Last Lecture Updated

This week in class we are asked to give our last lecture.  It is funny that I have already done this project in another class a little over seven months ago. Not much has changed since then, but I think I can add a little more insight into my entrepreneurial last lecture. 

I feel the last lecture is supposed to be something moving or profound.  I'm not sure I have that just yet at least not in an entrepreneurial sense.  This last lecture seems a bit overwhelming so I am going to try to just speak (or type) from my heart.  Through the things we have learned in class and the lessons I have learned in my life as a budding entrepreneur, there are a few things that I believe will help you be successful. 

The first and most important lesson for myself, and I hope for others, especially Christians, is to have faith and pray.  So often people go through life floundering along without any direction.  However, we have the knowledge that we can pray to our Heavenly Father and receive answers to our prayers. Heavenly Father can give us inspiration and guide us in the direction we should go.  Most people believe in chance or luck, but I do not think it is just chance or luck, I think most of the time it is our Heavenly Father giving us direction (even to those that do not believe or acknowledge him), possibly even pushing us into the situations or the path that we need to move forward on our journey.   My favorite scripture is Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."  If we are able to recognize his hand in our lives, trust his inspiration, and not be stubborn; thinking we know everything, he will let us know the way we should go.  He will "direct thy paths" to help us go where we will learn what we need to learn, experience what we need to experience and meet the people we need to meet so we can be successful in our lives.

The next thing is to get going on that path as early as possible and find any way to make it work.  My husband and I wanted to begin in the rental property business many years ago.  We took a couple of courses and had a couple of different opportunities, but they fell through.  One in particular, was a duplex.  It was perfect, two incomes for one mortgage, in a decent area.  The seller was asking $95,000 for it.  Unfortunately, the place did not appraise for $95k and we were unable to get funding for it. Thinking back on the situation now, I do have regrets, I wish we would have pushed through and found a way to come up with the money or negotiate the price so we could get the duplex we really wanted.  At this point, it would have been paid off and bringing in income all this time.  I think the important thing here is to find your calling and take the steps to get you there as quickly as possible. People get sidetracked by J-O-Bs (Just Over Broke) and just punch the clock to make a paycheck, but don't actually start on their stepping stones to get them to their star.  It's scary to leave a secure paycheck, but it is worth it in the end.  Think of the difference you can make and think of how much you could love going to work instead of dreading it.  Take the chance, take the leap, just do it!  It will be hard, but it is better than regretting having never done it because you were scared.

The third thing I would suggest is to get an education.  This does not necessarily have to be in the classroom.  It could be life experiences.  It could be working with a mentor.  It could be reading books from the library in your chosen field.  Get as much experience and education as you can while you are young, but continue to learn throughout your life.  Don't stop learning.  Surround yourself with people smarter than you who are willing to impart their knowledge to you.  Be hungry for new knowledge and skills.

Forth, you must be willing to work hard.  More and more young people want to sit back and have everything handed to them.  What happened at my previous job is everyone stretches out their assignments for the whole day instead of getting it done and asking what else you can learn or help with.  Put in an honest full day's work.  Those that work hard tend to be the ones that truly succeed, not just at work, but at life in general.  Sometimes it is going to be physical labor, sometimes it is mentally draining, but in end you will feel proud of what you have accomplished.

Lastly, never give up.  Don't let someone tell you that you can't.  If you think you can, keep trying, keep going and find another way until you find what works.  No one knows your drive or passion.  I am sure many people told Henry Ford he could never made a "horseless carriage", but he did.  I am sure others told Thomas Edison that light could not be produced without fire, but he kept trying until he invented the light bulb.  Walt Disney was told he was not creative, yet he created hundreds of short and full length films and thousands of beloved characters.  We have not lost until we quit.  As the saying goes, "where there is a will, there is a way."  Just make sure it is your will and way you are following.  You can do it!

No one's path is the same, but we all have one.  We have a calling that we should be fulfilling.  If we can find that calling and go after it, we will have an enjoyable life. Usually as we enjoy our life, we find success in our careers.

A final note on my $100 challenge business.  It has been difficult to manage it with the other commitments.  Trying to run three separate business, two as start-up at the same time, is not easy.  But I stuck with it and am glad I was able to make a profit that I can now donate to Nijora and hopefully be able to follow her progress and success for her own dress making business.

Failing Forward

This week has been about learning from your failures.  It is amazing the number of successful individuals who once failed in one regard or another.  Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.  Steve Jobs was fired from his own company. Thomas Edison had 10,000 prototypes for the light bulb.  Abraham Lincoln was defeated 8 times before becoming President of the United States.  George Steinbrenner ran a basketball team into the ground before taking over the New York Yankees.  Bill Gates first computer company was a disaster before he founded Microsoft.  

The person I really researched this week was Walt Disney.  Did you know that Walt Disney was once told he lacked creativity?  They even fired him from a newspaper over it.  The biggest creative mind of our time had more struggles than just that.  In fact, it seemed he had one set back after another but each time something better came out of each struggle. 

Walt’s young life was very difficult and all of his brothers ran away at a young age.  Walt even lied about his age so he could begin driving an ambulance during World War I.  Because of the struggles of his childhood, he wanted a place where families could enjoy happy times together and that is how he came up with the idea for Disneyland.

He began a small movie company called Laugh-O-Gram films that created animated films.  Unfortunately, due to high labor costs and Walt’s poor business skills, the company went bankrupt and Walt lost everything. 

With only $40 and a few clothes he moved to Hollywood to become an actor.  Obviously, he never made it, but he and his brother Roy realized that there were no animation businesses in Hollywood.  So they gave it a go.  There he created Oswald the Rabbit for Universal Studios in New York City.  It was very successful, but after a trip to NYC, he found out that Universal Studios had somehow obtained ownership of Oswald the Rabbit.  Not to mention, they had also contracted all of his workers out from under him, except one, Ub Iwerks.  It was on his train ride home that he got the idea for Mickey Mouse.  Ub Iwerks ended up drawing Mickey Mouse and Walt was the voice of the character. 

Off and on throughout his career, Walt experienced stress and depression.  He spent many sleepless nights.  He would get angry with his workers.  Other times he would burst out in tears at the drop of a hat.  People encouraged him to take his wife on a vacation.  He expected to go on a voyage down the Mississippi River, but due to the Great Depression the trip on the boat was cancelled.  Years later, days before Disneyland opened, he took his wife on a ride on the Mark Twain Steamboat.  Most likely the ride was based on his desire and inability to ride a steamboat many years before.

With the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt and Roy built a house in California for their parents.  But it was built with poor construction.  Walt attempted to have his studio workmen repair it, but one morning they found their mother had died that night from carbon monoxide poisoning. 

Walt often said, "Get a good idea, and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it's done, and done right."  It would have been easy for Walt to give up many, many times.  However, every time life gave him lemons he seemed to learn how to make lemonade.  Walt Disney even said, “You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”  His kicks in the teeth certainly provided some pretty great things.  These qualities are an inspiration for me and help remind me that sometimes you fail, but it is important to keep on trying.  Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.

My $100 challenge business is over.  I was able to find a new person to donate to.  Her name is Nigora from Tajikstan and I was able to finish funding her request for $125 to buy a embroidery machine for her home dress making business.  I hope that it helps her grow her business with this loan and find success in her country.  I put the remaining amount plus a little more towards a Kiva.org donation.  

Family Businesses

While in essence our rental property business is a family business with my husband and me.  But since I do the majority of the work with the tenants and the repairs, it seems like it is more my business.  Maybe I should consider my husband as the silent partner.  He does help with some of the repairs, but really we don't have anything set as to who does what.

We learned that it is important to clearly define roles and to have plans written down.  In addition, when we are planning on turning over our business to one of our children what the succession plan should be and how it should be handled to hopefully avoid hurt feelings.

This week's lessons were helpful and I believe that my husband and I should at least talk about the different things I learned this week, but I am not sure that we need to set things in stone nor do we need to implement them fully.  For one, we will always run the business together.  He knows that I do the majority of the management but he helps with the repairs.  In addition, we don't have to worry about a succession plan, because we only have one child.  At this time, we have it written in our will that the properties (including our own house) will be sold and the proceeds of one house will be given to my parents, another house to my husband's sister and the last house will be put in a trust for our son.  However, if our son reaches adult age before we pass, we will give him the option of taking the business or we will sell the properties when we are too old to handle the business any longer.

For my $100 challenge bread business I have nothing new to report.  All sales have been completed and my business is closed.  I need to research what and how we are supposed to donate the funds to Kiva.org.

Franchises, not my cup of tea

The past few weeks I have been researching about franchises for my class.  I have learned that it is not for me.  Maybe you could call me lazy, maybe you could call me a wimp, but the amount of time, commitment, and money it would cost to open a franchise seems overwhelming to me and not worth it.  Obviously, it is very worth it for many people or we would not have over 11,000 Dunkin Donuts locations and 35,000 McDonalds, with another 3,500 Holiday Inn franchise locations.

I also conducted an interview last week with a franchisee for Dunkin Donuts named Nick Apostaleres.  I would like to share some of his insights on franchising that I think are useful to anyone who is looking to start a business, even if it isn't a franchise.

• "You must be hands on and be prepared to work your butt off and pay yourself last."  
• “Make sure you don’t run the business by the numbers; customer satisfaction is the most important.”
• “You have to pick a franchise (or business) that is relevant to people.” 
• "You cannot expect to go into business just to make a lot of money, if that is why you are doing it you will be very disappointed."

As I stated in my last post, this past week was really the last week of my bread business for the $100 challenge.  I made the final loaves of bread on Friday that had been previously ordered.  I wavered back and forth and finally decided to use the remaining ingredients, especially of zucchini and make two final batches of chocolate zucchini bread.  I believe this was a smart decision, I did NOT want to make the bread, as I was totally over it.  However, I knew that by doing it, I could use the majority of the remaining ingredients and make a little bit extra money for the challenge rather than the money I would have paid myself to buy those ingredients to liquidate the company.  As I did so, I used the rest of the zucchini, sugar, cocoa powder, mini chocolate chips, baking soda,and applesauce.  (Earlier I had finished the shortening and honey to make the other breads.)  Essentially the only remaining ingredients were maybe 6 cups of flour, a 1/4 of a bottle of cinnamon and possibly a 1/3 of a gallon of milk.  I made the following post on Facebook to officially close my business:

Thank you for everyone's support of my bread business for my class project. My "business" has closed, but I still have four loaves of chocolate zucchini bread if anyone wants them. They are $4 each. Let me know.
Thank you!! I met the required goal by my class and almost met my personal goal. Thanks again and for those who bought and got to eat it, I hope you enjoyed it!

I sold the last 4 loaves of chocolate zucchini bread all to the same person at church and delivered them to her on Sunday.  With the final loaves of bread sold and my business closed, the profit for my business is $147.81.

Money and Business

This week we read an article that talked about seeking riches, called United in Building the Kingdom of God, by L Tom Perry.  This was an interesting read as I have pondered over the last couple of weeks with my family's financial situation changing.  As you know, I quit my job of 17 years at the end of April.  My husband and I had been planning this change for a little over a year.  We had worked on paying off our credit card, the car loan and purchased another rental property.  We thought that I would be able to not only manage the rental property business more, but I would also open an Etsy store.  I have done both of those things but we really haven't made any money at it yet.  We were smart as we worked through this change, we never relied on needing the other income to be able to meet our financial obligations.  We knew that it would take some time before I would make any money with the Etsy store and we knew there were serious repairs and upgrades that needed to be made at the rental property using the money we have been saving from the income each month.  So while we still haven't technically made money on either business, we are laying the ground work and eventually hope to make money, just to supplement my husband's income.  Maybe we will be successful with both businesses but maybe we won't and that will be okay because we have what we need.  It seems that people born in the late 70's and beyond want everything and want it now.  They want to own fancy cars, buy big houses and clothes to impress their neighbors and friends.  We have also found that as your income grows so do your expenses.  My husband and I have been talking about ways to downsize.  While we aren't planning on downsizing our house, we are considering selling the second car and some of the other "things" that we really don't need.  I think that we are coming to realize that we don't need all those things and the money we have been seeking in the past doesn't mean much if we end up spending it all, plus some and have to go into debt to get those things we think we want, but definitely don't need.  Elder Perry teaches us that we need to focus on seeking the kingdom of God and not necessarily the riches of the world.  If we are lucky enough to have both sought the kingdom of God and earned the riches of the world and are willing to use those riches for good, then I think we have achieved something few have.  However, if we are poor as dirt, but have the gospel and truly live it at all times, then we will be blessed beyond measure in the world to come. Ultimately for my family, we have decided that we would like to start making money with our two businesses, but it will just be able to be used to save money for our future or speed along the process of paying off our house sooner rather than looking to become wealthy or never having to work again in our lives.  However, if those things do happen, it will just be gravy on top.

For my $100 challenge, I fulfilled all the orders I received at the end of the last week.  I spoke to a couple of friends at church and other places I saw them and asked if they wanted to order anything.  I have realized this is definitely not a business I want to do.  It takes too much time and energy to fill these orders.  I feel like I don't have time to do anything else and am either making bread or delivering bread.  This is way too labor intensive for me...and during the middle of the summer in Florida, way too hot!  Since I am leaving on vacation and will not be back until class is ending, this is the last week of my business.  I posted on Facebook on Wednesday my going out of business sale so that I could sell the remaining loaves of bread that I have ingredients for or have already made that were the extra from the batch I had to make.

As a response to Brother Broderick's request to comment on his intro video.  The only thought I have is that if this is the first video students have watched of yours they won't be able to comment on what you need to do differently or be able to grade if they would watch them or not.  I would wait until week 3 or so to make that type of request.  Just my thoughts.

Hiring Slow and Firing Fast

This week we have been talking about hiring and firing.  As we have worked through the assignments this week, I learned that it is important to take your time to hire someone so you make sure you hire the right person.  Not only do you want someone who is a good worker, but you want someone who believes in your company culture.  If you have a certain vision for your company and the way it should be run, you must find someone who fits into that culture.  Otherwise, you will constantly be bucking heads with each other.  This is not productive or a good environment.  We learned that you have to be focused on what you want, have a job description of what the job entails and then be willing to wait until you find the perfect person for the job.  This could take days, weeks or even months.  What is important is that you find the right person to fill the job not the person to fill the job right now.

However, if you are unfortunate enough to hire someone that isn't working out, you need to be willing to cut your losses as soon as possible.  In this day and age, it seems as long as someone is working, at least a little, companies are willing to keep them on even if they really don't fit the company culture or aren't truly putting in an honest day's work.  Of course, also in this day and age, you have to make sure all your bases are covered as you don't want to find yourself in a legal battle for wrongful termination.  This makes finding the right candidate even more important to begin with.

The lesson learned for me is to don't be too anxious to hire just anyone.  Make sure to take the time to find the right person for the job.

This week has been a productive one for my bread business.  I was able to make the bread to fill all the orders from my bread party last Friday.  I had a small mishap where two out of the three loaves of a batch of banana bread the bottoms completely stuck to the pan and the bread was ruined.  I was so annoyed and not sure what to do, but my kind-hearted son offered to buy them from me so I could still meet my goal and not lose all the money for the lost bread.  However, I did tell him I would give him a two for one deal, he could pay me for just one bread and I would give him the other free.  He was STOKED! haha  Not to mention, glad to clean up my mistakes. So instead of the $2 per loaf I would have made I only made $1 per loaf, but any profit is better than a loss.  In addition, I finally got a chance to post about the bread business on Facebook.  In the 24 hours after I posted it, I received orders for 20 loaves of bread!  That will push my profit over the $100 mark and on my way to the $200 goal I had for the project.  So this weekend and next week will be busy making bread, bread, and more bread!  Luckily, my friend let me borrow her bread pans today so I don't have to wash them between each batch! This will make the process go a whole lot quicker.

Great Leaders

This week we have learned about being good leaders.  As I have read the articles and watched the videos for class this week it has reinforced the things that I have learned over the last six months about leadership.  The first one for me is trust.  It is important that we have leaders or are leaders that can be trusted.  If you say you are going to do something you need to do your very best to get it done. This has been huge this week for my husband and I.  We have worked our tails off at one of our rental properties for two weeks now.  We had told them we thought we could get them into the house last Saturday, but that we had to wait and see how the flooring went.  Well by Saturday we knew there was no way we would get it done so we told them we would do the best we could to get them in as soon as possible.  On Monday, we decided to tell them we for sure they could move in on Saturday.  However, the progress this week has been super slow even though we have been there for at least 4 hours every night after work and on a few days I went over with my son and worked on it during the day for a few hours.  It has been exhausting both mentally and physically.  We finally did get it done today and I am so relieved.  We had to ask for help, as we never could have done it ourselves.  I hate asking others for help, when I know people are busy and it is for our rental business where we will make money and not necessarily for a personal thing.  However, people were willing to help and we are grateful for it. In the end, we were able to keep our word and our commitment and the tenants took possession of the house this afternoon.  I hope we showed that we can be trusted and will fulfill our commitments, even when it is a difficult situation.  As a leader, those around you have to be able to trust you.

For my $100 challenge bread business, as you can see we were super busy with the rental property, so it wasn't until Friday that I was able to work on the bread business again.  I made several loaves so they were ready for the bread party in the evening.  I sold out and have orders for several more.  I will make those on Monday and deliver them to the recipients.  I am now up to $58 profit, the initial investment has been paid back and at this point I have almost all the ingredients needed to get me through the rest of the challenge, except for the perishable ones.  I will be setting up another bread party, hopefully for next Friday.  I am glad I have finally made a profit and have two repeat customers and one of the customers her daughter even bought some bread for her boyfriend.  It has been slow, especially with everything else that has been going on, but I have definitely made progress each week.  I still hope to make a $200 profit by the end of the challenge.  I'll keep trying until it is finished.