My "Last Lecture". Honestly I don't feel very qualified in giving a "lecture", but, I will do my best to convey the lessons I have learned. I feel like I have learned a lot throughout this semester. There were a lot of very great lessons to choose from. I would say that some of the most important things I have learned that I feel would be appropriate to share for my "last lecture" are the importance of having good values, being strong in what you believe and reaching your goals, don't be afraid to ask questions, and don't be afraid to take risks, make mistakes, and fail.
I don't think I can stress enough how important it is to have good values when starting a business and in life in general. The values that you live and go off of in life, really can affect the success of a business. If your only goal is to gain money, than you aren't going to be very successful in life. Your business could be successful, but not your life as a whole. You need to value what you are doing, you need to value the customers, and you need to value your employees. You need to have honesty, trust, loyalty, love, care, etc. within your business and actually hold up to those values.
You need to be able to stand strong in what you want. It can be very scary, but persevere! Set worthy goals and don't let anything get in your way.
Don't be afraid to ask questions and be teachable. It is inevitable that mistakes are going to be made, so don't be afraid to take advice and learn from those mistakes so that they can be avoided in the future. Taking risks and failing is all part of life, not just business. I think that we learn some of life's greatest lessons from our failures. But, that is the mindset you have to have if and when you fail. You can't let your failures keep you down. It is what you learn from the mistakes and what you do with them that either make you successful or not. You have to be willing to learn and try again. You need to have that determination. You can't let the first sign of trouble bring you down forever. If you do that there will be no room for success, no moving forward.

This week in B283 we focused a lot on failing. I learned that more often than not, people fail, sometimes several times, before they have success. It was very reassuring. I feel like I have not done as well with my $100.00 challenge as I would have liked. But, I have a learned a lot about what I could improve and where I could make some changes. Most of those changes would need to start with me. It was interesting to me to learn how many very well-known people have had some significant failures but have become some of the most successful people. We did an assignment this week where we had to choose an entrepreneur to study that has had some sort of failure in their life as an entrepreneur. I chose to study Walt Disney. I learned that he was fired from a newspaper agency because he lacked creativity. I would never of known that looking at all he has done with his life. I learned that he had started a business before Disney that went bankrupt. One other person mentioned Michael Jordan. He was kicked off of his high school basketball team. I learned that it is okay to fail. I learned that it is okay to fail, but that it is not okay to just give up. I learned that it is what you take from failing and what you do with that lesson that counts. Failing is inevitable. But success only comes if we keep working for it despite our failures.

This week has been a good week. We have learned a lot about family owned businesses and how a well established family owned business should work. There is a lot that needs to go into owning a family business. There are very personal relationships that need to be taken into account as well as making a living/profit off of the company. I have worked in a family owned business before, and there are definitely challenges. One of them being it was hard to spend time with the family because, often, the business would be brought up. And I won't deny that it was necessary, but it was hard because that seemed to be the main focus of all of our conversations. It became better and it was worked out. But, believe it or not, relationships can become strained in family owned businesses.
My $100.00 challenge project is coming along! I'm excited to get the final results all worked out. There was a lot that has had to go into it, but it has worked out. There are definitely things that I wish I could have done better had I had the time to do it better. But, overall, I am satisfied.

This week for B283 we have talked a lot about becoming an owner of a franchise location. It was very interesting and we were given a lot of very good information, but as I was doing the assignments, I learned that I really did not want to become an owner of a franchise. I think that there are many pro's to becoming a franchise owner, but I also think that there isn't a lot of freedom. I think that if I were to open a company, I would want the freedom to do what I want with it as needed. With a franchise there are many regulations and restrictions. Those regulations and restrictions are not necessarily a bad thing, but it does limit creativity and freedom of expressing ideas.
On a different note, I have a couple of new buyers for my $100.00 challenge product. It has been going pretty well and I am excited to see the end results. I have to admit that I will not be making a lot, but I have been able to learn a lot and figure out things that I need to do differently to get the results that I want and need.

This week has been a really good week in B283. There has been a lot of really good information for us to study. We learned a lot about the founding of Burt's Bee's and the process the founders of that company had to go through to make it as successful as it is today. That story is a very inspirational story that everyone should know. The founders of that company are very inspiring. That was probably my favorite case study that we have studied at this point in the semester. It was inspiring because it just goes to show that anything is possible as long as you put you heart and mind to it and are willing to take some chances.
My $100.00 challenge is going pretty well at this point in the semester. I have the majority of my product about ready to be sold and have buyers! So that is exciting. I was getting nervous for a little while there because of the setbacks I was having with finding the supplies I needed and not being able to find the right things. But I am excited to see the results of the work that I have been putting in to everything.

I have really enjoyed the lessons this week for B283. They focused a lot on hiring and values within a company. It focused on the types of people you should hire and how to go through the hiring process and weed out the "good" from the "bad". There was a lot of very good and valuable information that was given. This week has been better for my $100.00 challenge. I was able to get the supplies needed for my product and start on getting it all put together and ready to sell. I've been a little worried about my late start, but feel like I can still pull it off. I am excited with how everything is turning out, and to see where it will go once it is all done! I'm learning that there are a lot more details that need to go into these kinds of things than you think starting off. I'll be honest, I didn't think that I was going to have any problems starting off, but as I've tried to get everything figured out with trying to find the supplies that I needed, who to sell to, how to market it, etc., I've learned that it is much more than just putting it together and selling it. You have to figure out who your target market is going to be and then how you are going to market to them. You have to make all these decision that you may not realize at first. It is definitely a learning process for me, but I am liking what I am learning and figuring out how to apply it. 

This has been an interesting week for me and my $100.00 challenge. I have had to make some major changes due to lack of resources for the product I had originally planned on doing. But! I was able to come up with some different ideas/plans and have the products that I need to get it all together and will be able to have everything ready to go. Later than I had originally planned, but it is getting there, slowly but surely. I have had to completely change my product. My target market will remain the same, but the product will be different.
Some things that we have focused on this week in B283 is our leadership/managing styles. We have learned a lot about what it means to be a good leader/manager within a business. Something that seems to have stuck out to me is that a good leader is going to be willing to make sacrifices. A good leader will put the people/business before their own needs or wants. Several of the articles that we read seemed to boil down to the fact that a good leader will make sacrifices and be very selfless when it comes to the better of the company and filling needs. The willingness to sacrifice and serve will be some major ingredients to becoming a good leader.

This week I have come up on some problems with our $100.00 challenge! I am going to have to rethink some of my ideas and if my product choice is really going to work out for me in the long run. I am having a hard time finding the supplies for my products. I am still searching, but I am also getting to the point where I need to start getting it all going. So, hopefully I will be able to get it all figured out. But, on a positive note, I have really enjoyed this weeks topic of study. We focused on customer service and how to keep your customers loyal. It is so important to have the ability to create a loyal client base and keeping them loyal. That is really where your revenue is at. If you can keep your loyal customers happy and wanting to come back, and even getting them to purchase more than they usually do, your revenues are going to increase even more than if you went out and tried to find new customers.
Giving good customer service is one of the keys to creating and keeping customers loyal. If you aren't going to be nice to a customer, than there is no reason for them to stick around. Especially if they can find the same product somewhere else. The point of customer service is to keep the customer satisfied and wanting to return to your store, even if they can find it somewhere else. I know so many people that have stopped giving service to so many different companies based on how they were treated. This is one lesson that definitely needs to be learned. 

This has been a very good week in B-283. I feel like I have learned a lot of valuable things. For today, we learned about marketing and the different strategies of that, what is effective and what is not, etc. There is so much information that you can get about marketing! I loved it, but at the same time, I feel like I don't know where to start with the marketing for my $100.00 challenge. This week I did an interview with an entrepreneur that owns a dance studio. One of the questions I asked him was what his best marketing strategy was for him. He told me that word of mouth is probably his most valuable marketing tool for his particular location and position. I thought that it was interesting that he said that way because I never really thought that the way you decide to market really can depend on where you are located that will determine how effective that particular method of marketing will be. But it is so true. I think I could honestly say that the majority of things I have gone to, I heard about from someone else. I didn't see any ad's for them, or billboards. I went because I heard about it from a friend that really enjoyed it. So for his particular business and target market, that is what works best for him. And in the long run, that method ends up saving him more money.

This week for class we learned a lot about budgeting and the different ways you can do it. Although I understand what I am reading, I think that I am still going to have a hard time once it actually comes down to setting a budget for my future business. There is a lot of detail that needs to go into it. But, I'm learning! For our $100.00 challenge I'm down to the point of purchasing the needed materials and starting my sales! I have finalized the different styles that I am going for and have actually talked to several people who would be interested in my product! So, I am very excited to finally get everything put together once the materials are purchased and ready to go! I feel like this is going to be the kind of tedious part of running this very small business until the rest of the semester, getting the necessary supplies and putting it all together. I am hopeful that once I reach the point of having everything ready to go it will all kind of go from there. Although, I am preparing myself for setbacks too.

This week for B283 we have gone over a lot of really good material. Our homework focus over the last couple of days has been to go over our $100.00 challenge and write up a business plan for it as well as a business plan for our "Big Idea" business that we were able to choose. For some reason I thought that this assignment was really hard. Like I said in an earlier post, I never thought that I would ever take a business class, so some of the information that we needed to figure out was something I have never done before. The information I researched was all information that I know I need to know how to find and figure out, but I couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed at all the bases an entrepreneur needs to have covered. I'm excited to get more familiar with it though! Another reason it was good for me to find that information, is that it really made me look at what I have chosen for my challenge and solidify some of my ideas for the design, look, etc.
Something else I have learned, is how important it is to keep the summary short and to the point and not add a bunch of information that really doesn't need to be included in the plan. So, it made me think about what I was including. Hopefully I did it well! But I know I will get good feed back either way, whether I need to make some change and improve in some area's or I did a good job right off the bat. Hopefully it is the latter. 

So far for my $100.00 challenge I think that I have narrowed it down to the one I want to do. I still have some research to do to get all the little kinks and makeup worked out, but I am very excited to get going on it and seeing the results I will get! My idea for this challenge is to make teething necklaces that will help keep teething babies occupied and not focused on their discomfort. As I said, I am still working on the design, but I am very hopeful! I am currently living in Rexburg where there are teething babies galore. My baby is currently teething and have found certain things that he likes to chew on verses others that seem to help with his discomfort.
This week I feel like I have learned a lot. I don't know what I should focus on! There have been a few that have stood out to me, one thing in particular that has seemed to stand out to me was from the book that we are currently reading (E-Myth Revisted). I have only read the first couple of chapters but it focused on a lady that opened a pie shop because she loved to bake pies! Years down the road, she came to hate it. It talked about this batter that was going on between being an Entrepreneur, a Manager, and the Technician. She felt like she had to be everything, and it was draining her. I haven't fully gotten through this part yet, but it was going to go on to tell how to fix that problem. I think people often go into business thinking that they are going to make all this money and that it is going to be this crazy easy thing. When in actuality, you don't. Not at first anyways. I am excited to continue through this book and figure out how to solve those problems that all entrepreneur's face. Another thing that stood out to me comes from today's study topics. We learned about Tom Monaghan and his thriving Dominoe's Pizza!! He is inspiring. But what stood out to me was how selfless he was, and how he checked himself and his pride. And he sold his business and went into helping others become successful people. He used his money to better others. I think that that is something that is so important to remember. That it isn't all about the money or even the success necessarily, but it is about what we do with our success and our attitude towards life and being successful people. We could be like Tom Monaghan or we could be like the person on the opposite end of the spectrum, that often time becomes bitter in his pride and success. I learned that our happiness does not come from material gain.  

I never thought that I would ever take a business class in my college career. I work with clothing and dance! Not money. But, as I'm coming to the end of my college career, I am realizing more and more that what I am currently learning through my career of choice, is one that really won't do me a whole lot of good, unless, I have something that will back it up. And although I am just starting, I have already learned so many tricks that will help me in the future, if I ever decide to create a clothing line or open a dance studio. And those tricks that I am getting a glimpse of will help me make the right decisions when it comes to promoting my product to the right target market, it will help me know where to even start!
Currently, we are learning about other business men and women and how they have made the success happen. I am learning that I have very big shoes to fill in the business world should I decide to take my ideas to that level of actually starting a business and whether or not it would be worth doing. One of our assignments that we have to complete is called the $100.00 challenge. We have to start a business, making at least $100.00 profit, and then donating our profits to Kiva. I think my biggest challenge with this assignment so far is that I am having a hard time thinking on a smaller scale. I would love to start a clothing line or something in the fashion industry, but, I need to make myself think smaller than that. At least for now. I am trying to think of something that will really work and take off in a small town like Rexburg, Idaho. Something that will be inexpensive, but wanted by the students and locals of Rexburg. Am I completely wrong for being in that mindset of big? Or am I right, and do I need to scale it back. This is my dilemma. I know I will think of something, but I also don't want to think too small.
We have been reading a book of our choice this week, and I am reading Good To Great by Jim Collins. Something that I just recently read that stood out to me are located on pages 39-41. He says this "Start a "Stop Doing" list". He talks about Kimberly Clark in particular, and mentions how they have come from a good to great company. They eliminated things that essentially, were not bettering them in any way, and now they are a "great" company and one of the leading paper companies. He talks about how we have "to do" lists and that we should also have "to stop doing" lists. We have to learn how to eliminate things within our companies that may be holding us back and not helping in pushing us forward. I thought that that was an interesting concept and awesome way of thinking. We have to learn how to "de-clutter" in a sense.