About Us” page for his website.  The other client that I’ve been working on hasn’t been getting back to me either about the website.  This is the assisted living facility.  We did talk briefly about possibly branding ideas yesterday at an old car cruise.  We’ll see where that leads to but for now I want to keep him focused on the website!

As far as lessons learned this week.  Finding the right people is so important.  One of the things I learned in an Entrepreneurial Hero’s video was that even though we might not be able to hire 100% highly motivated individuals, it only takes a handful to make things happen.  When hiring, we shouldn’t hire for only the current pressing needs, we should look further down the road and hire strategically for future needs.  I know that I have personal aspirations and I don’t want to be a sales manager forever; therefore when I’m hiring sales reps, I’m looking for people that want to advance their careers and move into management. 

In the Jet Blue case study I was reminded of the need to make sure a venture is capitalized good enough.  Not only “just” good enough, but plenty good!  While there are those people who are great at shoe-stringing a budget to successfully launch a new business venture, they are few and far between.  Knowing how much to budget for takes a lot of work and a lot of planning to make happen.

Lesson 9: Management and Leadership

I’ve had a lot of time this week to reflect on my leadership and management style.  I’ve found great similarities with how it is following gospel principles and other areas where I can definitely improve.  The best person to look up to is our elder brother, Jesus Christ.  He was never wishy washy, he was ever vigilant and decisive.  He led by example.  He was kind.  His style was to ask questions to help his disciples and other followers better comprehend his message.  He was persuasive.  Even though he had the truth on his side, this doesn’t mean that people will follow.  He inspired them!  I want to have these types of attributes and I’ve thought a lot about how I lead my family.  Consistency is challenging for me.  I’m a high energy person, I get cranky when I’m stressed and in general I know I need to be more calm and collected.  I want to set a good example for my kids.

                As for my $100 business challenge idea, I’m making good progress.  I took time one evening to go over to the property that is being turned into a nursery.  Although the website is technically up, I feel there needs to be more personable content.  This week they received a truck load of bark and a load of topsoil.  These will be great items to showcase on the website.  This week the owner has had a lot of fires to put out so we were not able to meet.  With multiple trucks and lawnmowers breaking down, it just wasn’t in the cards to have an in person meeting.  I’m also waiting on the owner to get me info on his “about us” page so I can get all that put up.  

Activity 8: Entrepreneurial Journal

This week was all about customer service and loving your customers.  My whole professional career has been sales, account management, marketing, and customer service.  After serving a mission for two years, it came naturally to meet new people and start building a relationship of trust.  Although it's fun to meet new people the ultimate goal is to create loyal customers like we learned about this week.  Loyal customers are long term customers.  Loyal customers are profitable customers.  Loyal customers are friends.  Would you love to go to work everyday and be surrounded by friends, and interact with with customers that are friends?  How would you treat your friends?  We should treat our customers like friends!  We should love them!

This week for my business, I finally was able to meet with Jayson.  He is starting a nursery in my hometown.  The challenge with his business is that it isn't up and running yet.  So for his website we were able to sit down and talk about a good outline that he'd like to see.  He decided that he would not like to have a running inventory so we are going to have types of products that will be available.  There will also be a prompt to "contact us" so that potential clients have a way to reach out and submit requests on product they would like for him to carry.  His web-domain was purchased and I've published it.  He is so excited that he can pull up his website and that it is also mobile friendly.  Actually, what he really like was the fact that I linked his website to his Facebook page.  He's very active on Facebook and I'm sure this will be a great addition!