Entry #13

If I were to talk to someone before they began their entrepreneur journey, there are a few different things that I would want them to know. The first lesson that I would teach them would be to not ever be afraid of failure. Of everything that I learned in this class, I believe that principle to be the most important. I would explain to them that failure is necessary in order to improve and grow your business. I would then teach them to strive to be original. We had the opportunity to learn about the experiences of so many different entrepreneurs this semester, and something that stood out to me about them was that they all had very original stories and business experiences to share. What I learned from that is that originality opens many paths to potential success. One word of caution that I would share with this person would be to be aware of the temptation to give up that will surely come and to fight that temptation with everything they have. I would tell them that giving up will not help them achieve success and that they just have to push through the difficult times, learn from them, and then use what they learned to become better.

Entry #12

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I had the opportunity to create a presentation about my business to report on my experience. I appreciated the opportunity to do that because it allowed me calculate my profits and/or losses and it also allowed time to reflect on what I had learned from this experience. When considering the importance of failure on the path to success, I feel it to be absolutely crucial. I think that it is safe to assume that everyone who has been able to achieve success has had to face great failure in the process. Failure is what teaches us how to be more successful the next time around. If it were not for failure, we would not know what needed to be changed and we also would not learn nearly as much. Failure is an important part of life. There are countless stories of very successful people who first had to face one or multiple major failures before they were able to achieve that success. Michael Jordan, for example, was actually cut from the basketball team in high school, and it is clear that that failure taught him what he needed to do in order to become better at basketball.

Entry #11

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I was able to continue working with my business by continuing to advertise and by servicing clients. I have most recently been focusing my advertising efforts on friends and family members who live nearby, and it has brought me some success. I really enjoyed this week’s discussion board assignments because I feel like they taught me a lot about what it takes to buy a business and how to successfully run a family-owned business. Those are two things that I had not before learned much about, so I was excited to complete the assignments this week so that I could learn more. I did not realize before this week how many decisions must be made before making the final decision of what business to purchase. I did not know that there were so many different financial aspects of buying a franchise and how crucial it is to make sure that your finances are in order before making such a purchase. I also especially appreciated the chance to learn about another entrepreneur this week, Eric Slaubaugh. I thought that his story did a lot to reiterate what we had learned this week because he was an entrepreneur who ran a family-owned business.

Entry #10

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I was able to begin advertising to an entirely new area with new customers. I moved to Arizona from Rexburg this past week, and so I am now able to to continue doing my business in an new location. I have been able to advertise my business through Facebook. For this week’s reading material, I had the opportunity to review more entrepreneur blogs that taught me a lot of new skills and tools that I could use in my own business ventures. One page that I found that I was especially drawn to was one titled “How To Change The World” by Guy Kawasaki. The title was what initially caught my attention because obviously changing the world would be something that I would love to do, just like many other people, I’m sure. As I continued to look at this website, I was especially impressed by all of the different things that Mr. Kawasaki is involved in and how he has such a desire to help others learn how to create change in this world. I really like how he has taken to writing books, creating a website, and giving speeches as ways to continue to inspire others to do good.

Entry #9

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I was able to continue the process of advertising my nail painting business, but I have found obtaining business to be quite tricky. Luckily, I am going to have the opportunity this coming week to advertise in a new location and I am hopeful that I will be able to find more customers and success with my business in that new location. In reference to what Elder L. Tom Perry said, I have had the opportunity this past week to really consider how I value money. For me, personally, I do not believe that I value money all that much because money is not something that I am particularly worried about very often. This is interesting because I am clearly not in the best place financially, since I am a young college student. Regardless of my current situation, however, I am just not usually one to stress or worry about money too often. I have also learned this past week about the importance of managing your money well and making sure to avoid debt whenever possible because more often than not, getting into debt will just be a continual detrimental process for you and your loved ones.

Entry #8

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I was able to continue advertising my nail painting business, and I was also fortunate enough to paint the nails of my very first customer. I was also able to speak with a couple of other prospective customers, whom I expect to paint the nails of this coming week. This week provided me with the opportunity to reflect on my experience of reading the E-myth book. I learned quite a bit from this book about how to successfully run your own business. Something that I learned from it that I did not know before was that it is important to create and run your business in a way that will make it easy for anybody to run it the very same way as you even if you are not there. This is what is called a “turn-key” business because all the new boss has to do is turn the key and the business is ready to go. I had never really thought of McDonalds as a successful entrepreneur business before I learned that it is actually one of the best in the world because it can and has been easily duplicated in a way that creates the very same results.

Entry #7

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I was able to continue the process of advertising my nail painting business. I was becoming slightly discouraged because no one had contacted me about wanting to set up an appointment to have their nails painted, so I decided to begin advertising my business on Facebook. I was able to post a photo of my flyer to my ward Facebook page and also to the local garage sale Facebook page. I have been fortunate enough to already have been contacted by a couple of different people for appointments. Something from this week’s readings that really stuck with me was President Kimball’s talk on the Savior and the perfect leadership qualities and He exemplified during His life on earth. I really appreciated the opportunity to learn more about what those attributes were because it also helped me set goals for myself as far as how to best develop those attributes. I am always striving to become more like Jesus Christ, and I now know how I can continue to strive for that even in the business world or any other situation when I might have the opportunity to become a leader. I am anxious to begin working at developing those wonderful leadership qualities that the Savior showed us.

Entry #6

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I was able to begin advertising my nail painting business. In order to do this, I created a flyer that described my business and how to contact me to set up an appointment to have your nails painted. I printed out fifty copies of this flyer and I then proceeded to hand them at each apartment door in the women’s half of the La Jolla apartment complex. Something from this week’s readings that really taught me a lot about how I would like to run my own successful business one day was the Harvard Manage Mentor on Customer Focus. Focusing on the customers is something that I have always noticed to set the successful companies apart from the unsuccessful ones. When I decide whether or not to continue doing business with a particular company, the first thing I consider is how well I am treated as a customer. I know now after learning the things that I have learned this past week that valuing the customers and ensuring that they are pleased with both the service and the product that your company provides them is the key to success in any given business.

Entry #5

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I was able to put together my elevator pitch for my business. This was a very interesting thing to do because it allowed me to really analyze my business idea and how it could benefit potential customers. As I put my pitch together, I really focused on what would draw customers into my business. This allowed me to also prepare my marketing flyers because I realized what things I should include on those as well. I really enjoyed reading more about the Purple Cow this week, especially since it was something that I read about in great detail for my first book report. As it turns out, I had already read all of the reading on the Purple Cow that was assigned to us this week because I had already read Seth Godin’s book on the subject. However, as I reviewed what he had wrote, I felt that I learned even more about the meaning and the importance of the Purple Cow. I would definitely say that all businesses should be introduced to the idea of the Purple Cow (if they haven’t been already) and they should strive to implement it into their businesses. It most definitely seems to be a very successful way to grow a business.

Entry #4

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I was able to consider where I would be getting my funding to start my business. I decided to obtain funding strictly from my personal finances in order to avoid any potential debt problems with investors or banks. I really liked the talk that was assigned to us to read this week by James E. Faust. I learned a lot from that talk about how important it is to avoid all forms of debt however possible in order to remain a successful steward over money. Money can so easily control our lives if we allow it to, and I think that’s a main reason why the prophets and apostles talk so much about being responsible with our money and making sure we stay out of debt. I think that when it comes to starting a business, it can definitely be a challenge to avoid getting into debt because you need money in order to get things off the ground in the beginning. I really appreciated the opportunity to learn this week about all of the different ways that a business can be started without having to go into debt to do so. I feel much more prepared now to set appropriate goals to avoid as much debt as possible when starting my own business.

Entry #3

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I was able to solidify my decision for what business I would be doing. I was also able to complete a business plan for my business. Learning how to create a business plan and actually doing it has taught me a great deal about everything that actually goes into creating a successful business. Something that particularly stood out to me as I read the chapters from the “E-Myth” book this week was  the importance of learning to delegate successfully. In the book, the author was telling Sarah that she needed to hire people to do much of the work for her so that she could focus more of her attention on fewer things at a time. He then made a point to explain to her that most likely she would find that she was not entirely pleased with the work of her new employees because it would not be exactly how she would have done it. Ultimately, though, she had to learn to properly teach her employees and correct them as needed, but to eventually let go of the reins. This would be a somewhat difficult thing to do for people who have given everything they have to their business because it would mean handing the control over to someone else or to many other people. However, I can definitely see how important it would be to do that in order to keep the business thriving.

Entry #2

This week for the $100.00 challenge, I made the decision to have my business be an in-home nail painting service. I considered what my start-up costs would be and I ultimately decided that the best way for me to earn $100.00 during the semester would be to paint nails. As I went through the different readings for this week, I was especially struck by a few of the things that I learned as I studied the Entrepreneur PowerPoint. For instance, I learned how important it is to make sure the purpose of your product is clear and useful. I also learned about the importance of addressing potential “fatal flaws” that might be present within my business. I considered these things and many others as I thought about what I might do for the $100.00 challenge. I especially thought about how I might market my business and I decided that I would probably be most successful by clearly stating the purpose of my business and advertising it to the proper audience. As I continued through the readings, I also learned a lot about the importance of the name of your company. I had never considered how crucial that seemingly small detail would be until I read the article on it this past week.

Entry #1

So far, for my $100.00 Challenge project, I have had the opportunity to consider ideas for a product and/or service that I could provide. I am strongly considering doing very discounted nail services in my home because I feel that my low prices will draw people in, and I also know that it won’t cost me very much to begin since I already own quite a bit of nail polish and other supplies that I will need. I’ve really enjoyed the different activities that we have been doing this week and last week because they have shown me that I truly can be creative when I really try to be, and that’s saying a lot for me because I have never considered myself to be a creative person. I’ve also learned a lot about the different resources available to aspiring entrepreneurs such as myself over these two weeks. For example, I am currently reading a book for my book report that’s titled “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable” by Seth Godin, and I am learning so much from it! It is definitely teaching me a lot about how to make my future business stand out from all the rest. The blogs that I read taught me a lot of different things as well, including the idea that accepting criticism is necessary in order to be successful in business. I am really looking forward to what lies ahead in this course, especially the rest of the $100.00 Challenge and also the “Big Idea” project because I love learning through doing. I think that keeping this journal will be a good idea because it will give me the opportunity to look back and review all that I have learned over the course of the semester.