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.