kaitv

[kaitv]

Week 9 Update

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with time management but I am trying my best to make it work. This week I want to focus on posting more on my business Instagram page and start trying to network through friends.

I am learning that having a plan is great but executing it can be a whole different story.

I am learning that I am always stressed out and overthink everything. I need to relax and remember that this is a fun project and experience.

Running a business, taking classes and working full time is extremely difficult and I envy anyone that has their own business legitimately while doing other things.

[kaitv]

Local Competition

Pending business approval....

In your Tumblr blog, identify at least 3 main competitors within your field and examine their website experience, market positioning, reviews, pricing, and even social media to examine the experience they are offering and identify the strengths and weaknesses of your top 3 competitors so that you better understand how to position yourself.

[kaitv]

Message Map

[kaitv]

Strengths and Weaknesses

It’s important to be aware of personal strengths and weaknesses especially when it comes to being an entrepreneur. Knowing what strengths you have can provide you with the tools you need to be successful. Understanding your weaknesses allows you to improve on specific skills and personal growth. Weaknesses aren’t always a bad thing, they become more of an opportunity and can provide insight on finding the right people or tools to help you.

I have gained a lot of personal experience through working as a store manager at Sunglass Hut over the past 4 years. What started as a part time job with an interest in fashion and a love for sunglasses has turned into many opportunities and a chance to find out more about myself. Although it is considered retail, my job is heavy on sales, profitability, team management, networking and operational management.

My entrepreneurial skills have developed immensely from working and I am always looking for ways to improve myself. Even if I consider something a strength I know I don’t know everything and can learn from others around me.

From the entrepreneurial skills list I would say that my strengths include:

People management and sales

People Management:

I find I am very intuitive and can read body language very well. I have also managed a team of 8 people for the last 3 and a half years. When I think of my people management skills I know I can be very accommodating, my staff feel comfortable coming to me for things, I am fair with scheduling and am aware that sometimes work isn’t always the number one priority. To me what’s important is that when employees are at work they enjoy being there, they work hard while their there and know the expectations. I always provide information and training on a continuous bases and try to be aware of personal circumstances. Through the years I have had almost zero turn over and every single one of my employees love the job. I am very confident in my people management skills and how to handle most situations. While I consider this one of my bigger strengths there are always things I could do to improve. I can be a bit timid when it comes to confrontation and unfortunately this is a part of the job when you are managing people.

Sales:

I would have to list sales as another one of my strengths. My only sales job I’ve had I excelled at immediately. This type of sales can be tricky because your technically retail, but you have personal sales goals, store goals, lots of product targets and there is an opportunity to make commission. Within 6 months of being a part time employee I was promoted to Sales Manager where I worked in that position for another 2 years before becoming the Store Manager. I always had top sales year to date and most of the time outsold everyone that I worked with. I don’t think I would have gotten into my position if I couldn’t sell. The weakness I have realized has been that delegating selling while managing the store and doing all of my operational tasks my sales haven’t been as good. I am a very organized person and I can also be very task oriented. Sometimes being task oriented can be a weakness when I need to also prioritize selling and focus on customers. This is a new learning curve and something I know will just take time.

My weaknesses from the entrepreneurial skills list would have to be negotiating and financial planning.

With negotiating I find it to be easy in my work setting, I might be negotiating a sales price, multiple pairs of products, etc. In other scenarios negotiating actually intimidates me, I find I can lack the confidence to negotiate and realized this within another course I had to take for my diploma. This is a skill set I’ve never had to necessarily work on, but it is probably one of the most important especially in a sales-oriented position. I would like to explore more ways to become more comfortable negotiating and develop this skill.

I would consider financial planning a weakness as well just due to lack of experience. At 25 years old I obviously have some awareness through my own personal financial planning and am aware of purchases and budgets for my store but in terms of entrepreneurial and business I wouldn’t know where to start. This is something that can be easily researched, and a skill set I think would develop over time through experience. There are also a number of people I could contact for information on financial planning.