The best strategy to achieve SEO is to create a headline, or post title, using key words that people would regularly type into Google, something I learned from my public relations classes. However, since we did not choose the title for our posts in the class, I didn't really put much thought into SEO for my posts. Another good way to create web traffic to your site is to use hashtags to also be easily found on a good search. I didn't do this, the only hashtags I used were the ones we were suggested to use (the labels for each week). The only other way to get any views to your page, then, would have been to repeat key words throughout your post, which I did try to do. But this is the least valuable strategy of the three I've listed, so it wasn't all that successful in my Google search.
Key words that I used in every post included "dietary restrictions", "vegan", "sugar free" and "gluten free". These words were much too broad though, especially when only being used in the body of a post, and not the title.
I never posted my blog on any social media sites, except for canvas, so the only views I got from this were those that came to my blog to comment on posts. Though from other similar experiences to this, I have learned that social media can help, but not as much as people assume it does. I write for an online publication and my first article that I posted to my Facebook received a lot of attention and traffic to the site, however, the weeks to follow did not gain nearly as much attention as that first piece did.
My post "viral" post was my "Celebrating Failure" article. With six views, this was the most attention any post received, with my next highest being five views on a couple of different posts.
I did not make it to the first page of my Google search, I couldn't find any remnants of blog until page 20, and even that took a couple of different searches to finally find.
From where I stand now at the end of this course, I still think that this initial interview was very helpful and beneficial to me. I think the entrepreneur gave me a lot of good tips and advice that I definitely saw come into play throughout this course. The only thing that the entrepreneur did mention, that was not really brought up in this class, was working together on a team. I'm sure this is important in the real-world of entrepreneurship, however this specific class just never had this piece within its assignments.
How have you dealt with any unpredictable changes that have occurred?
"Somebody saw an item, and wanted matching pieces, but I didn't have it because the stuff is all uniquely made. I always tell them sure I can do it, none of the pieces will be exactly the same, but I can get it for them." How do you decide what you business's next step is?
"I always ask when I'm selling my merchandise, 'Is there anything that you would like that you don't see?'. Some of my best-selling products have come from that tactic." Have you begun to think about your exit strategy? If so, what is it and why?
"No because I always want to continue doing it, at least as a hobby. But I have already slowed down marketing it as a business." Reflection:
I felt much more comfortable talking to the entrepreneur this time in the interview than I did the first time. As seen above, I knew many more terms of the field as well as had a better understanding of what went into. Coming up with my own questions made me realize that I had a much better sense of entrepreneurship now, as my questions were much more broad in the first interview and much more detailed this time.
I definitely think my entrepreneur could tell my gain in knowledge talking to me this time as opposed to the first time. She were a little stunned after I used the term "exit strategy," I don't think she expected me to know this term, nor was she ready to be asked it! She also paused after the first question as she really had to think about unpredictable changes she's had to withstand, I think having thought of something so specific about parts of the job really showed her how I've grown and learned in entrepreneurship.
The thing that surprised me the most right away in reading this chapter was all the reasons for acquisition, which is an important reason as to why an entrepreneur should value their existing business. I thought the only reason why you would need to know the value of your company would be if you were looking to sell it, either to a patent label, larger corporation or different small-business owner. But rather, according to the book, you should know the value of your business for more reasons than just an exit strategy, but possibly even a growth strategy. The textbook lists many reasons as to why you should price the value of your business, many of the reasons include expanding on your current venture.
The price/earning section was the most confusing part. I actually remember doing this in math at some point in my life, I can't remember when, but I was very confused by it then and I think I only ever slightly understood it. The formula always seemed confusing to me, as did the values used (I didn't understand what net income and stock price, etc. were). I also don't really understand what this formula answers for a business owner. Maybe I would have understood this more if the formula was given more in a linear, note form as opposed to the word, horizontally-written form. This way it would have been easier to follow and possibly understand.
How do you choose with method for venture valuations is best? They all seemed to have their own usefulness, as well as draw-backs, so how do you choose one as opposed to the other? And if you should do all of them exactly for this reason that they each have their own problems, how do you compare one method to the other to find the most accurate value of your company?
I didn't necessarily think the author was wrong here, but I thought his 14.2 table was way too long and confusing. How do you keep track of all of these answers to compare them to find a fair value of your firm? I also disagreed that the discounted earnings method couldn't be the most real value of your firm since this method uses projection values, thus also having it's own fall-back due to error with estimations.
This past semester I took Multimedia Writing. In this class we had lab once a week where we would write some type of news story, feature story or press release. Time and time again I couldn't get much higher than somewhere in the 80s on each week's assignment. On the rare occasion, I did score a 90 or so, but this wasn't too common. I think my most common mistake was with my headlines, I never knew how hard coming up with those short headlines you see every day in magazines or newspapers really was! It's hard to capture a whole story that could catch the attention of your audience in only 8 to 10 words.
The biggest thing I learned in this class was the difference between essay-style writing and news writing. We're trained to be masters at the 5-paragraph essays with a thesis statement, introduction paragraph, three supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. So much so, that it's almost impossible to not automatically write like this anymore. Always told to have at least 5 sentences in each paragraph really messes with your brain when all of a sudden a paragraph is usually only one sentence and no more than 35 words. Though this was difficult, I think I finally started to improve, at least with news releases, which is more important since this is more of what I'll be dealing with as a public relations major.
Failure is definitely scary. Even as we get older and learn of its importance, it's still our first, initial reaction as humans. Growing up, my mom always encouraged my failures, she never was hard on me or disappointed in me every time I made a mistake, I actually was my hardest critic. No, she always would cheer me up by telling me to look at what I learned from my failures and what I would do next time to make it better. Though I still shy away from failure, I think this type of parenting has allowed me to be more of a courageous and adventurous person than most. I don't know if this class has really changed my perspective on failure, being that this class was virtually all on a blog, it's wasn't as real as other failures I've experienced. I think the best failures that I've learned the most from are those that happen in person and have the largest loss or gain on my life. The things that hold the most value are always the scariest to loose and the most likely to learn from.
I plan to stay with my business until I retire. I think the fact that it's owned by a person, and the brand has a friendly and familiar face, is the drawing point to many customers, as opposed to franchises. If I were to sell, I think a lot of customers would be disappointed and stop coming. The whole idea behind the company is to bring authentic and high-quality food to those that care about what they put into their bodies, or teach others that don't already. If I were to sell, I think a big-industry company would not care at all about the food itself, and without someone with the passion for the food and a personal connection to the different dietary restraints, I think the product would really change for the worse. A big-company might not care much to keep trying recipe after recipe until they find one that tastes good, they might just go with the easiest or cheapest option. I think this exit strategy has influenced the brand's mission and growth intentions I plan to ensure the ultimate customer satisfaction by being such a hands-on owner, which is why I wouldn't leave the company until I was ready to retire. I want to make sure every design made is for the benefit(s) of our customers, and then financially makes sense, too. I think this strong work ethic is what makes the business so successful because it would show in high customer interest and pay-off.
1. I think my next steep should be going into catering and making larger orders, so large orders of cupcakes or cakes for parties such as birthdays and weddings. I think this should be my next step so for any occasion, my customers can enjoy my sweets. I also think this will allow me to broaden my customer intake because now people can order my product for larger venues, this will help ensure customer loyalty. 2. I went back to my pre-existing customers and asked them what they thought should be my company's next move. I also asked them what they thought of my current next step of action and how they would react to such additions.
3. I think the next best step of action would be to actually offer cooking classes. I thought this was a great idea that one of the people I interviewed had and I think it could really broaden my market. This would be a very doable next step of action as it would require very little finance to help start it. This would help broaden my market because now any age would become more interested. A lot of people find cooking classes very fun and a good activity to do. This would make it the perfect addition to draw in more customers as people that like to cook, or have no idea how to cook, all enjoy learning new ways to bake yummy things.
New Market
1. Before I was targeting those with dietary restrictions, or those who had close friends and family that were restricted by what they could eat. I now decided to venture into the market in which people are not at all affected by these restrictions to see what I could do to draw their attention.
2. I think the first and most obvious thing I could do to add value to my business from this market would be to add products that are "normal," or, in other words, aren't different in ways of dietary restrictions. However, because my company's mission is to not just provide a bakery for those with dietary restrictions, but to also ensure that we pay attention and bring value to the quality ingredients we use, these "normal" goods would still be made with only high-quality ingredients.
3. I interviewed people in the new market that I named in step 1 and asked them what they thought my next step would be. Some gave answers that would expand my current range that had to do with dietary restrictions, others agreed with me and said I should add these "normal" foods to my menu.
4. What surprised me the most by these new market interviews was how many of them actually gave answers that stayed "within the lines" of my current market and business. None of these answers were too out there or too new. I had guessed, as I said above, that at least one person would say to add the "normal" food to the menu, but I didn't think that so many answers would stay on the current line of vegan, gluten-free and sugar-free. I expected to here more answers about adding "normal" food, or maybe drinks (like smoothies) to my menu because I thought they as people not affected by these diets, they would see my bakery as more of a health shop than a place just for people to go and grab a quick sweet. I was surprised that many of these new customers really understood right away though that this wasn't just a health shop because we served vegan food or so on.
I obviously expected to hear a lot about adding the "regular" food to my menu. The only problem with doing so is how to do this in reality. It worries me to add too many diets to my menu because of the behind-the-scenes reality of keeping all of these dishes separate. I already thought I would have a hard time in keeping just the three diets separate in the kitchen, I'm not sure how much more it could handle. We would definitely have to have a very big kitchen in order to do so, or at least, a lot of storage for all the separate dish-ware we'd have to have on hand.
This new market is not too attractive now interviewing three people. I thought it would be so easy to gain the attention of people without dietary restrictions and that they'd be open to trying new things. However, it doesn't sound like they really would be open to trying these different baked goods. Even those that said I should expand on my current range didn't seem to actually be interested in this food themselves, they seemed to be making this suggestion on the behalf of those with these restrictions.
The thing that surprised me the most in this reading was a lot of the reasons for lack of strategic planning have. The author states that one of these reasons is the lack of knowledge from the entrepreneurs, as well as the lack of expertise and skills. He says that entrepreneurs are usually generalists. Together these two facts surprised me because my perception was always that that's exactly the opposite of what entrepreneurs of, and this thought had always justified why I wasn't, or couldn't be, an entrepreneur. I thought entrepreneurs always were knowledgable in the field they were going into and of its market. I thought that what made entrepreneurs so successful and unique was their knack to take the general issues into a very detailed and specific solution. I also thought that this fact played into their open-mindedness, because they were so open to new ideas and beings, they always were one step ahead in thinking of the next best and helpful thing.
One part of the reading that was confusing to me was the short subsection about strategic positioning and the entrepreneurial edge. I wasn't sure if the author was trying to say that entrepreneurs don't come up with new ideas, but rather reinvent old ones, or if he was saying this was the case sometimes, or if he was just stating the fact that this is a good position to be in due to the fact that the exiting idea already exists and is successful and by making it better this can only confirm your inevitable success.
One question that I thought of during the section on the strategy matrix was how to you determine the "innovation" level and "risk" level. I found this theory very interesting and beneficial, and though the author defined these two terms in their relation to the matrix, I'm not sure if I quite understood how these characteristics are determined. How do you know if something has "high innovation" value or "low innovation" value? Is it just based off of how new and original the idea is? My second question has to do with the section on the entrepreneurial mindset and the author's goal in this section. Was he trying to point out how you can hear off the track of an entrepreneur and how to stay weary of that? And why is this a bad thing? Why should you not find a steady middle as a manager and entrepreneur? This way you can manage all the new ideas you have and see their potential all the way through.
In this same section is probably where I disagreed with the author most. I think that there should be a happy middle as an entrepreneur and manager. By finding this equal balance, you will be creative an innovative enough to continue growing and changing so that your company or brand doesn't dull and slowly fade away, while also not going to far outside the box for something that the public wouldn't be interested in and also an idea that could bankrupt your company. By finding this middle ground I believe this would ensure the success of your business, rather than lead to its downfall.
