leviheath

[leviheath]

Business Operations Plan

As of right now, my costs are very low, since I am only intending on paying for advertising. In the future, as I would get more customers, and eventually employees, I would want to invest in Microsoft 365 Business Plans. There are a couple of reasons for this, the main one being to have online storage so that we could have Excel templates the employees can build off of, saving time in the creation process. Another benefit would be potentially expanding into teaching about other Microsoft Office products.

Being able to timely complete the spreadsheets shouldn't be an issue and I am excited for the process. Unfortunately, there isn't as much preparation I can do in creating templates for me to be faster, since I'm not sure exactly what types of products customers will be looking for, especially given the broad range of capabilities in Excel. I will also need to get some NDA forms so that I can have them available if a customer is showing hesitation with sharing information with me.

I think the main tools I need to start selling is my computer and good customer service. My business costs are low right now, as the business continues they may increase, but I'm starting with a nice minimal setup.

[leviheath]

Customer Persona

Restaurant owner Shannon

About Them – They own a small family-run restaurant and they have a limited budget.

Use Case – They learn from me how to use Excel and I set up a spreadsheet for them to keep track of their finances, and for Human Resources organization.

Previous Solution & Pain Points – Before I taught them they were keeping a handwritten ledger and would store all of their human resources files physically.

Benefits – They get to have access to their files digitally which makes finding information easier now that I have taught them how to search efficiently. They also can continue to print those out to have physical copies. I can automate the ledger so that it adds and subtracts quickly, and so there are less things that they have to fill out in the ledger.

Buying Trigger – My reaching out and offering my services to them.

Buying Process – I reach out and explain what could be easily improved for them after asking a brief overview of their company. I then create a plan for what could be improved and how it could be implemented and pitch that plan. Then I sell them the automated spreadsheet and the Excel education, which I then prepare within a week and send it to them.

Choice Factors – The main appeal is efficiency, safety in maintaining records since having online copies protects them if their physical copies get ruined somehow. It is also a cheaper alternative to accounting software and HRIS.

[leviheath]

Advertising Excercise

[leviheath]

Local Competition

I have identified a few companies that would be in competition with my business of teaching Excel and setting up files for customers.

The first one is Udemy, having many courses available including some relating to Excel. Their website is well done and is easy to use. According to the reviews specifically on the Excel course, the audio quality of the lessons aren't good, and there isn't any communication with another person involved in the training.

The second I found is Excel4Business. As the name suggests, they teach Excel directly to businesses. I was unable to find any reviews, and their website is fairly basic, it mainly just includes ways to contact them and some information on who the company is. Lastly, their social media is barren with the last post being from 2019 with no publicly visible interactions with customers.

Lastly, Outschool is competition as well due to their Excel courses. Their courses seem to be more introductory, and they have limited content within their Excel courses. The pricing does seem to be reasonable however; I plan to follow a similar pricing structure. The reviews for these courses are great saying that it helped them learn. Again, there doesn't seem to be any direct connection with a teacher through these courses.

[leviheath]

[leviheath]

Strengths and Weaknesses

In high school, I started taking business classes because I enjoyed the logical thinking behind it, and I had always been a fan of math, so it felt like a perfect fit. After taking a Human Resources program with some business administration aspects included, and following a couple of sales jobs that didn’t work out, I have identified a lot of strengths, but also a similar number of weaknesses regarding entrepreneurship.

When it comes to financial planning, I have only experienced it regarding my own finances, being able to invest in different mutual funds and trying out stocks, the latter of which, admittedly didn’t go well. While I think that experience is helpful, I don’t think I can confidently say that I am strong in financial planning for a business. Through the process of this semester, I’m hoping to increase my knowledge on financial planning within a business and potentially increasing my experience with it as well!

As I alluded to earlier, I do not have a great track record when it comes to sales, my previous sales jobs required me to sell cable, phone plans and internet packages to anybody in the mall and I had a challenging time with it. A big issue for me was selling to someone that would not benefit from the product and attempting to convince them that they do. When I am passionate about something and I believe it will benefit people, that issue goes away. Ultimately, while the job was difficult, I learned many sales techniques that can be helpful for the future, and I learned what my limitations are when it comes to sales.

Lastly, I have a lot of strengths in people management, from learning how to interview, onboard, retain, and fire during my Humans Resource program, to working as a manager at McDonald’s and doing the day-to-day managing of people. I think my biggest weakness regarding people is in accepting that not everyone is going to like the way you manage or work. As an entrepreneur you need to be able to have tough conversations, and that is something I need to grow in.