Last Lecture

If you want to be an entrepreneur you need to view everything around in a different way.  You need to look at the world as a huge opportunity that is just waiting for you to improve everything about it.  Be forewarned though, once you put on those entrepreneur glasses they are next to impossible to take off.  I find myself looking at even the small, tiny problems in life as possible opportunities for me to improve on.  My daughter gets headaches from her swim camps during swim team practice.  Can I make a swim cap that works the same but doesn’t give her a headache?  It can be very distracting!  Two ideas that have proven the most helpful to me is to write down ideas as they come to you and to think in opposites.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, read everything you can and ask questions of anyone who will answer.  Information and ideas are free for the taking, you just need to be willing to do the leg work.  I was amazed at all the information that is available from books, business blogs and case studies.  Be sure you are either improving on something that is already being done, or you have a completely unique product.  Do not try to compete in a market with the same product without offering something new.  Learn from others mistakes and move forward with a new vision.  A vison is one of the most important things to an entrepreneur.  You must be able to picture the end result and be able to have your end result vision change as problems and solutions arise.  The vision must always stay in the forefront of your mind which will keep the focus on the goal.

With that being said, don’t be afraid to take calculated risks and don’t be afraid to fail.  Every failure will get you one step closer to a success.  Failure is part of the journey!

Failing Forward

This semester and especially this week I have really been pondering this idea of failure in order for success.  This is really a new concept in my mind as I am definitely in the category of perfectionist.  What's interesting to me about this concept is that I think my life has actually followed the course of experiment instead of perfectionist so I think that if I can get my mind into that frame then I will learn more from my experimental life and be able to move forward more quickly.

When I was in college in my late teens and early twenties, I was definitely in experimental mode.  My sister had known she wanted to be a teacher from the age of 5 so she had gone to college and graduated right on time and went to work as a teacher.  I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do and so I would change my major often and took classes that sounded interesting to me.  I wanted to learn everything and anything.  I'm excited now because I realize that all that experimenting did count for something and it wasn't the entire waste that I have always viewed it as.  Even though it was a failure in the sense of not getting a degree, I learned a lot and have been able to apply that knowledge throughout my life.

I'm excited at this point of my life to have a greater understanding of why it's ok to fail.  Failure is not the end of something, or at least it doesn't have to be.  Failure can actually be the starting point of getting something that was stuck, unstuck.  For years, I was overweight and I had literally tried everything to lose the weight.  While I wasn't successful in losing weight until I had weight loss surgery, all the knowledge I had gained about nutrition and exercise and how the body works remains useful to me and to the family I care for.  Every path I took to get to this point in my life contained souvenirs that I picked up and placed in my pocket along the way.

$100 challenge

The challenge is over and I am happy to report that the business was a success.  I still have people asking me if I am baking, so this might be a business I continue after this semester.  However, at this point and for this challenge, the doors are closed.  Here are my final numbers.  I sold 16 loaves of wheat bread, 6 glazed cakes, 1 unglazed cake, 12 dozen cookies, 4 dozen gluten free cookies and had 2 delivery fees.  I collected a total of $238 in revenue plus $13 in tips and delivery fees.  My costs totaled $84.75 for a total profit of $166.25.

Family Business

I again enjoyed the readings this week.  The case studies were thought provoking and it’s nice to have the opportunity to visit these decisions in theory instead of waiting to come across them in real life.  I found the idea of family business intriguing and wished there had been a case about a husband and wife business.  This is the plan I have is to open a business with my husband and I would have liked to visit the possible pitfalls with this type of family business.

I also enjoyed imagining I had a large amount of money to invest in a business. I realized something I probably already knew about myself.  I am not very good at taking risks.  Even while fully knowing I was imagining I had this money I was still unable to fully take a risk and jump into a large business.  I was gravitating towards small, side businesses.  This tells me I have not fully committed to the idea of being an entrepreneur which is helpful information for me to ponder.

$100 challenge

I did not have much activity for my business this week.  I posted that I was baking but did not get any orders.  I had a few people ask me if I was planning to bake for Christmas but we are taking a trip.  I think I could have sold some holiday items otherwise.  Overall I am still very pleased with the outcome of my business.

I have sold $228 worth of product with a cost of $81.25 for a profit of $146.75.

Putting God first

I am not an investor.  Not at this point in my life anyway.  Therefore, I am not interested in becoming a franchisee which I see as just an investor.  Not a silent investor of course, but definitely an investor.  I don't see franchising and entrepreneurship as the same or really even similar.  Through my reading and assignments this week, this belief was cemented in me.

I really enjoyed reading “Making a Living and a Life” by Lynn G. Robbins and can honestly say I am A-level as far as motivation for earning a living.  I put God first and strive to have the mind of Christ in all that I do including work.  I consider this mindset to be a gift and one that I cherish and work to improve upon continually.  My focus is to learn all that I can and stay healthy so that I can be of most use to Him.

Another way I know this to be true has to do with my calling.  At the end of my first year as an early morning seminary teacher last year, the bishop called me in to meet.  He asked me if I was willing to teach another year.  I had not prepared to answer this question but I knew without a doubt the answer.  I will be a seminary teacher for as long as they allow me to be. I took the opportunity to convince him further by letting him know that I would take fewer classes and work fewer days as a substitute teacher if needed so I could continue to teach seminary.  This is my focus and I love it!

$100 challenge

I had another great experience with my challenge.  I had been asked by the PTO of the elementary school to donate something for a basket they were auctioning off at a fundraiser.  I made a voucher and offered the winner two of my items for free.  The winner emailed me and order her two items.  I fulfilled the order of one glazed cake and one dozen chocolate chip cookies the day before Thanksgiving.  By the next day she had emailed me back and said they were "in love with (my) cookies" and they had given the cake away to an elderly lady who had just become a widow.  They wanted to place an order for two dozen cookies and one glazed cake!  Amazing how that works!

I have take some time off from baking but will be taking some more orders for this Monday because I know I will be home.

I have sold $228 worth of product with a cost of $81.25 for a profit of $146.75.

Entrepreneur Bug

I realized this week that I am fascinated by entrepreneurs.  Reading about Roxanne Quimby was fascinating to me because it’s as if she put all personal matters aside and followed her business wherever it needed to go.  I can’t ever imagine being that risky and bold but that’s what needed to be done for her business to see the success it had.  I think I will probably be a bit more conservative and I got to thinking that I hope it will not hinder me in my endeavors.

I also realized this week that this course has really changed not only the way I think but also my husband.  We both have entrepreneur glasses on now!  We are constantly observing and thinking of ways to change and improve what we see around us.  That is really cool!

$100 challenge

I have been sick this week.  Being sick and baking don’t really go along so I have taken the week off from my business.  That is a nice option to have and only possible since I have only been taking orders based on if I’m baking.  For instance, I will post on Facebook that I am baking on a certain day that week and then people tell me what they want.  I’m feeling better and am thinking about doing bread only this week for those that want it for Thanksgiving.  I make the most profit from the bread and so this would be an easy way to boost my profits.

So my numbers remain the same as last week: I have sold $206 worth of products with a cost of $72.75 for a net profit of $133.25!!

One problem I am having is that two customer have yet to pay me.  One is a repeat customer and both are good for the money, but still a bit frustrating none the less.  This is the downside to doing business with your friends and acquaintances.  

What I've learned this week

This week there was a lot of emphasis on finding and hiring the right people for your business.  I found the topic very interesting because it isn't something I have a lot of experience with.  I realized that although I have some work experience, I have very little interviewing experience.  All of my previous jobs I either worked for someone I knew, worked up into a company position or started off with a temporary hire company.  None of these situations required an interview except for one and it was so long ago that I don't remember the process for it.

I think the consensus I have come to with all the reading and pondering this week is that it is important to me to hire the right people and I am willing to sacrifice time and money in order to find them.  I also learned that I am not willing to work with family members other than my husband.  I don't think this situation would ever arise for me but it good to know ahead of time where I stand on this.  I also learned that now matter who I do hire, I will completely train them to be successful in their position and to give them the confidence they need to fulfill their commitment.

$100 challenge report

I have sold $206 worth of products with a cost of $72.75 for a net profit of $133.25!! I'm quite proud of the numbers!

This week I have come to realize that this would not be a business that I would pursue full time.  It has served it's purpose well, but if I were to do it again, my profit margins would have to be higher to make it worth my time.  I might continue baking here and there if orders come just to have a little extra spending money, but I would not be able to forgo my job to do this instead.

I have enjoyed making people happy with my products and have enjoyed the compliments towards my baking.  However, I have given up substitute teaching jobs to stay home and bake on days that I promised product and it would have been more lucrative to take the teaching job.

These are good lessons to learn and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to learn them.

Ledership

Another great week of reading and learning!  This week the focus was on leadership and the different ways we can be leaders.  I realized that I am definitely lacking in leadership experience in my life and that is probably due to me being shy most of my life and choosing to turn away from leadership opportunities.  This is unfortunately and limiting because I feel I have much to offer and would be a very fair and logical leader.  I do run my produce co-op twice a month and that takes a degree of leadership but it doesn’t give me much in the way of workplace problems to have dealt with.  I do a lot of teaching whether it be substitute teaching or seminary teaching and I guess that requires some leadership as well.  Just not the kind I think about when we are talking about business leadership.  This makes me realize that I will need to find a way to get this experience to further my career or start my business.

I want to be the type of leader that brings out the best in those I am over.  I want to not only see the potential in everyone, but be able to convey that potential to them so they can see it as well.  From this will come the motivation that they need to do the task at hand in the best way possible.  I think this would be ideal.

$100 project report

Another great week for my business!  I came up with a plan that worked out really well.  I chose one day to bake this past week.  I had a couple orders that I needed to fill, so I chose one day and then posted on Facebook that I would be baking on Tuesday so let me know what you wanted.  I also said I would be making a delivery to the school I substitute at so if anyone wanted to meet me there or anyone working there wanted to order just to let me know.  No delivery fee since I was already going.  I had a bunch of orders come in from that one post.

So far my total sales have been $142.50 with a cost of $53 for a net profit of $89.50.

I had a learning experience this week.  One lady had ordered a cake and some gluten free cookies to be delivered on Friday which was the day I was working.  Then a couple days before she messaged me to hold off on her order because she was ordering it to feed the teachers for a teacher luncheon and even though she knew mine would taste better it would cost her too much to get enough for everyone.  At first I was frustrated by this, but I thought about everything I had learned and how best I could handle this situation.  I messaged her back and offered to make the cake as a donation to the teacher’s luncheon.  That was only a cost of $3.50 to my business but it left her feeling great and the teachers got to taste my cake!  I think it was a win!  I also was asked to donate to a raffled off basket by the PTO.  They get donated items from area businesses and put it together in a basket that they raffle off as a fundraiser.  They then put the businesses name in their programs throughout the year.  I plan to make up a picture that has all my products with the prices on one side and then on the back will be a voucher for the winner to call me and order any two of my items for free.  This is a good investment for marketing, plus I am donating to a good cause!

Inventive ways to run a company

This week I learned so much and thought in new ways!  I enjoyed learning about different companies that do inventive things to run their company.  Zappos pays new employees to quit after the first week of training.  It sounds so crazy, but it's incredibly smart!  This ensures that those employees who stay with the company are more than likely there for the right reasons which ensures that the company culture stays in tact.  JetBlue chose to focus their resources on providing things other airlines don't such as live tv and helping passengers put their bags away.  I thought it was a brilliant move to recognize that trying to provide food would be waste of resources.  These companies set out to improve a service and to stand out from other companies and they have done just that.

I believe that customer service is vital to any company.  I personally expect to get good customer service because I have provided it to others when I have worked.  To me it's simple and so I can easily get frustrated when I don't receive basic service from an employee.  As an employer we need to make sure we are providing the employee with the ability to do their best job and feel empowered to represent the company as they see fit.  Once we train the employee in the company protocol we need to develop a bond of trust to allow them to serve our customers to their ability.

$100 challenge

I am very excited to report on my challenge.  It is going very well!  I receive a lot of orders and fulfilled them this week.  My total sales so far is $96.50, with a cost of $31.50 which gives me a total profit so far of $65.  I have new orders for this week and plan to put another promotion out on my Facebook page.  The gluten-free cookies turned out very well which was exciting.  I will add this option to my offerings since the process is the same with just one ingredient change.

I have learned a couple things from this week so far.  First of all I didn't plan for packaging.  I had no idea how I was going to package my product, how much the packaging would cost and how much it would eat into my profits.  I have found some simple and inexpensive ways to get around this problem, but would have like to have had it figured out ahead of time.  I also learned to stick to my plan and say no when people ask for items that are not part of my offerings.  A lady asked me to make one dozen cupcakes for her and deliver them to a function for her.  She was trying to find a way to support me in my business venture and was willing to pay more than I was asking.  I agreed to do it.  The problem is that I had not priced out making cupcakes.  I also did not have the process streamlined and they were more time consuming.  I need to stick with the products I planned on doing only until I decided if/when I will add more offerings.  I don't regret doing the cupcakes, because I learned a valuable lesson.

A great week!

I’ve had a great week of learning!  First of all I have come up with an idea to apply what I am learning about business development from the E-Myth book to my personal life.  I knew the minute I read it last week that it was what I needed to use for my Mom role.  The problem that I’m having is that everyone relies on Mom to remember everything.  I have reminders going off on my phone multiple times per day and most of them don’t even apply to me.  They are just reminders for me to remind other family members to do something.  So my idea is to still remind them (because they are very important items, like taking medicine) but to also give them back some of the responsibility.  I am making up a family spreadsheet tomorrow.  It will have everyone’s name and their reminders for each day and a place to mark off that they have done the item.  This way the only thing I or my husband has to remind them to do is to check the spreadsheet.  I also have a way to make sure they have done what they need to do.  I’m very excited about this.  I am franchising myself! Ha!

I enjoyed learning about innovation, quantification and orchestration.  Quantification was the most intriguing to me because I think it is the area I have the most to learn about.  However, I am a numbers person so that could be why it intrigues me as well. I look forward to finding ways to apply these principles to my $100 challenge.

Speaking of my $100 challenge I am really excited about the progress I have made!  Originally I had planned to have an event here at my house today where people could taste and order and even have some product available for purchase.  However, it has been pouring down rain for the past three days and I ran out of time to prepare product.  But, the business must go on!  I posted this evening on my personal Facebook page and let my local friends know what I was selling and how much it was.  I had a last minute idea to offer delivery in my local town for an extra $2.50 per order.  This was a great application of up selling because I can profit at least $2 from that.  Within a few hours I had several orders which I can fill and deliver by Monday evening. 

I had one friend request for me to try making my cookies gluten free.  She said there are products available to replace the flour with a 1 to 1 ratio and she would pay more for the cookies.  I told her I was willing to try anything.  If these turn out well then I will have another product I can add to my business which will make me more competitive.  Such a great opportunity that fell into my lap!

With the orders I received just from today I anticipate a profit of $30.  Very exciting!

I also enjoyed the Purple Cow reading.  It reminded me of a restaurant that we used to go to in Fort Worth.  It had the same name, Purple Cow.  It was just a regular diner with regular diner food, but it served vanilla ice cream that was purple.  That’s it!  It tasted like vanilla, but it was purple.  They had delicious pies that they would serve ala mode with their purple ice cream and they also served shakes with their purple ice cream.  The kids loved going to this restaurant.  They found one way to makes themselves stand out and it worked!

Lots of great reading material this week!

I really enjoyed the chapters I read from the E-myth book this week.  Basically the idea is that your business is the product instead of the product itself.  This makes so much sense to me but is not something I had ever thought of before.  I think too often we (especially me) keep our ideas and processes for doing things close to our chest.  That works out fine until we need help.  I find times when I might need help from my family members it is almost easier to just do it myself rather than have to explain to someone how to do it.  This is the wrong idea.  I should at the very least have my process written down and even better yet would be to teach my process to another family member so I am not the only person being relied on to perform the task.  As the mom, aka chief operating officer, of my family I can find a lot of personal application with this idea.  I really love that it’s such a simple concept and yet a common mistake not to implement it into your business and life.

The case study this week was an interesting read on how a new restaurant venture was conceptualized and opened and the unforeseen problems that came about.  I enjoyed learning and thinking about how they stayed true to their standards and researched what type of restaurant would work best.  All good learning tools for me.

Elder Wirthlin gave me some great thoughts on finances and tithing when it comes to opening a business.  I will have to determine as I continue down this entrepreneurship journey as to whether I want to go the funding route or supply my own funds and limit what kind of business I can open.  Again, these are not areas I had previously thought about.

My $100 challenge is coming along.  I have been perfecting my cookie, choosing what kind of packaging I want to use and setting a date for my first event which will be next Saturday the 24^th.  I will let my local friends and family know about my event through Facebook.

A great week with a lot of wonderful new knowledge!  I worked ahead a few days because I am currently on route to a family juvenile arthritis camp with my family.  We go once a year and it’s a wonderful experience.  I’m blessed to have been able to get my work done so I can truly relax and enjoy the experience.

Making Plans

This week was a crazy week for me personally but I still enjoyed the reading and learning that was available from the course.  The case study on Heather Evans was eye opening.  I learned that even though it’s important to have spontaneity, we must think through each aspect of a business before we try and launch it.  Acting on impulses can be dangerous and very costly.

Through my reading I was able to hear about a lot of examples of what not to do when starting and running your own business.  This made me think of my sister and I growing up.  I was the younger of two daughters by 6 years.  My sister was inevitably the first to do everything and I was able to learn from her mistakes.  The same concept can be applied in business and in life.  We should research and learn from what others have tried.  We can either choose a better way to do something or choose a different direction but we should not venture into something that has already been proven as not plausible.

Writing the business plan and answering the defining dozen questions for my two business ideas was a wonderful exercise.  These documents were able to help me pinpoint exactly what I wanted to do and how I would be able to accomplish it.  Through working out these assignments I now have down on paper what to do and what order I should them in.  They have given me a vision for my ideas and clarity on why I want to do them.

$100 Challenge Report

This week I created my business plan for my $100 challenge.  It was a great activity to help me nail down more details of my idea and figure out specific ways how I am going to make my plan work.  I decided on the name of Allyson’s Cookies Etc. since my main focus will be chocolate chip cookies but I will also sell chocolate cakes and wheat bread.  I also determined I would set up specific event dates to sell my items at the end of my driveway and I would let people know through social media.  It felt very good to get these details set up and I am getting more excited about the idea of my small business venture.

I look forward to learning more next week! 

Innovations and Ideas

This week was a great learning week!  I mostly enjoyed the opportunity to learn how to come up with new ideas.  I already find myself looking at the world differently.  I find myself thinking more outside the box and watching for ways to improve the world around me.  I'm looking for new things to discover and find myself being more inquisitive.

My Mom had two storage sheds put up a couple days ago.  They were the type where the parts were already put together and then the men mostly were just assembling them here onsite.  I found myself wondering about the process of how the parts were manufactured and put together.  Why was that the most cost effective ways to build a storage shed?  What were the pros and cons of building a storage building this way.  I have never thought this way before.  It's exciting to me!

The Entrepreneur power point was especially interesting to me because it gives some concrete ideas on how to come up with ideas and innovations.  Carrying around a notebook really stood out to me because my husband and I were just discussing this.  He has ideas all the time and then doesn't remember them.  He has the entrepreneur mind naturally.  We don't need a notebook but will dedicate a page on our phone note page to listing and keeping track of new ideas and innovations.  I also really liked the idea of thinking in opposites.  This made such wonderful sense to my logical brain and I plan on working through some of these ideas.

The idea of changing the way you do things will be a hard one for me but I appreciate the idea behind it.  I don't deal well with change but I can see that it could be a very exciting format to figure out ideas.  Marissa Mayer was very inspirational in her talk about how ideas come from everywhere.  We cannot afford to limit ourselves when trying to come up with new ideas and new ways to do things.  Being able to think creatively is what will help us to stand out from the rest of the world and be successful entrepreneurs.

The HMM activity was a great learning tool as well as the chapters from the E-Myth book.  From both I was able to learn and reflect about how it takes all roles to run a business and to come up with new ideas.  I think it's commonplace to know that you need a variety of thinkers for a creative team but I had not thought about that being different parts of one person.  However, I feel that I am already working on developing different parts of my personality that are not as strong.  It is fun to envision which percentages I would give to each member of my team.  I think I am 70% Manager, 20% Technician and 10% Entrepreneur.  This is why I want to go into business with my husband because he would compliment me in my weak areas and collectively we would be close to an even ratio.

Edited to add: I forgot to update on my $100 business challenge project.  My family is all trying to convince me to sell cookies for my business.  This is an exciting idea and one that I would enjoy doing.  My problem is that I'm not sure where I would sell my cookies at.  With that said it is the only business idea that has me truly excited so I will find a way to make it work.

First and foremost I just want to say that I am very excited about the opportunity and possibilities for what this blog site can become. When I was a young child I had a painting of a clown that hung on the wall in my room. There was nothing special or fancy about the clown itself, but what always stuck with me was the artists name signed at the bottom of the painting. The artist had my same name but she spelled it with a "y" instead. I remember wishing that somehow I could change the spelling of my name from "Allison" to "Allyson". I thought it was much more creative such as Anne with an "e" from "Anne of Green Gables".


When I grew up and started doing more creative things I decided it would be fun to sign anything done creatively with "Allyson". This blog is a forum for my budding creative side "Allyson" to find her way and make her presence known in the world. And so @presenceofallyson is born.


This week was hard!  I am concurrently taking three different business courses and while no one thing is difficult, they collectively are hard.  With that being said, I am absolutely loving the content that I am learning.  I am growing and lets me honest, growing hurts and is hard.  In a quick nutshell I have learned that there is a whole bunch of information out there, free for the taking that I never even knew existed.  There are ways that I can improve myself and my prospects and I don't even have to get up from my seat.  That is amazing!

I love to search the internet to learn new things and observe new ideas. If I have a question, I always turn to the World Wide Web to see if someone has already done the work for me. Blogs are a great way to gain knowledge on an array of topics, so I was really excited to get to peruse some useful entrepreneur blogs. Workhappy.net really jumped out at me. I like how in one concise location, I can learn various lessons that others have already learned through experiences and/or conferences. I also like blog.penelopetrunk.com because she offered a different perspective. I don’t feel as though I think like she does which intrigues me. Entreprenuer.com is another blog I enjoyed scrolling through. I really appreciated how they noted how long it would take to read each article which is perfect for me when I only have small increments of time. Lastly, wise bread is one I will definitely look at often because it not only had a versatile subject and tips content but it has a collection of writers. This blog appears to be helpful on many fronts. Overall I plan to take some time each week to peruse these four blogs and maybe add to my collection as I go.

I also am finishing an interesting book titled "The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur" by Mike Michalowicz.  Trust me, I wish the title was different also.  I went to my local library with the two-page list they gave us and started searching for a book I could read.  I found two books that were in my library from that list.  This one was thinner than the other so whether I liked the title or not was a mute point.  Despite the title and the crude language I have gained some insights and knowledge and might refer back to it in the future if needed.  He gives some precise ways to run a business and I like that he gives the "whys" in plain English for me to understand.

I have learned this week that I actually have a lot more business ideas than I thought.  Once I started brain storming the ideas kept coming and that really gave me hope that maybe I do have a shot at this.  I have a long way to go to get to the stage of "I will do this and it will be successful" but I definitely feel like I'm on the right road.