Lesson 14 - My Lecture to the World

In business there are five very, very important lessons you need to do.  There is no specific order to these points and they will change during the course of your entrepreneurship, but you need to memorize and internalize these lessons.

            One, follow your passion.  Know what you want to do and follow your passion. It doesn’t matter if you don’t make enough money or it is hard or it is abnormal or weird. Follow your passion and it will lead you to where you want to go. Your passion is your God given or basic animal desire that you were meant to be and do. It is you and if you ignore it you will ignore yourself and you will burn yourself out.

            Two, get help from the experts. You might have the passion and desire, but there are experts out there that know how to do Facebook, excel, data warehousing, piloting and insurance. Use them, no reason why you need to waste time, energy and resources on learning something that can be outsourced to an expert that is doing their passion.

            Three, work on your business and not in your business. What you dream now will not come true if you are working in the business. You need to remove yourself from your business and work on it, as if the business itself is the product. If you are opening the restaurant at 5am, making all the food, preparing for tomorrow, taking the payments, closing at 10pm and then cleaning the restaurant, when are you going to have time to fix the business processes? You need to make business processes that remove you from the business and allow others to work in the business. Once you have yourself removed you can perfect the business and make it a working product/machine that will give you what you want.

            Four, it is the small and simple things that accomplish great things. All experts and professionals started with nothing other than a desire to do and compounded over years became what they are now. Michael Jordon was not born playing basketball, Beethoven was not born composing songs, and Steve Jobs didn’t know anything about fonts until he was in college. Experts use compound interest to become. By doing the same things over and over and over again for years will eventually make you the best. Work and create your business a little at a time, every day and eventually you will be what you want to be and have what you want. If you work on your business 30 minutes or an hour a day; in no time you will have the knowledge and the capability to create your business. And when you finally have the business you want continue to work on it by small and simple things to make it perfect.

            Five, just do it. Just do it. Just do it. Just do it. Just do it. Just do it. Do not let fear, family members, friends, money or time get in the way of you doing it. Launch that website. Put a post on Facebook. Try the product. Let someone else try the product. Most dreams are stopped by fear. By just do it, you will remove that fear and will overcome the barriers that will suddenly appear to stop you. Just do it and things will work out for you. Just do your passion by small, simple tasks and ask for help from the experts when you need it.

Lesson 13

The best lesson that I have learned this week is the continuous lesson of work on your business instead of in your business. It is very important that I do this because what I ultimately want out of a business will not be achieved unless I work on it.  To quote one of the reading this week, “most of all, if you will devote adequate quality time to working on the strategic elements of your business, then you can reap the tremendous benefits of business growth and income growth.” That is what I want and the only way that a business will give that to me is if I let it go. A business will be like a child, I am going to have to let it learn how to stand and walk on its own two feet and not rely upon me to work constantly.  Tim Ferris talks about this in his book, The 4-Hour Work Week, and says there was a time when he literally couldn’t have an interview because he had to be in every decision. He then gave his company a $400 credit threshold in which the agent had to decide what the credit was worth. This reduced his call volume to less and a few calls a day.

The presentation this week for my $100 Challenge business I felt was good but bad at the same time. It was short and very to the point, which is what investors want. At the same time I feel like I need to talk a lot or go into greater depth of the business. It is an internal conflict, short and to the point or talk a lot to make sure I covered everything.  I try to prefer the short and to the point because investors have a lot of interviews. 

Lesson 12

This week Action Hero, Erick Slabaugh, said a many great things that are perfect for new and old entrepreneurs.  I believe the most important lesson that we can all take from his interview about being an entrepreneur is that we need to focus on our core business only! So many times us as entrepreneurs get side tracked by the new and flashy options, improvements or add-ons that we forget what we are doing and why.  If we always focus on our core and ask ourselves if what we are doing will significantly improve our business then yes we can pursue that option, otherwise we leave it alone.

This week for our $100 Challenge we are asked to make a power point presentation of our business.  This has led me to reflex a lot on how my small business achieves its $100 sales.  At first my business plan was an elaborate, massive website and tracking system.  I was going to create three profiles and adds on website, Facebook, Craigslist and Etsy; then I was going to have Google Analytics track the Search Engine Optimization Tracking (SEOT) so I can see where my customers were coming in from and how they were leaving and if they were buying. It was a great idea, but I was too smart for this project.  My calligraphy artist took over the marketing part and just put a post and page on Facebook (not being on Facebook I didn’t even know how to do this) and sold over $100 within an hour. My lesson I learned from this experience is not to make a small and simple task a hard and difficult one.

Lesson 11

I was reminded that owning a business is like being part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; I have to be constantly reminded of what I need to do to be successful. This week we focused on Steve Job and his teachings and legacy. In an interview, Steve reminded me that being passionate about my business is the most important aspect of being an entrepreneur. The reason why being passionate is the most important aspect is because any reasonable person would not go through such a hard thing as creating a  business, they would quit and stop because of how hard it is. Being passionate about a business will encourage and strengthen me to get through any hard or difficult aspect of my business.

Steve Job also said that death is the best motivator and told me in his Stanford Commencement Speech that looking in the mirror and asking myself “if today was my last day would I go do what I am about to do.” If the answer is “no,” too many days in a row it is time to change and do what I would want to do by following my passion. I realized that I lost my passion again, and have become a shell of work and school, I am slowing remembering what I want to do with my life and it is invigorating.

The task for this week’s $100 Challenge is to write personal thank you letters for the customers that purchased A Penned Thank You stationary cards and to collect the money.  I will be collecting payments through PayPal for the customers that are out of state and cash or check for the customers that are local.  I plan on having all stationary in the hands of the customers by the end of the week, quick turnaround time is very important so the customer feels satisfied. I am so grateful for all those that purchased stationary and for my calligraphy artist who worked so hard in creating the cards and marketing them on Facebook.

Lesson 10

Whenever Jacob 2:18 ever pops up it is always a hard pill for me to swallow because it states “But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.”  I feel that because the business I want to create and build is for my profit of staying at home, having money to buy the things I want, to buy the things I want to give away, more time for family, church activates and service; it is never good and therefore it is evil.  I want to go to every canning assignment, attend the temple every week and participate more in Scouts, but because I have a job I can’t right now.  But having a business would allow me to, but I still feel that I am doing it for selfish reasons.  Maybe it is the spirit telling me that I need to focus more on Christ while still doing the business? 

So, I created a Facebook profile for A Penned Thank and nothing came of it after two or three weeks. My wife, who is also the calligraphy artist, took over the Facebook part of the business sold 55 cards within the hour of creating a page.  The last time I was on Facebook was over four years ago and so much had changed that I had no real idea of what I was doing.  I was not the person for the “job.”  My wife on the other hand is on Facebook a lot and therefore knew exactly what to do to get the more marketing and spread for my product and the proof is in the numbers.  After 24 hours we have sold 75 cards! I am thankful for her and this has taught me a very valuable lesson, the right people in the right seat is very important because it can mean broke or success!

Lesson 9

This week’s lesson was a reiteration of who to hire and base it upon the person and not their qualifications.  Throughout the week we have been beating a dead horse on who to hire, now this is usually used in a negative connotation, but this week it is very important because it is probably one of the biggest mistakes that new entrepreneurs makes and old entrepreneurs need to be reminded of.  When hiring a person it is important to “get to know them,” and having a hour interview isn’t really a good sample test for a person.  Doing at least two interview will allow you to see the candidate twice in two different settings and allow you to see who they truly are.

Remembering that the most important aspect of an employee it their capability to mold, conform and embrace the culture of the business.  Yes you might have Joe that has done programing for IBM since 1980 but if he can’t mold and support the differences of your company, then he will be a hindrance and someone that you are fighting the entire time to become the most productive. Make sure they fit correctly and if they don’t, fire them asap because it will be better for them as well as your company.

For my $100 Challenge, I am having personal challenges, mainly not selling any stationaries as well as planned.  It seems that it was going to be easy to sell these “thank you” cards but it really hasn’t been.  I am afraid that I will either fail at this assignment or end up being my own customer and buying all of them, which of course is counterproductive. To ensure that I sell more I am thinking about increasing the price, having to low of a price might be indicating that they are not up to quality that my customer would like, as well I can sell less to achieve the $100 challenge.

Lesson 8

     This week’s biggest lesson was on consistency from the book E-Myth Revised.  I remember when I read the book before that that was one of the biggest lessons I had learned and how important it is to have consistency in every aspect of my business.  And the best and practically only way to ensure consistency is to have system in placed that is automatic or depends little upon a human to work.  Having an automatic system that produces consistency will always allow a customer to receive predictable, god service.  This is why McDonald's is the same everywhere in the United State, you know that if you go to New York or Oregon, it will be the same and that is what we as humans want.  By giving my customers in my personal business as well as my $100 Challenge business I will ensure that my customers are happy because they will get the same results every time.

     This week we finalized the logo for our Facebook, craigslist and Etsy websites.  I thought this was done last week but I changed it because my artist came up with a better Logo.  I was planning on buying the stationary at Michael's, 50 cards for around four dollars, but they changed the type of cards they sell, so I had to purchase two packs of 25 and with a coupon it came out to be around ten dollars. Like they say, three times as long and three times the cost; I am literally living that part right now in my getting my $100 Challenge business up and running.  This also is being applied to my personal business, I was planning on having it done at the beginning of April and I barely just published my website. The great thing about my business is that I do have at least one customer lined up to buy some thank you cards because he recently had a birthday and needs to write thank you to a few family members and friends; hopefully he will have bought some by the end of the week, fingers tied.

Lesson 7

This week was nice because it was a little less work; a good break half way through.  I loved the E-Myth book, this is my second time reading it and there are defiantly a few points that always stuck with me.  Consistency is the biggest.  Working at a local ma and pa restaurant I saw where I would make food as close as possible to the owners, but then I have gone back there and sometimes it is completely different and I actually hate it because it isn’t the same as the bosses.  I promised myself that if I owned a business I would make sure that the product is always the same.

I am ready and pumped up to start selling Thank You cards for my business.  This week I created the Facebook, Craigslist and Etsy pages to sell the cards.  I also had the local calligraphy artist create the first 10 cards for the store that will be the post and pictures for the products.  I am thinking of having a short bio for the calligraphy artist to give more transparency for my company and who exactly is writing the thank you stationary cards.  I am also having the calligraphy artist create a logo for the business in her handwriting to show who we are.  I never thought about a logo beforehand and after a week of thinking we just came up with a handwritten A Penned Thank You.

Lesson 6

     Napoleon Hill stated “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”  This week I decided not to make an elevator video for my $100 Challenge, but made one for my Big Business idea, which was all great and awesome, in my personal opinion.  Then come to find out the weekly challenge for the $100 Challenge was to submit an elevator pitch video.  I have to do two videos, but I learned a lot about both my businesses and decided to look into the silver lining of creating an extra video.  With the Big Business that I want to create, it is easy to be passion about it and know everything and create a simple elevator pitch because I have been thinking about it for over a decade.  While on the other hand the $100 Challenge business is a lot harder for me to make a good and simple elevator pitch that hits all six questions that were asked of me.  It was hard for me because I am not passion about it, I am doing it as an assignment, as well I have another business that I am trying to start up and more focus on that.  The six questions of what is your product or service? Who is your market? What is your revenue model? Who is behind the company? Who is your competition? Don't have any? What is your competitive advantage, were really hard for me to answer?  But this stretched me to become a better business person and to realize that not all aspects of business or even the business itself would always be easy.  The benefit of doing to videos this week is that fact that I received more practice at creating elevator pitches and working on my business instead of in my business.

Lesson 5

This week has been one hectic week, mostly I am stressed about another class that deals with statistics and then there is this class, which I love.  I despised the first couple years of school because I felt like they didn’t apply to real world situations and information that was pertinent to my degree.  But this class is perfect.  I the last couple weeks I have learned a great deal.  A lot of the case studies that I have read over have allowed me to tweak both my personal business plan and also my $100 Challenge business plan.  I never thought about putting in a section about competition and how I will keep my business in the forefront of my market and industry and take a part of the market share.  Because of this week’s case study of a business that wasn’t prepared to face competition, I now am.  For my $100 Challenge business now official called A Penned Thank You, if we are not generating enough income by half way through our time period; we will then introduce a buy two card get one free promotion.  Likewise in my personal business if I am not generating enough cash flow, I can think of solutions to overcome these obstacles.

                The $100 Challenge is going well. I have official created a business plan, financial plan and now I need to create my marketing/sales pitch, start networking on social media websites and then sell some product.  I am actually a little afraid that this business will be a complete flop.  I don’t know why, but I am.  I am relaying heavily on the scripture from Joshua 3:13 which states “And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap.”  Basically, I just need to take the leap and trust the rest to Heavenly Father.

Lesson 4

After writing nine different business plans as well as reading the Business Plan Development by Harvard Manage Mentor at least four different times you would think that it would be easy to write a one page business plan for a $100 Business.  I don’t know if it is because it is for real or not a passionate product I am selling, but it was hard to come up with what to put into the business plan.  Just from this experience I recommend always having a business based off of something you are passionate about, it will be easier to accomplish your goals and to create your business.  I did finish the Business plan and it is almost ready to be submitted, I think I am going to keep most of my business plans to only one page, it makes life easier and after taking a few classes this semester on business writing, if I can’t convince that my company is an amazing one to invest or buy from in one page I probably shouldn’t have that business.
A few insights that I learned this week:
1. Work on your business instead of in your business, the business is the product to the entrepreneur.
2. Keep your integrity, honesty and faith in God while being an entrepreneur because if all else fails, you will have your faith and integrity, which will go further than anything else in this life.
3. Keep everything simple and easy for your own sake but also for the sake of others that you want to invest in your business and those who want to purchase the good or services from you.
4. If your business is honest and you are a honest business owner, God will bless you.

Lesson 3

This week’s teachings in my B283 business class were sad, frustrating and fun.  I had the opportunity to listen to President Hinckley talk about the dedication of the Hinckley Building at BYUI.  I miss President Hinckley, he was amazing prophet and growing up in my teenage years, he was the prophet that I needed.  I miss his love for us and his humor.  Listening to him first thing this week gave me the insight and courage to continue on with both my business endeavors and schooling endeavors.

The frustrating part this week was that I had to reach a 21 page document, 12 page document and the Harvard Manage Mentor inline course, then I had to write a 150 word summary on them.  I felt if I had to only write a 150 word summary for 12 pages of documentation there was something wrong.  The 12 pages were not that important and that I shouldn’t have to read all of it.  I have learned this week that I need to trust my school and professors.  They know what they are doing and for me to give a 150 word summary I did need to read the 12 page document.  A lot of information comes in, is thought and pondered on and then a simple answer can be provided.

The fun part of this week was calculating my business expenses for my $100 business challenge. I have narrowed my businesses down to five, but I am pretty sure I already know what I will be doing.  I have always known since I first read the challenge.  I am excited to create, work and see how a small business will grow.  I am grateful to be taking this challenge and this course this week because I know it will help me with my other business that I am creating full time.  It always amazes me how much the Heavenly Father is in my life and always making sure that school, work and family life line up perfectly for me.  

Lesson 2

Key points from Lesson 1 of B283:

• Those that seek help in their entrepreneurship are more likely to achieve their dreams

• Start a business within your realm of passion and to help others before you help yourself

• The word “CAN’T” doesn’t exist if you want to be the best entrepreneur

     I am loving this class, mostly because it uses the books and materials that I am already using to create my own business; it is a good confirmation that what I am doing is on the right track.  I also love that we get to create a small business and donate all the earnings to Kiva.org, where we will be able to help others like ourselves achieve their dreams.  Another aspect of this class that I like is that the teachings are blunt, truthful and supportive.  I feel that in the world, there are too many people ashamed of never following their dreams and as entrepreneurs when we share our dreams we get pulled down.  Not in this class, the first lesson was about dreamers and dreaming. I feel at home in the class.

     I go into phases when I write in journals and don’t.  I already have a business journal that has my dreams, goals, steps, actions, notes and doodads.  But no one sees this personal journal, so having to have my heart open to the world will help me stay true to myself, answer for my posts, and be honest to others and myself. 

     So far for my $100 challenges, I still have not come up with the exact business I want to do.  I would love to sell different flavors of root beer pop, but I want to make a business that can run without me being present every second of the business.  And if I had to be present my business’ income would depend upon the hours that I spend on it.  I need to solve peoples’ problems or needs without me having to be there every second.