Saturday, April 11, 2015

The Last Lecture

The journey of an entrepreneur, for me has been to discover that I am not totally there, I do create my own money, in other words, I create a job but I do not create a business yet, I am on my way, though. I would strongly recommend saving money and think carefully on the ideas you may have in mind. To own a business is not as difficult as it seems, but sometimes, it takes many tries to find out the best way to do it. First you have to focus on something that you like doing it. I failed with big capitals for trying to do things that I have no expertise about, only did it because others were making money on it. It was not a good way to precede, consequences? Money lost in big amounts. Then, I decided to continue doing what I do, The thing is when you have a wife and children, it is more complicated, If you have a job, consider it a base for you independent endeavor. You need to give credit to yourself and work, believe in your idea. Any beginning is hard, yours will not be different, but Serve others, When others find their needs satisfied after buying your product, you have the beginning of a business, Save money and be generous with your profits, Organize your time and schedule your activities, a good organization takes seriously time and it does not give any problem to any body, as long as it lasts, A business in our own is hard work but hard work is the bussiness

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Buyouts and family businesses

I have to recognize that may be in another life things would have done better, this is my life these are my circumstances, I am thankful for BYU - Idaho and the opportunity to study. Before I was a man, poor with lack of money and a job. It is going to finish my first semester at BYU I took 5 courses, I do not advise you to do that if you do not have enough to back up your family. We had to face my wife surgery, my possible surgery and my son illness, the first two I did not see coming, but after I experienced I come to the conclusion that I would have done it again. Because there was no way to know things were going to be that bad this first semester. In conclusion, yes I do not have money, I do not have a job, but I learned how to designed my website, in fact I designed it, I learned to do my business plan but I also learned a lot about other business possibilities, I have learned to earn my life in coins and I found out that so far while others are playing big, I have just keeping myself busy, I learned about buying businesses and the advantages of doing it, I also learned how to organize a family business, I had a conflict in this part because I would really like to include as many family members as possible but it will not be possible. I am working on my Soda selling but there are some new ideas I am having in the process, I was not able to gather my $100 donation due to all the difficulties I have faced but I want to do it, let see what happened the next to weeks, I will work for a miracle, actually registering into BYU was with that in mind. I will keep working now that I have the tools

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Fanchasing

This lesson has been great because it gave me the chance to learned about a whole world that it was completely unknown for me, I learned about the franchises in Peru and in the world, I learned about the businesses that are using that format and the success they are having in the world also, I found out good business ideas and not so good ones having success anyway. Concerning my $100 business, I am learning that my dreams are not actually far for coming true I think the way to do it in a better way will help me a lot, the temperature in Lima is getting higher and it seems that autumn will not be a total reality in Lima summer will last longer so it will good for soda selling, the day after tomorrow I will buy a new car to sell more and save time from refilling the car which actually takes me two hours doing it. After learning about the franchises I am rethinking my business in teaching, because I found franchises doing business on teaching. I actually learned a lot, and let me thinking and replanting my ideas and perspectives of taking advantages on opportunities and business proposition and services to offer. I also learned the perspective about money reading the article "making a living and a life" I have always prayed to be self sufficient and help my family to satisfy its needs, to be honest I have never thought about the consequences that education and a good money administration can bring, that is probably I am still lack of both but one thing I keep in my heart for sure is to become capable of helping others

Production operation and Logistic

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Finding great people

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin invites to leave and abandon sin to go to a higher ground, I liked many things I heard and read, some of them are: " As people heed the words of the prophets, the Lordblesses them
Most of the time how much of the Lord loves us, I may need to keep in mind that being faithful to my convenants to the Lord are a way of protection. I alson learned this week about the hiring process, according to Kawassaki: better hire someone who loves the product and we are willing to say hello the first time we see them. How important is to have and organized way to hire people, write a job description and make a team for hiring process, how important is to be respectful while the interviews take place, I also learned a lot by putting into a balance a talented person and a person with experience, the signs and gaps in a CV. The business Ideas of "Jet Blue are inspirational, how to work through experience and innovation to offer a better service where everybody around struggle of doing it. I liked the lessons of innovation I learned from it. Matt Stewart and Henry Stein examples of entrepreneurship, about the importance or the benefits of knowing that you belong to something bigger than you and on the other hand the importance of saying "no" and persevere on those things that are going to be productive and in benefit of the community, How to build something for the well being of others that later will inspire them to take care of the profits for us.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Management and Leadership

To get back to study, to study in itself when you have a family, your kids are small, your wife had a surgery and you were probably to have one, it is challenging but what would life be if it weren't for the challenges. I am trying to get back to the rhythm with my classes, I hope this week will be better, for my own sake. On the other the semester is about to finish, and I have to think in how to pay my fee. It is not much but for me and my family it became a huge giant.  But will all the things I am learning in this course I will fight back. I had to think on better ways to improve my income besides my soda selling, I do it whenever I have the chance but not to the rhythm I was getting used to but right now i have like $40 in Sodas to be sold this week. I think this week will be more relaxed I hope so, I want to believe it. I hope no to be doing homework on Sunday, at least during the week I want to do them before time. I fell many time from my chair, many night not sleeping to catch up again with all the unfinished assignments I had and I still have in my 5 courses and 12 credits I am taking. The result is this

http://www.aprendesinglesya.com/

this is my other small business besides my soda selling, it is part of my $100 business, after the possible surgery I may have and the appointments with the doctor this last week, not for my wife but now for me, this is the result and I feel extremely motivated to keep on going, It is not easy, it is killing me but I am 42 I will not be this late young forever, the winter is my life is coming where no soda I would be able to sell or business to run I have to hurry. That is why the lessons I learned this week are so valuable. It was kind of a wake up call and reassurance to my life experience to learn the difference about "Managers and Leaders"

1. What are the Saviors attributes that President Kimball describes?
Jesus knew who he was and why he was here in this planet, he operated from a base of fixed principles or truths, He walked and worked with those he was to serve, he kept himself virtuous, he was a listening leader, Jesus was a patient, pleading, loving leader, he was able to level with them, to be candid and forthright with them, Jesus saw sin as wrong but also was able to see sin as springing from deep and unmet needs on the part of the sinner, his leadership was selfless, he emphasized the importance of being discerning with regard to others, without seeking to control them, he had perspectives about problems and people, Jesus knew how to involve his disciples in the process of life, Jesus was not afraid to make demands of those he led, Jesus gave people truths and tasks that were matched to their capacity, Jesus taught us that we are accountable not only for our actions but also for our very thoughts, and he also taught us how important it is to use our time wisely.

 Pick one and describe how you would demonstrate as a leader in a business?
I will try to be like him. someday I may do it but I would probably will not be aware of it but the people around me.
I wanted to copy my answers to the question number 1 for what I learned as I mentioned before it was really valuable
I will someday on the other hand be emotionally healthy totally, sometimes in spite of our strength we get discouraged easily, Something that keeps me motivated is to know that I was allowed to survive a surgery in my very early years out of 10 hydrocephalus baby patients I survived, so life for me is a blessing, and opportunity. Someday I will know why.  

Monday, February 23, 2015

Love your customer

I have learned a lot during this week, it has been a real blessing to have the chance to learn about Bud Brigham and how important values are in your life, He wanted to have his own business and in that he consider himself his own enemy but he says what helped him to achieve those objective were the values. He mentions that besides the difficulties he faced during his life, later on what help him to overcome in life are his values. He invites others to establish a life on values.. How important customers are in a business and the many ways there are to keep them closer to your business. It is so important to create products and services to satisfy the needs they have but treat them respectfully will actually do more. It is a great opportunity to help the customer by preparing products that will satisfy their needs. I also found very instructive all the lesson about customers. I learned to be more creative and more motivated to work better in any business to satisfy better the needs of the customer. It is smarter to take care of one customer than to pay money in advertisement. And advertisement may bring customers but one happy customer will bring another customer for free. Referral is the best way to get more customers, to make that possible a collaborator needs to be happy too. I am working with something else, besides my soda selling until everything gets better with my health and my wife health. But I did not stop selling. I am selling them but with smaller volume, my goal is to generate enough capital or another business for the winter. Summer and this semester are about to end. In spite of the difficulties my $100 business have to help me to gather capital for another business. I keep working

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Building your brand

It has been a challenging two weeks and it has not finished yet, the task may seem overwhelming but there is hope soon it will be done. But in spite of all the challenges the family is going through, I feel blessed for all the things I am learning, It was very important to study about marketing. The material I studied was very useful. I now have a better picture on what should be my main purpose and how to market my services to customers. I have no business yet but the services I am offering will be promoted in a better way now. I will soon put into practice the knowledge acquired. The video about "increasing your likability was very instructional, I had the chance to remember and refresh important principles that will reinforce my relationship with my actual customers and future ones. The importance of knowing your market and the uniqueness of my product how to optimize it to satisfy the actual need of my customers or the markets that I have not seen yet.I would try to find the way to put this principle into practice "bundling products" I will find the way to offer that on teaching. The Acton Hero part was very motivating. It is becoming one of my favorite part of the course to learn about the challenges and triumph of many different entrepreneurs and the example the leave after conquering their goals. In this case Mr. Romano helped me to focus more on creating a product or optimize the one I have to satisfy the current needs. The activity that helped me a lot to focus on what I want to do with my product was the "elevator Pitch" I may need to make it better but It actually helped me to find a north on where I want to go or where to begin to focus on what group and what exactly I want to sell

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Funding your business

Yesterday with my wife and my brother in law we went to the hospital to get blood from my brother in law that my wife will need for her surgery. Thanks to the government we will not pay for the surgery but it really took time to get her into a bed. Hopefully now she will be operated on Monday or Tuesday. This week I learned about the importance of leaving a modest life and as much as I can how to avoid debts. Elder Wirthlin’s “Earthly Debts, Heavenly Debts” speech was very inspiring and gave me the strength on keep working on the way I am working on my $100 challenge. I am not borrowing money to make the $20 I need for the challenge I basically made it selling my sodas. One thing that is helping us to cover our needs is the fact that we are as much as we can reinvest all the incomes we generate and spend always within the margin of profits we set up to be used on everyday expenses That is why the article we read in "Start up on a shoestring" seemed like our own story and I found strength and hope on what I am doing. I like what I learned from Desh Deshpande and ken solo. To learn to be optimistic and willing to change things around are actually two good attributes to learn while in entrepreneurial endeavors. Four stage in the budgeting process:1, setting goals, 2 Evaluating and choosing options 3, identifying budget impact 4, coordinating departmental budget. Budgeting is more than what I thought it was. I learned different kind of budgeting and I learned how to forecast possible scenarios and requirements of a company to budget for those requirements. Budgeting can turn into a powerful tool to measure a business.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

My $ 100 Challenge and my business plan

How my $100 challenge is going. Actually my business of selling soda is changing a lot. Today with my wife agreed to divide responsibilities. So she is now taking care of the books. In that way we focus on determine how many sodas we sell per day and by the end of the day we check how much is the capital, how much the real profits. What happened as a result we knew how much we were allowed to use in the house, how much we were allowed to capitalize and how much is possible to save to reinvest in the other businesses, like paying the fee for the website and promoting the English lessons which is actually the other business that obviously when running makes more money that selling sodas individually. We are in the Learning process. I am not sure about my business plan. I need more time to study and review the material and see what else can be improved. I really enjoyed the reading about Heather case and I was really impressed about the way she wrote her business plan, I want to learn to do that. I did the assignment of HMM but I want to recheck it again and write my business plan under those suggestions. It has been a challenging week. But I have to keep going.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

$100 a learning experience week 2

I wrote on my assignment this week about the different business ideas I have to produce the income. I actually working selling sodas in the street and teaching English lessons is actually helping the family economy. But by the things I am learning is like challenging my brain to think of better ways to make money to pay my family needs and the university. I ended up totally impressed with the story of Mr. Monaghan. A man who, after working so hard to get everything he wanted, discovered his proudness to end up giving everything into perspective. I agree with the fact that we are getting ready to actually do our work. The other reading that actually hit me was the story of the entrepreneur who founded a system for sightseeing and other activities. I like the fact that this man actually faced all kind of difficulties to get his job done. What is also something important to mention about how creativity can be promoted in an office. The fact that it is not something that comes from smart or really geniuses but from people who gathered together and have the capacity to carry on a conversation where different opinions are exposed and the result of that can be the creation of a new product, service or any other thing new.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

The beginning of the Journey

It has been hard to go through pathway and when the time came, it was unbelievable to confirm that we were already freshman at BYU - Idaho management school. Why did I decide that major? During my life more than a job hunter I learned and I was taught to prepare something and sell. Somehow in the middle of the journey I decided to learn English to teach it. After 20 years of doing it. It was rewarding but it did not take me where I wanted to go. Now after this two weeks in the university I discovered how powerful is a preparation on Entrepreneurship. The fifty things dream list made me think that most of the things I dreamed doing were being left undone. I was being left aside. After writing my list of business ideas I am actually thinking of a lot of the things I can do to make money. I am good at it. I sold my first English Lessons to people without being a licensed Teacher and I got a good number of students. All of them accomplished their goals but me. Now I begin this journey with a lot of expectations and strong desire and work to make it happen. From the very beginning, the idea of coming back to school brought hope not only to me but to my family. Things have changed around. Brainstorm of ideas began to come. We are actually doing things in order to face difficulties and the classes are actually helping us to make better decisions and to trust in the future ahead. We are working as hard as we can to overcome the difficulties we are facing and make it happen.