One of the parts of entrepreneurship that my eyes were opened to this week was the responsibility that comes with being the steward over money. If you are running a company, you are the one that has to make sure everyone gets paid for the work they do, that the electricity and your vendors get paid, and that you are putting your company in a place financially to last, even through difficult times. That really is a big deal and a big burden to bear.
I have decided to pursue an email optimization consulting business as my $100 challenge. I have reached out to family members and friends for possible leads that I could pursue to get the company going. Since I'm just offering my time, my start-up costs are nothing and I hope that will provide me with stellar profits; however, I have to sell my services to someone first!
I also wanted to make note of one of the things I liked from Dr. Deshpande. He said, "Setbacks are a way to expand your comfort zone." I found that to be incredibly profound and I'm not sure I have even processed it entirely yet. But I want to remember it later, so I'm making note of it here.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
The Hero's Journey
I'm still reeling a little bit from the video of a talk Jeff Sandefer, Founder of Acton MBA in Entrepreneurship, gave at BYU-Idaho. It took me 45 minutes to watch a 22 minute video because I had to keep stopping it to reflect on and write down different things that he was saying as well as thoughts that were coming to my mind as he spoke. There are two specific things that stuck with me from his talk; his joke about God and the "wise person" quote.
The joke about God illustrates how pride can show up in our lives and helps to realign our thought processes with those we have during rational, humble times. The joke goes, "Do you know the biggest difference between you and God? God never pretends he's you." For me, that is such a succinct way to remind myself where my blessings come from and to whom I owe it all. As soon as I start to feel like I'm pretty big stuff, I have to remember the origin of my gifts that make me good at what I'm doing. This is one of the pieces that I wrote down and will keep around forever.
The wise person quote goes like this, "A wise person does at once what a foolish person does at last." Sandefer followed that up by saying, that both people did the same thing, they just did it at different times; which are you? Timing really is everything and missing the moment when a task should be completed or an opportunity should be seized makes you foolish. As an entrepreneur, there is so much to learn from this; as a person there may be even more.
The joke about God illustrates how pride can show up in our lives and helps to realign our thought processes with those we have during rational, humble times. The joke goes, "Do you know the biggest difference between you and God? God never pretends he's you." For me, that is such a succinct way to remind myself where my blessings come from and to whom I owe it all. As soon as I start to feel like I'm pretty big stuff, I have to remember the origin of my gifts that make me good at what I'm doing. This is one of the pieces that I wrote down and will keep around forever.
The wise person quote goes like this, "A wise person does at once what a foolish person does at last." Sandefer followed that up by saying, that both people did the same thing, they just did it at different times; which are you? Timing really is everything and missing the moment when a task should be completed or an opportunity should be seized makes you foolish. As an entrepreneur, there is so much to learn from this; as a person there may be even more.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
A Week of Revelations
I was really influenced this week by the story of Tom Monaghan. His willingness to give up everything that he had built with Domino's pizza (which was an enormous fortune) so that he could overcome what he perceived as his biggest sin, pride. As I reflected on his story and some of the others like the Boston Duck Tours, I pondered on what my motivations would be going into business, whether as an entrepreneur or in the corporate arena. I haven't entirely determined what my biggest motivator is, because honestly, it's hard for me to say that money isn't a significant motivator since I currently don't have much. But I feel that deep down, I want to be able to help people. I want to be able to support causes that I feel are important and back politicians that support those same causes. This has definitely been the most influential week for me thus far.
Also, just a quick update on my $100 challenge business: I have decided to start an email optimization consulting business. I currently work for Melaleuca in Marketing Operations with the primary role of managing Marketing Communication. With the implementation of several specific strategies, I have seen the click-through rate of the emails I manage increase more than 40% and open rates increase 50%. I have received certifications from Marketing Sherpa and MECLabs for email optimization and feel as though I can take the principles I have learned and help other businesses get better performance out of their emails and thus, more conversions. I have been in contact with several relatives and friends who own or work for companies that could possibly benefit from better email performance and am excited at the response I have received. I feel as though this will be a good venture because there is no start-up cost and I can charge reasonable fee for my knowledge. Hopefully it will convert into impressive revenues and thus the opportunity to give to a person in need.
Also, just a quick update on my $100 challenge business: I have decided to start an email optimization consulting business. I currently work for Melaleuca in Marketing Operations with the primary role of managing Marketing Communication. With the implementation of several specific strategies, I have seen the click-through rate of the emails I manage increase more than 40% and open rates increase 50%. I have received certifications from Marketing Sherpa and MECLabs for email optimization and feel as though I can take the principles I have learned and help other businesses get better performance out of their emails and thus, more conversions. I have been in contact with several relatives and friends who own or work for companies that could possibly benefit from better email performance and am excited at the response I have received. I feel as though this will be a good venture because there is no start-up cost and I can charge reasonable fee for my knowledge. Hopefully it will convert into impressive revenues and thus the opportunity to give to a person in need.
The Journey
Reading the case about Magdalena Yesil brought home a lot of the things that I am reading and learning about in Hoffman's The Start-Up of You. Hoffman talks at great length about how a person's career must be viewed as a business if it is to achieve the kind of success the individual would like to enjoy. In this case, I got to see how some of Hoffman's principles apply to reality and how effective they can be. Yesil never took a position and just stagnated, like a failing business. She was constantly striving for more knowledge, more external insight, and more opportunity. Treating her career like a business lead her to incredible success.
I also liked how the Yesil case, at least in my interpretation of it, coincided with Sister Dew's remarks about integrity. It seemed to me the Magdalena was true to herself and what she stood for. She didn't care much about what people had to say when she was young and determined to move to the US and pursue a career there. What an important lesson for everyone to learn. In the end you really only have to answer to yourself and God; others are probably just concerned about the temporal implications of your actions. So as long as you personally are okay with a particular decision and you are also willing to discuss it honestly with God, it's probably an okay alternative.
I also liked how the Yesil case, at least in my interpretation of it, coincided with Sister Dew's remarks about integrity. It seemed to me the Magdalena was true to herself and what she stood for. She didn't care much about what people had to say when she was young and determined to move to the US and pursue a career there. What an important lesson for everyone to learn. In the end you really only have to answer to yourself and God; others are probably just concerned about the temporal implications of your actions. So as long as you personally are okay with a particular decision and you are also willing to discuss it honestly with God, it's probably an okay alternative.
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