Week 7

Halfway through the course. It has been a fun journey thus far. I have enjoyed the readings and activities. It is nice to use my brain once in awhile...

This week for my $100 Challenge, I ordered my bottles and more vanilla beans. I will get the labels next week and decide on a design for my name. Since this is a short run batch of vanilla, each bottle will be 2 oz and I will sell a total of 36 bottles. Price is yet to be determined.

This week I watched a few videos. Here are the highlights:

Tony Hsieh - Zappos

• Pays employees to quit in the first five weeks to protect company culture
• Says Culture is Priority number one
• Your brand is what customers say about you
• Your brand is a lagging indicator of the culture

Carly Fiorina - formally of Hewlett Packard

• Ask the question, hear the answer
• Every-time a customer tells us something is wrong, we should view that as an opportunity

Guy Kawasaki

• It's not about being rich, it's about changing the world

We also studied customer service functions.
The 3 R's

• Retention
• Related Sales
• Referrals

The cost to attract new customers is 5 times more than the cost of retaining customers.
Relations with your customers grow more profitable over time with customer loyalty and retention.

5 generic influence of customer satisfaction:

• Dependability - will we do what we say
• Responsiveness - how quickly do we respond to problems
• Authority - can we act to fix a problem or make a change
• Empathy - do we listen to what our customer wants as opposed to giving the customer what we think they need. We need to discard our ego and listen
• Tangible Evidence - is there evidence of a service being complete

Overall, this was a great week. I love customer service. There is nothing more satisfying in a business setting than seeing a happy customer walk out the door and return for more business...

Week 6

Another week down. This week I have been getting increasingly more ill as the week has progressed. I hope my thoughts are at least coherent to some extent...

This week for my $100 Challenge, I did my elevator pitch. I think it turned out well... It was interesting to listen to other classmates elevator pitches. They all have unique ideas, some of which could have viable, long term business application. I look forward to finishing my purchases for my $100 Challenge and selling the product around my town.

This week I finished reading Mastery by George Leonard. It is a great book about (and this is from the back cover) the process of mastery that will enable you to vault over the pitfalls of the quick fix to attain a higher level of excellence and a deeper sense of satisfaction. After reading this book, I found this assertion to be true.

On of my favorite quotes from the book, "Before Enlightenment chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment chop wood, carry water." Even the little things still need to be done once we are a master...

Watched a great video about Phil Ramano, founder of Ramano's Macaroni Grill. He said two things I liked; "Servicing the need is what really prompts a good business, don't think about the profit" and "Don't do it for the money, money is the applause." We can look at both statements and be sarcastic by saying isn't that what a business does is service the need and only rich people say money is the applause but that wouldn't be true. When we work, we really need to be doing it for something other than money or else we run the risk of loosing our drive. No job, which is done purely for the money, will be completed to the best of our abilities. We need to be in the mind set of performing a service to our customers.

Regarding marketing which we touched on this week. There was a great quote by Jack Welch of GE fame. He said, "Marketing isn't someones responsibility, it's everyone's responsibility." So true. We are all marketers of the respective businesses we work in.

Well, off to go rest my sick body. I will be better next week.

Week 5

Yeah! A snow week. We were gifted with snow this week. When snow hits Portland, everything seems to come to a standstill. It takes awhile for everyone to remember how to drive in the snow. I love it.

Here are the highlights form this week in class:

Randy Komisar-
His quote of, "The hardest issue in life is not choosing between right and wrong, but choosing between two right answers." This is so true. Many times in life we have many good choices in front of us. Each of them presents many good aspects. For some, it could be which career to choose, for others which school to choose.
To help in answering these questions, Mr. Komisar asks two questions; first, What is your passion? you can simplify your passion by picking a direction you would like to go and sticking to it. The second question is, What is the ultimate thing you are going to do with your life?

How you makes these decisions occurs by focusing on what is directly in front of you and not necessarily what is in the future and does that decision sync up with your passion??? Seems easy, huh? Well if we could all do it, we would be doing something different...

David Friedberg-
He says, "The reason for having a start-up should not be for the financial rewards, but for the value."

Mr. Friedberg also spoke about misalignment. Misalignment occurs when our personal ambitions are not in line with the company you are working for. A great question to ask yourself when you are looking for new employment or at your current job.

For my $100 Challenge I was tasked with getting funding or an investment in my business. My lovely wife offered to give me the start-up money. I don't know what I will have to repay her with, but I'm sure the tax will be high.

It will be interesting to write out my elevator pitch for next week. How to sell the product in 45 seconds or less...

Something I learned this week that I will do. Jeff Sandefer suggested that we write a letter of gratitude to someone we haven't thanked and then read that letter out loud to them at the next chance.
I hope I will be able to read it without any emotions... Who am I kidding. Tears will come before I ever speak the first words.

Have a great week. Until next time.

Week 4

This week in the life of school wasn't too bad. It still brought about it's fair share of work and new understanding of principles.

Thoughts for the week:

Watched a few videos one about Jeff Hawkins. Jeff Hawkins talked about right choices. He stated that, "Any company in the world could be the largest company in the world, if they made one decision per day better that their competitor. Better decisions."

So in essence, we can make great changes in our own lives if we make just one decision per day better than the day before...

Another video featured Tom Kelley speaking. He quoted Francis Ford Coppola who said, "Do what you love. You'll be better at it." After thinking about this statement, it does make sense, but is not always realistic. What if doing what I love is not something I could be paid for? Will settling make me happy? Just a thought... Do we have to be happy in what we do, or is the work, which falls under service to our family by providing for them, enough to carry you through.

Tom Kelley also posed some questions he viewed at a talk by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great. Jim Collins asks, "What are you good at?", What are you born to do? and "What will people pay you to do?"
Another factor is, "Who is on the bus with you?"

The key question here is, "What are you born to do?" Answering this will be the cause of much self searching. Once you can figure this out, a job or industry can be better researched to fill that need...

I worked on my business plan for the $100 Challenge this week. Since the project will only last the semester, the business plan had to be adjusted to fit the parameter. My vanilla is currently in extracting phase, I am starting another batch next week (in case demand is high) I hope to price the 4 oz. bottles at between $10 to $15 or according to demand.

I also wrote a bare bones business plan for my "Big Idea" company. Maybe one day this could be a reality. The plan needs a lot more work, but is doable.

Books I'm reading:
E-Myth
Mastery by George Leonard
Return by Robert D. Hales