Assignment 24A

Putting it All Together 

Walding Consulting Firm

Opportunity-  

There are many people in the world with profitable business ideas or solutions, but have little guidance, knowledge or financial stability. My opportunity is described as a consultation firm that would allow for young entrepreneurs to receive the guidance, foundation and financial stability they need for their own startups. On the local scale, there are many students within the city of Gainesville that see themselves as entrepreneurs and want to create their own business from scratch. There are very few forces within the market, although, you could argue that new products or services can be a force by altering the ideas client bring to the firm. The market will have a younger demographic, probably around 18-35 years old, and geographically will be within the city of Gainesville. Many of my prospective clients are probably not pursuing their ideas at all, therefore, they wouldn’t be satisfying their need. This opportunity can be extremely big, depending on the amount of work put into it. The window of opportunity will last, and potentially expand in the future.  

Innovation-  

Consulting has been around as a business for a long time. My idea of turning consulting into a “pay later” business is something I haven’t really heard of. In terms of innovation, it isn’t radically different at all, but it will solve the problem of many entrepreneurs having a place to start with limited funds. Customers will buy this service because they have nothing to lose. My consulting firm is similar to the basis of a lawyer not getting paid unless the case is won. There are many vulnerabilities such as financial risk, arguably the most important vulnerability when running a business of your own. I will be selling my time, experience and knowledge for a flat fee plus interest. For instance, If I help a client build a foundation for their business for the course of 3 months, I would charge $25,000 plus interest payable over the course of 5 years. My experience and knowledge is what would make the entire service work, meaning, I should focus on building my own experience that someone else would be willing to pay for.  

Venture Concept- 

Customers will want to buy the service because they want the help of someone who is capable of making a business happen. Many people want to be business owners but are intimidated by the financial risks and other things that go into making a business work. My customers won’t be switching from any other providers, the difficult part will be getting them through the door and selling my service. I would organize this business into teams because I feel there are many different skills that need to be covered within a consulting firm and having a team will allow for a broader range of those skills to work together. As said before, there are many vulnerabilities when it comes to consulting.  There will be financial risks, economic hardship may affect the business, and many other forces.  

The most important assets my firm will possess are the knowledge and experiences it takes to run a successful consulting firm. This is nearly impossible for other firms to replicate, but there could be good competition in the market.  

The next venture would be expanding to the point where the firm can consult multiple clients at a time. Having created, managed and launched multiple teams into a space where they can work on the client’s needs will be key to driving more revenue and overall, expanding the business. This venture is extremely long-term. I would like to build off my own experiences for the next 5-10 years, and then launch my consulting firm that would provide many of the details included above. Five years beyond launching, I would hope to grow my teams and expand my revenues.  

Assignment 25A

What’s Next? 

Existing Market 

Step 1: As a young college student with a consulting firm business concept, I believe the biggest points of expanding my business venture is building experience valuable enough that people with business ideas of their own are willing to believe that paying me for my service is worth the money. My knowledge and experience will be my most valuable resource. This said, I need to get real world experience working in startups in my existing market. 

Step 2: After describing my business concept to three customers within my existing market, many of them asked what kind of experience did I have to make my consulting firm valuable and worthwhile. The questions I received from my prospective customers were qualifications and experience-based questions, which I have very little of in this specific field. My interviewees also implied customers may need someone who is very creative as well as knowledge and qualified to run a consulting firm. Creativity is a piece of my skillset that I need to focus on to offer quality ideas to my clients. 

Step 3: Based on the feedback I received and my own expectations, I believe building a qualified summary of my experiences and what I have done for other entrepreneurs is the most convincing part of building a successful consulting firm. Consultants need to be knowledgeable in specific fields as well as being creative when building a business foundation.  

These qualifications come with experience working in real-world businesses. I believe my venture will be extremely long-term in the sense that I doubt many people would hire a 22-year-old, just-out-of-college consultant for their startup business.  

New Market 

Step 1: My existing market was targeting startups with business consulting at a very little to no cost in the beginning phases on the business. I will target prospective clients with more financial stability than the average starting entrepreneur.  

Step 2: My venture concept for this market may not different much from where I began. All things considered, I still need valuable experience and skills to build a successful consulting firm, even if financials are not considered.  

Step 3: After interviewing people from this market, I learned that a few adaptations I could make could be, hiring a creative partner to help with the consulting, or hiring a team of uniquely skilled people that make up for skills that I do not possess.  

Step 4: This new market helped me reflection on the process side of things, rather than the results. I keep thinking about the end-product, rather than the journey itself to get there. Both markets seem extremely attractive and opened my thinking a step further about the consulting idea. 

Consulting firms can “strike gold” if they create the right service or the right product. This is why having a team of experts in different areas of skills can be extremely important to bring the best tools out of each person to create a better business foundation for clients.  

Assignment 20A

Person No. 1 

1. The first person I would like to introduce as an expert in my industry is Bill Connors. Bill currently works for Comcast and is also part of an innovation team called SportsTech.  

2. Bill will fill the spot of domain expert due to his experience and ability to recognize innovation and invest in those with great, profitable ideas.  

3. I worked with Bill during my marketing internship with Xfinity and contacted him via email.  

4. Bill helped with my understanding and expectations of what it takes to run an innovation and consulting firm. The firm Bill is a part of is strictly sports innovation. They use ideas and technology to better track sports performance, statistics and more. I don’t believe there is a return expectation because Bill enjoys investing in others and sharing his wisdom and experiences.  

5. Bill has a very large network himself. Being in contact with him is very rewarding because Bill has a team of experts who work in innovation and consulting that would allow for extremely high-valued feedback.  

Person No. 2 

1. Bennie Phillips was once a District Manager for BestBuy but now works for the largest private communications company, Cox Communications.  

2. Bennie has a ton of experience in conducting consumer research and is well-equipped with consulting experience. Bennie will fill the spot of being an expert on my market. 

3. I worked alongside Bennie at Cox Communications. As a UF Business school Alum, who is still living in Gainesville, he knows my target audience very well.  

4. Bennie is a great tool to have in your network because he is knowledgeable about many different things. He is well-versed and can contribute great information on a variety of different topics.  

5. Including this person in my network will equip myself with great and easy access to relevant information within my market.  

Person No. 3 

1. Because my business concept is consulting, I was confused on who I should reach out to about being an important supplier in my industry. I decided to reach out to someone I know very well who works in the hospitality industry simply because it is crucial on the customer service end. Ryan Walker works for Landry’s, looking over 5-star restaurants and hotels in the Manhattan area.  

2. Ryan is filling the spot of being an important supplier in the service industry. 

3. I found Ryan through a family member of mine and contacted via phone call. 

4. Ryan was glad to speak with me on various points about what makes a customer service “quality.” In return, Ryan asked that I incorporate a few of the points he made in my own work.  

5. Ryan is my go-to within my network when I have questions on creating quality customer service.  
6. 
   
7. Reflection- 
   
   
   This assignment opened my eyes to how easy networking is and how beneficial it can become. A simple conversation with someone can leave them with a great impression. Networking is imperative for all entrepreneurs because you never know who you are speaking with, and who they might know. This experience did not differ from my past experiences networking; it was relatively the same.  

Reading Reflection No. 2

Reading Reflection No. 2 

Inbound Marketing, Brian Halligan 

1. The general theme about the book Halligan wrote is about matching inbound marketers with customers when and where they want to buy. In the introduction, Halligan makes a good point about the underlying problem of marketing today is forceful selling. Halligan argues there is a fundamental mismatch between how businesses want to market themselves and offer their product or service with the way that people actually want to shop and buy.  

2. This book was a great read for students in ENT3003 because it reminds me of the custom avatar assignment. Halligan states organizations market their product the way they prefer, rather than the way the customer prefers, which comes back to knowing your customer from a lifestyle standpoint.  

3. If I were to create an exercise based on the book that I read, I would create an exercise where you are the customer attempting to buy your own product. Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes in the most fundamental way to understand the experience from both sides of the business. 

4. My biggest “aha” moment when reading the book was tied to the moment where Halligan points out that businessmen love getting sales, but hate when their phone rings when they’re at home having dinner with their family just to answer the phone and see it is a telemarketer.  

Assignment 18A

Create a Customer Avatar

For my business concept, my prototypical customer can vary hugely. I decided to create a professional looking avatar who looks like he has a profitable business idea. My avatar is a all-business kind of person just looking for a helping hand to get his business off the ground. I feel like my customer would drive a tesla, be extremely technologically knowledgeable and prefer to read books rather than socialize on the weekends. He is single with no children and around the age of 24.

I have a few things in common with my prototypical customer, such as professional skills and basic sociable skills. The things the avatar and I have in common are coincidental because I really did not know what my vision was for my avatar and put him together without intentionally thinking the client would look like him.

Assignment 19A

Idea Napkin No. 2

I am a 22-year-old Public Relations major from Jacksonville, Florida. I believe the best skill that I possess is the ability to communicate and form relationships with many different types of people. My aspirations are to work toward developing professional skills that would allow myself to work as an executive within a large corporation. Specifically regarding my business concept, the business would become a side-job to diversify my streams of income. I do not see it becoming a full-time job, but my view could changed depending on a few factors. 

My business concept is a consulting firm that would allow people with profitable business ideas to get off the ground and build a foundation with little to no money to begin. Many people have high levels of debt and take on huge financial risk when it comes to the earlier stages of their startups.

Any and all people with profitable business ideas. It would cover a broad range of types of people, but the one thing they would all have in common is, they have a idea and little money to pursue their idea. 

My customers would care because I would be taking financial risk in the earlier stages of the startup and it would be less risk and less painful for them to begin their business.

My core competencies include the ability to lead, form strong relationships and network. I believe all of these skills are important and in essence with the abilities of an entrepreneur. All of these elements are important in a service-based industry as well. As for a side job, I believe it would be easier to develop a product-based business rather than a service-based business.

Two main points I received from the feedback include:

1. There are many competitive consulting firms available already.
2. Essentially consulting is providing knowledge and experience to a client. 

I changed a few things up from the past idea napkin by taking into consideration the feedback I received on the first idea napkin, such as reviewing my set of skills more in-depth to compete with other consulting competitors.