Progress and a Good Reminder

 This week’s reading included The E Myth again by Michael E. Gerber. One of the things that stuck out to me was working on your business instead of working in your business. I liked the point he made about making sure the company is serving you because your business is not your life. I sometimes feel like I am working in my company, that I’m beholden to it. It takes a good read every now and then to be reminded that it is supposed to be working for me. In the case of my flag company, I want it to become a franchise, as it mentions in the book. I think this would be a great compliment to the business-that it could be a franchise due to its processes and successes being duplicatable.
Another great read was Elder Wirthlin’s talk on Opening the Windows of Heaven. I know there are a few things to work on, for me, like learning to serve others. I know how to serve, I just don’t feel like doing it (and for right now in my life, I don’t have a lot of time to do it). I know that’s something I will focus on again when my school load is reduced in December. Learning how to do Family History in the summer has opened my eyes up to so many possibilities when it comes to serving others.
Progress on the $100 challenge is…challenging. I put the $20 into adwords with Google and I have already started to send traffic to my t-shirt site. I talked to some co-workers and they gave me some more shirt ideas. I’m considering creating a couple more graphics to increase my storefront. This way, when traffic is sent to the t-shirt store I have set up, there will be multiple options instead of just one. I talked to an entrepreneur last week about his t-shirt business. It was enlightening and I hope to use some of his ideas. I got my shirt in on Tuesday, and I’m not terribly satisfied with the output, so I might move the graphic over to a couple t-shirt sites this entrepreneur told me about. I think there might be higher profit margins at some of the others anyway. Other than that, I’m trucking on and learning as I go in this new venture.

E-Myth and Things

This week, one of my favorite assignments was to read in the book, The E-Myth. The chapters this week spoke of a story that I find intriguing and the plot of a recent movie about Ray Kroc. One of the reasons the chapters spoke to me was because I have an idea I would like to turn into a franchise in the future. I have been working on this idea for years and have had my ups and downs with the idea. My father and I bought into a franchise in 2002, when I got back to the United States from Portugal. We bought into Maui Wowi. It was $50,000 and my portion was $5,000 in the deal. My dad set up arrangements with the local triple A baseball team stadiums and we started selling smoothies. It wasn't terribly profitable, but we made some money. I let my dad keep all the profits and I just got my $5,000 back out when I was ready to buy a house. I put the money in more to support my dad than to start my own business venture; however, I did see the value in the franchise.

Every time my dad would have to buy cups, he'd have to buy them from Maui Wowi, even though we could buy generic cups for less. When we wanted smoothies, we had to buy the mixes from Maui Wowi. When we wanted anything, we had to buy from Maui Wowi. They determined everything and all we had to do was follow their system. From a business perspective, it really made it easy to go from not owning a business to owning one. That's what a franchise is all about. When I realized most of our $50,000 went to the franchise, I realized I would love to create one some day.

Regarding 'Gather, Enhance, and Market,' it only makes sense. I have come to the realization many times in pondering moments that everyone essentially needs the same things to live and enjoy life; however, it is by those people who have creatively gathered their information and rearranged via enhancements who have enticed us (through marketing) to buy their products instead of someone else's. It's pure genius and yet, elementary.

In regard to the $100 challenge, I've started. I was challenged to spend no more than $20 on starting a business this semester and turn it into $100 by the end of the semester. I have chosen to create a graphic that will go on t-shirts. My profit should be about $2-$2.50 per shirt, so I'll need to encourage 40 people, at least, to buy these shirts. My plan is to advertise through Facebook. I'm hoping for the best. I have uploaded the image and it should get enough of an emotional response that I think I can sell 40 of them, and perhaps more. Good luck to me...by the way, all proceeds will be donated into a microlending program, so this is a charitable challenge. Here's the site:

https://www.zazzle.com/united_we_stand_t_shirt-235685357150126604