Business Ideas

I just wanted to share some ideas that I would like to try out and want any impute I can get. What I want to do is start a new way of advertising. I have surprised at how much money people are will to pay for advertising. Well there are tons of ways to advertise and this is my idea. It's hard for me to describe how they would look but it would be the idea of a billboard. The difference is that it would be six feet tall and three feet wide. It would have hard plastic on both sides of it with lights on the inside so that it would be visible at night. I have seen these but in another country and even though they sound a little trashy, they look really good and it won't make the area look bad at all. I was thinking about building around ten of them in Logan and if they do good to keep going. I would want to go all the way through Ogden and Latin and threw Provo. It is a way that I think I could make a decent amount of money. But I don't know enough right now to be able to do something like this yet. It sounds simple but I would need to do a lot to get it started. If anyone has any impute I would like to know.

Entrepreneurs and the Community

You see entrepreneurs out there risk everything they have sometimes for their idea. They put it all on the line and some take a lot of risk. Sometimes you think it is foolish. But then you start to think how important entrepreneurs are. Think of what you like to do most, now think what you do every day. If you think about it enough you will come to realize that our lives have been transformed because of entrepreneurs out there. I will use a student as an example. You find a university to attend, you get an apartment, you go to the store, you get into your car, you pull out your cell phone, you put on your cloths, and I could go on and on. Every single one of these things is because someone out there had an idea. They wanted to make a school, they wanted to make cloths, they thought of a new way of transportation. The list is just so long it would be impossible to even start one. Entrepreneurs have made our community what it is today. If it wasn't for entrepreneurs we would all still be wondering around looking for berries to eat off of a tree. I am very grateful that someone out there had the idea of a movie theater, restaurants, motorcycles, music, and computers. I think how I could live without these things because they have become part of my life. I have a university to go to so that I can learn how to be educated. Entrepreneurs give to the community more than we think. Entrepreneurs made our communities.

Being Creative with Business

I am a member of the entrepreneurship club at Utah State University. This last week was E week. On Friday I had the opportunity to listen to a lot of very successful entrepreneurs. You always hear how important golfing is in the business world. It's were you get to know potential business partners, where you make business deals, and just do business. The CEO of Rockwell Watches made an interesting point. He doesn't really like playing golf. So instead of taking businesspeople golfing, he takes them snowmobiling, or boating, or motocross. He decided to do things differently and he has had a lot of success because of it. He learned early that you don't have to do things the expected say, you can be creative and still make things work out for you. Another thing that he did to show how he branched out and decided to do something a little different is how he advertises. He wanted Rockwell posted on professionals trailer at their events. This cost way too much for him. So what he did was start his own very small motocross team and found that in the rules that he was allowed to bring as many vehicles has he wanted. Usually only the very successful athletes have the money for semis. They didn't know where to put his semi so they put it next to the rest. Now everyone saw his name with all of the other top brands even though he wasn't in their league at the time. Entrepreneurs need to be creative to get an edge in the business world.

Linkedin

For class I did my presentation on Linkedin. I wasn't too excited about it because I didn't know anything about it. I am very glad that I did have to do this report because I have learned a lot about Linkedin and can see how much it is going to help me. I have never been able to say that about a project either. My favorite thing about Linkedin is the ability to ask professionals questions. I am very interested in investments and being smart about it right now so that I can get the most out of my investments. One way that I have considered investing is through whole life insurance. I have researched it a little bit and can see how it would be beneficial. I then asked if it would be prudent for a 22 year old to buy whole life. I have gotten almost 20 different responses from professionals counseling on this matter. It has helped a lot. Although there were a couple that were completely for it and a couple that said it was a waste of time and money; the majority said that is smart to have but not until you have a family. If you do not have dependents then there is no purpose. One professional in particular said something that I really liked. He counseled that I should wait until I have a house and a family. Then get a whole life that would cover my mortgage completely then get half a million dollars in term life insurance. I really liked the idea of that and am planning on following it. Linkedin is Awesome.

Stats

I was invited to a free dinner at the Elements, the new expensive restaurant in Cache Valley. Of course I wanted to go but there was a catch, we had to listen to a presentation on fire safety. I was just fine with that and I still enjoyed the dinner. I am also taking a stats class at the moment and I can say I hate stats, but there is a lot of good that has come from me taking this class. The main thing I have learned in stats is how unreliable stats can be. It is so easy to make anything say whatever you want. So at this dinner, the guy went off on a lot of stats. He showed us a video from the 70s that also had a lot of stats saying that 55% of the time smoke detectors don't sound in a real fire and others. I was surprised at how many people were just taking his word for it and appeared ready to buy whatever he was selling. I did have fun discrediting his stats has much as I could with the group that invited me. But even though I really don't like my stats class right now I can see that it has helped me be aware of smooth talkers and it is just nice being educated so people can't take advantage of you.

There are so many things that we have to learn and perfect to get by in this competitive world that we are going into. One of the very many things that we have to perfect is professionalism. Like what we have learned in the classroom, professionalism isn't something we can just do. We have to practice and make it a habit. "Excellence isn't an act, it is a habit!" is my very quote by Aristotle. It is hard for us to think that our classroom behavior will affect out futures too much. But who writes our letters of recommendations, who helps us find jobs, who is our mentors? Our teachers notice more things than we give them credit for. They notice how serious we take their classes, how much we participate, and if we are even paying attention. They know what we need to do to be successful in this market and if they say we need to be professional then we need to be professional.

How stupid is Language Bias

In class we were going over certain rules about language bias. I've never liked going over this subject. My opinion has always been that if you want to be offended then go ahead. That has changed a little. I know someone who is a financial advisor. I know him very well and know a lot of the people that he has worked with. Just a couple of days ago my friend and his boss met with someone that I work with. My coworker came back very disappointed by them. My friends’ boss didn't treat him the way he thought he should and almost cost my friend some business. On another occasion I was talking with my friend and his coworker. He said that what I was doing financially was stupid. Something that didn't really bother me because I really don't care what he thinks. But there were other people present that heard the same comment and their outlook on my friends company isn't very good right now. I am realizing that it really doesn't matter what I think. It is very easy to ruin your company’s reputation. It may be something very simple. It doesn't matter. What matters is that it just cost you and your company customers. It is worth going out of your way to not offend anyone for any reason.