Week 5 -- Marketing Plans

Skills Focus This Week:  

• Learn the three M's of marketing.
• Identify your ideal customer and "super fans" to spread your message.
• Craft a message targeted to reach your ideal customer; pack it with the right emotion. 
• Select the best media to reach your ideal customers.

Challenge:   Create a thorough marketing plan around your market, media, and message. 

Summary of Pillars Perspective:  

Skills Focus Discussion Material:  

This week our Entrepreneurs are diving deep into their marketing plans.  To launch this segment, we watched and discussed some videos, including Reg Gupton's on the "3 Ms of Marketing."  Our Entrepreneurs appreciated the simplicity of his approach, and we used it to create a model to work from:

• Market:  identify your ideal customer, considering specific demographic, psychographic, and geographic characteristics.  Also analyze your competition and key differentiating elements.
• Media:  identify at least four different marketing channels you will implement.  Remember that everyone has some type of face-to-face marketing opportunity, which is the most effective alternative.  Consider phone calls, events, email, websites, social media, etc.  Create a strategy with specific actions and goal dates.
• Message:  What is the overall message you are using to connect with your ideal customer?  How can you harness the power of a slogan, imagery, and emotion to connect with your ideal customer and his/her "tribe"?

Our Entrepreneurs also discussed ideas presented by Seth Godin, in his classic presentation, "The Tribes We Lead."  We learned several important principles: 

• Our goal: "to change everything."
• We are at a key moment in social development, transitioning from the factory, big-budget advertisers dominating the world.  
• Leadership is finding "disconnected people who have a yearning."
• Find a few "true believers" for your product and movement, and they will drive the marketing for you.  

Activities:  

We explored how well-funded marketers combine the elements of an effective message, when emotion, visual elements, and slogans are combined in a powerful and memorable way.  Our examples included a McDonald's "Love" ad, (for contrast) Burger King's funny "Eat Like Snake" ad, and Nike's 25th anniversary "Just Do It" ad.  

Guest / Field Trip:  

Neal Staker, Founder of Collaborant.  Neal's entrepreneurial journey started in third grade.  Frequently finding himself in detention for bucking the status quo, he became proficient at writing out "I will not . . ." sentence lists.  He soon discovered there was an underground market for pre-written lists, 50 deep.  Later he became the school's "walking vending machine," selling pencils, combs, and other items vital for school life.  

Later ventures included a flag-pole installation company and a medical testing laboratory.  He learned early on that need creates the fire of motivation.

Neal became a highly successful business consultant and corporate trainer.   A few years ago, he sold his company, PeopleSmart, to the VitalSmarts group.  He recently started Collaborant to help business leaders train their teams in conflict resolution, collaboration, and leadership.  

Neal shared several key messages:  

• You can't be an entrepreneur in any field if you aren't willing to sell. 
• Marketing messages should be as comfortable as a conversation between two friends walking down the beach.  
• Listen carefully to your target audience, and use their language.  
• Good ideas and solutions to problems sell better than products and services. 

Week 4 -- Gathering Resources

Skills Focus This Week:  

• Identifying needs, next-steps, and resources. 
• Finding mentors to help.  
• Creating an A-Z plan. 

Challenge:  Develop a complete, written need/resource analysis and start executing.  

Skills Focus Discussion Material:  

To lay the groundwork for identifying needs and resources, we opened our week watching and discussing two videos:  

Resourcefulness Mindset.  The first was a segment of Tony Robbins' TED Talk on resourcefulness.  Our key to success, Tony argues, is not having the right resources, the right boss, the right investors, the right weather, or even right Supreme Court decision, rather it is in being resourceful, having that quality of human spirit and character to get past any challenge:  "you find a way, if you want it enough," and "decisions shape destiny."

Mentors are Vital.  The second video was Tai Lopez's TEDx talk (yes, Tai is a bit cheesy, but his message about mentors is spot on) on finding mentors to teach skills and help work through specific challenges.  Tai had a few special mentors that were key to his journey.  "Don't be afraid to go to the top," Tai advised, encouraging his listeners to get help from people at least "ten times ahead of you."  He also suggests culling the wisdom of the greatest minds by reading books voraciously and applying the lessons learned.  

Our Entrepreneurs synthesized their discussion on these principles with the idea that a knowledgeable mentor may be the most important resource of all.  

Resource List:  We explored conducting an effective need/resource analysis in running teams, the key elements of which might include these:  

1. Consider you plan from A to Z.
2. Point A is wherever you are right now in developing your business. 
3. Point Z is where you want to be, having a market-ready product or service offering by Nov. 14. 
4. Now ask: what do I need to get or do to move from A to Z?  Write everything down. 
5. Consider specific task needs to be done next to move this item along?  And ask:
6. Is there someone you know who could help with this item?  A mentor.
7. When will you do it?  A goal date.  
8. What is the priority of this task relative to getting the overall business rolling?
9. If there are many items (and there are), a spreadsheet can be helpful to sort dates, categories, priorities, etc. 

We worked together to create an example spreadsheet.

After finishing this analysis, identify your grenade pin (or linchpin), that one relatively small thing you can do next that will net huge effects and momentum.  For several of our Entrepreneurs, this vital pin was reaching out to someone they know, a potential mentor, for a little coaching.  

Summary of Pillars Perspective:  

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to the other with no loss of enthusiasm”. Winston Churchill.

 Failure is the price of the entrepreneur.  As we look through history and look at great men and women of the past we have to look and see how failure can be one of the greatest teachers.  It can teach us how we can make things better and help shift our ideas and mindset.  The question for this week is, how can we keep going in spite of our failures?  We can see how many people quit when faced with failure.  The greatest mindset of the entrepreneur is to keep pursuing no matter what. We used Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art, which gives a unique and inspirational way of helping those who are struggling to express their creativity, and shows that “resistance” is the greatest enemy.  But is it?  

Project: Look at an experience you have had in the past, and see how it was beneficial to help you see the experience differently.  

 

Guest / Field Trip:

Field trip to Utah Museum of Cultural Art.  As we end our course on culture we attended the Museum of Cultural Art in downtown Salt Lake city.  Nothing shows the direction of a society's culture like the music, arts, literature, and poetry of the time.  This is why as a class we focused on the contemporary arts.  The themes showed social themes  themes that our popular today.  The project:

Today’s project was to ask the question, as an entrepreneur do you like the way society is headed?  How as a leader can you change the trends of what is popular in a culture?   And finally how can you inspire action in your company to create the culture that you would like to see in your lifetime?

Week 3 -- Business Planning

Skills Focus This Week:  

• Learn the essentials of business planning. 
• Prepare basic business plan.  
• Understand basic cash-flow planning (include your labor!).

Challenge:   Draft a 1-2 page business plan, one that will guide your actions through the rest of the trimester.  

Skills Focus Discussion Material:  

“Plans are worthless.  Planning is essential.”  Dwight D. Eisenhower.  

“Everyone has a plan . . . until they get punched in the face!”  Mike Tyson.  

Mere ideas do NOT = $$

We studied the primary elements of a business plan and helped each other with the planning process.  Two videos helped us understand basic planning, one from Startupdaddy.com and the other from the SBA.

We dove deep into the key elements of a basic plan, and we practiced creating a simple cash-flow spreadsheet to get our Entrepreneurs started on their own pro forma cash-flow statements:

1. Executive Summary
1. Summary of what you are up to and how your offering is distinct.
2. High-level pitch, making a strong case for success.  
3. Usually you want to write this part last.

2. Company Overview
1. Mission statement.
2. Location.
3. Who is involved in this adventure with you?
4. What are your / their qualifications?

3. Market Research
1. Detail the research you have done on the industry you’re looking into.
2. Detail your research on the competition and similar offerings already out there.
3. What are the legal requirements that will impact you, and how will you address them?

4. Product / Service Description
1. What are you selling?  Describe it in detail.
2. What makes it better than the competitors’ offerings?
3. Describe your present state of development and what your plan is to get it finished and ready for market (design phase, prototype phase, etc.)

5. Marketing / Sales Plans
1. Include your detailed marketing plan
2. Direct marketing and sales (person to person)
3. Online marketing and sales

6. Financials
1. Create a spreadsheet showing all your known costs (equipment, materials, and other stuff you need to buy)
2. Factor in your time as an expense item
3. Show your anticipated income over time (in weeks, months, or phases)

Summary of Pillars Perspective:  

This week we are looking at what makes certain individuals stand out from the masses. As we look at great entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, PT Barnum, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Ray Kroc, Tesla to see what they have in common.  We want to look at the threads of their success and who they are and how they continued to push forward through opposition and resistance.  

Project: Choose an entrepreneur and see what drives them and sets them apart.     

Guest / Field Trip:

Visit to Spingo! We met with the amazing Spingo team, thanks to founder and CEO, Kreg Peeler. Kreg shared stories from his lifetime of adventures, tinkering with his grandfather's railroad equipment as a boy, selling avocados from the "neighborhood witch's" field, and running backstage operations for school productions. Kreg's key advice to our young entrepreneurs from his own experiences: Don't worry too much about inborn talents, just work to develop skills around what you enjoy doing (and let the opportunities evolve from that). Also: be nimble and on the move: "you can't steer a parked car." We got to hear from various members of the Spingo team. All had wonderful words of wisdom. Thanks Spingo!!

Week 2 -- Concept Validation / Market Research

Skills Focus This Week:  

• Create a Market Research Plan to Test Your Ideas
• Implement Design-Thinking, User Focus
• Conduct Basic Primary and Secondary Market Research
• Develop, Test, and Refine Hypotheses
• Pitch Your Ideas in an Effective, Efficient Way

Challenge:   Take your best 1-3 ideas from your notebooks, and create a basic market-testing / idea-validation plan (qualitative and quantitative) to gather data and test your ideas.  Report your findings to the group.  

Joseph:  Electronic bot manufacturing for game Agar.io  (test idea with Facebook page, peer surveys, and fan surveys)

Ethan:  Website focused on stencil art.  (test idea with Facebook page, meeting with school’s art teachers, survey friends)

Erica:  Art-focused website (Facebook page, blog, survey friends)

Thomas:  Videogame centered on the Book of Mormon story, JRPG style.  (create a thumbnail for indie game sites, post on church youth sites, count clicks)

Jackson:  writing website for teens with writing prompts and contests

(get test blog up and running with test prompts, interview English, drive traffic and get feedback)

Sean:  Chocolate balls filled with candy

(survey 20 people re details of the proposed ball and contents)

Daniel:  

Ted:  

Summary of Pillars Perspective:  

Culture is a place where people can thrive.  Whether it is in a family, business, society, or even a nation.  This week’s Pillars discussion started with the question: A culture is successful when people are allowed to do what?

These were some of the answers; when people are productive, feel accomplished, feel happy, freedom of ideas, where people can play, have goals, a place where the individual is valued, a focus on individual needs.  
We watched Jacob Barnett, Ted Teen talk, “Forget What You Know,” which talks about how the greatest geniuses are only individuals who look at the world in a new perspective.  They are individuals who have discovered a passion or talent within themselves and thus the world gets to see their genius.  

Our project was called, “starting to think!”  The students looked at the power of the individual to discover greatness starting with themselves.  Questions they answered were: What do I want to do with my life? What are some of my passions? How do I think bigger about what my entrepreneur project can be? How do I take my passion, and gifts and talents and apply them to my entrepreneur project to make it better?

Skills Focus Discussion Material:  

Market Research Basics

How to Validate a Business Idea Spending Minimal Time & Money

https://youtu.be/VouIAoGGm6E

(MVP = Minimum Viable Product.  Get it out there!)

How to validate a business idea with Sean Malarkey (5 min)

https://youtu.be/vywgcbAYHlc

(Examples of market testing.)

Brian McCarthy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz9ACcr3mFE

(Brian is a bit stiff, but he provides a great starting point.)

Elevator Pitching

6 Elevator Pitches for the 21st Century  (5 min)

Daniel Pink
http://youtu.be/XvxtC60V6kc

USU Contest winner / coffee cup ads plan  (2 min)  
http://youtu.be/i6O98o2FRHw

Activities:  

• Explore simple online sources of market data (like Amazon reviews).
• Pitch your best ideas to the class, and develop.
• Break into small groups and work together on basic market-research tailored to your offering.

Guest / Field Trip:  

Andrew Clayson.  Started Awqua Events, which does full-service corporate and private event planning.  Andrew walked our young entrepreneurs through an example of a detailed business planning process around his 12/15 Star Wars flash mob, which included an original score:  https://youtu.be/NrkFBIpaGTA

Trimester 3 Begins! Week 1. Eye of the Entrepreneur

Skills Focus this Week:  

• Ideation
• Brainstorming / Brainwriting
• Experimenting
• Design Thinking (end-user empathy)
• Creating Idea Groups and Space

Challenges:   Open the eyes and ears of the entrepreneur (training our minds to watch and listen continually for ideas opportunities). Fill your notebooks with as many ideas as you can, starting with at least 50 this week.

Summary of Pillars Perspective Discussions:   Culture is a key part of a business, and all businesses try to create a culture where their employees can thrive and consumers will choose them over their competitors to buy.  We examined several of our students' favorite businesses (Google, In-n-Out, etc.) starting with an examination of their mission statements.  Then we considered whether those businesses stay true to the mission statements. Also examined: What are some innovative steps the company takes to stay ahead of competition?  How does the business operate?  How do they resolve conflicts How does the culture create a more productive team?

Skills Focus Discussion Material:  Students lead these discussions at QLP.

How to Find Business Ideas - The Ultimate Guide  (4 min)

Epicster

https://youtu.be/cIsA1s9SwEU

(“Build your idea muscle like a bodybuilder builds his muscles.”)

Where Good Ideas Come From  (4 min)

Steven Johnson

https://youtu.be/NugRZGDbPFU

(What are your environments that lead to creativity and innovation?  “Chance favors the connected mind.”)

Brainwriting (Instead of Brainstorming)  (4 min)

Leigh Thompson, Northwestern Kellogg School

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news_articles/2014/06262014-video-thompson-brainwriting.aspx

(Virtual bowties, giraffe disco, unicycle built for two)

Design Thinking Plus Agile  (6 min)

IBM Think Academy

https://youtu.be/pXtN4y3O35M

(“Put your end user first.”)

Activities 

• Brainstorm / Brainwrite:  as many ideas as possible around four common items from your backpacks.  
• Design Thinking:  Build a better backpack / book bag.  Deep focus on user empathy and experience.  
• Create a space where ideas, within the subject you’re interested in, can emerge.  
• Go to a place where you can generate a lot of ideas fast (dollar store, Walmart, etc.).

Guest / Trip:  We visited a Dollar Store as a class, an excellent place for cheap, easy idea generating across many categories.

Congrats / Call Outs

Many of our QLP students passed the 100 mark for ideas in their notebooks!

Rebekah, our first AISU student, was admitted to USU this week!

Here is our course plan visual map for the trimester:

Week 9 -- Continuous Improvement w/ Systems Thinking

Skills:

Every business or nonprofit movement requires continuous assessment by its team to grow in the right direction.  At the heart of this assessment is a "systems" view, understanding that no one part of anything can be viewed in isolation from its broader system.  

We discussed principles from the following video presentations:

Eric Berlow:  Simplifying Complexity
(3.5 min video on systems analysis from ecologist’s perspective)

A Systems Story
(4 min.  really great video.)

Tom Wujek:  Got a Wicked Problem?  First Tell Me How You Draw Toast
(excellent activity in systems thinking and collaborative visualization)

We then explored systems analysis using Tom Wujek's Draw Toast Activities, starting with drawing the process for making toast.  Here is the classes favorite picture, Jin's alternative #2, in which a mother gives birth to a baby and simply names her/him "Toast."  

Each Student approached the step-by-step analysis differently.  We could see how each person's unique approach to this process contributed different elements that could be used in creating a comprehensive, better collaborative process.  We tried this with another process dear to the hearts of our Students:  "how should parents assign chores to their children?"

The Students started by mapping this process individually, and then breaking out into teams of four to collaborate on a group design.  One unique team proposal included a "level-up" approach from video gaming in which the children choose to take on a more challenging set of chores for a reward.  (Parents, take note.)

Thomas took on the tool of collaborative visualization in exploring possible flavors for his cactus juice.  He and a group of students wrote out their best ideas on colored cards and then used clustering and laddering to arrange the best ideas and come up with news ones. 

Guest:

Rob Brunt of Blueline Services.  

Like our Students, Rob jumped into entrepreneurship in high school. He joined DECA and took his marketing presentation to wins at the state and regional championships.  

Rob's training included joint degrees in marketing and Russian at the U of U, an MBA from Thunderbird, time in DC developing foreign-sourcing proposals for the Senate Energy Committee, and work overseas.  
  
After interviewing with global finance firms in New York, Rob realized that his heart was in striking his own path as an entrepreneur.  Instead of taking the traditional track with an established firm, he moved his family to Minnesota to work closely with an investor who helped him launch Blueline.  Rob has since started other businesses and plans to continue doing more.  

Rob continually asks himself, "how can I leverage technology to make something easier?"  He sees answers to this question everywhere, and laments, "there are so many cool ways to make money with new ideas, but so little time."

He challenged our Students to continually ask the key question in considering their businesses and nonprofits:  "is your idea sustainable."  He also encouraged them never to fear making mistakes.  Making mistakes is simply part of the necessary process required to get an idea to market.  

Soapbox:  

Parents, please watch the Systems Story video.  It is short, only 4 minutes long.  You'll love it.  It applies systems thinking to relationships and family life.  

Challenge:  

The challenge this week is to apply methods of systems thinking and collaborative visualization to any aspect of your business.  These tools have powerful application.  

Call Outs:  

Thomas brought in his latest cactus juice recipe to class for taste testing and public feedback.  Everyone loved it, and nobody died.  Great application of basic marketing research principles, Thomas!

Next Week:  

We will study leadership next week and prepare to launch our business / nonprofit offerings.  Next Saturday, Nov. 14, is the Utah Junior Entrepreneurs Fair.  Be there early to set up.  The fair is open to the public from 9:00 - 11:30 a.m.  Please come and support our Students.  

Representatives from the University of Utah's Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute will be at the fair to review our Student's work.