Today is the last day of 2010 and what a year it has been!
The theme of the year was completing my MBA coursework. And, for the most part, it is done. (There is this irritating, niggly thing we have to do for our Global Strategy prof, but he has completely disappointed me as a professor - cannot meet his self-imposed commitments nor does he provide clear direction, he's too busy making comments on Twitter and trying to be "Queen Street cool" - and I have no energy left to spend on him.) The highlights included the Creativity and Innovation session in January, writing my last exam (was that Finance? it's all a blur), Strategic Electives in Kingston and meeting a whole new bunch of people, our global business trip to Germany, and working with the fine folks at Laurier House National Historic Site. My family members have been exceptionally supportive of me during this time, which I have appreciated and probably not said enough over the year.
This coming year, I plan to acquire the Barrhaven-Nepean territory for Concierge Home Services. We're just going through our due diligence right now. I have my bank loan lined up, I have a lawyer (who has reviewed the franchise agreement) and a potential accountant, and I have a few people who want to be my employees. We just need to get a seal of approval (they have to say they like me) and I'll go spend the money to create my corporation (see? I learned something in my MBA studies). We should be good to go about two weeks later. I am looking forward to it!
In the meantime, I am going to spend the day relaxing while the snow melts on this unseasonably warm day.
Happy New Year!
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
On Being an Entrepreneur
Some snippets:
In my last day of classes, our program director came around and had a few words for each of us. For me, he said that he thought that people would love working for me and that I would be a great entrepreneur.
My horoscope for today: "If you haven't been feeling it already, today you should really start to sense that there's a new beginning right around the corner. New ideas, new situations and -- most importantly -- new people are going to start influencing your life in some challenging, but wonderful ways. You'll be asked to reach deep down and gather up the best of what you have to offer. It's time to grow in a new direction, so be open to suggestions and recommendations."
What's been going on:
What I have been working on over the past few weeks is the purchase of a home cleaning franchise. Seems odd that I might do this, but the work is pretty much what I have been doing for most of my career: human resources. There is going to be a lot of hiring going on. Partly for the startup of the business, partly because it can be a transitional role that people take to make ends meet. The pay will be reasonable at about $15/hour. If you are only paying minimum wage, you don't get quality people doing quality work, so pay should reflect it.
I have been looking into grants and loans. There are a bunch of companies out there ready to take your cash just to tell you what the grants and loans programs are. Sheesh. I did find one, however, that is the actual "granting" institution. And I made sure that they would consider granting funds to support the purchase of a brand new franchise. (The criteria for some programs deliberately excludes franchises.) So this works for the home cleaning franchise, but would not work for a Canadian Tire Dealership.
I have lined up a lawyer to look over the franchise agreement and to do the articles of incorporation. Yep. I decided the company should be incorporated. Now I need to think of a name.
In my last day of classes, our program director came around and had a few words for each of us. For me, he said that he thought that people would love working for me and that I would be a great entrepreneur.
My horoscope for today: "If you haven't been feeling it already, today you should really start to sense that there's a new beginning right around the corner. New ideas, new situations and -- most importantly -- new people are going to start influencing your life in some challenging, but wonderful ways. You'll be asked to reach deep down and gather up the best of what you have to offer. It's time to grow in a new direction, so be open to suggestions and recommendations."
What's been going on:
What I have been working on over the past few weeks is the purchase of a home cleaning franchise. Seems odd that I might do this, but the work is pretty much what I have been doing for most of my career: human resources. There is going to be a lot of hiring going on. Partly for the startup of the business, partly because it can be a transitional role that people take to make ends meet. The pay will be reasonable at about $15/hour. If you are only paying minimum wage, you don't get quality people doing quality work, so pay should reflect it.
I have been looking into grants and loans. There are a bunch of companies out there ready to take your cash just to tell you what the grants and loans programs are. Sheesh. I did find one, however, that is the actual "granting" institution. And I made sure that they would consider granting funds to support the purchase of a brand new franchise. (The criteria for some programs deliberately excludes franchises.) So this works for the home cleaning franchise, but would not work for a Canadian Tire Dealership.
I have lined up a lawyer to look over the franchise agreement and to do the articles of incorporation. Yep. I decided the company should be incorporated. Now I need to think of a name.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
I Am Thinking About Writing A Book
I feel this need to write. Part of it comes from the little tickle I got inside when I got my grade and comments back from my IT Reflections Journal. The comment that warmed my heart was: "A joy to read!"
The prof was a stickler for format and style. For example, many times, my team got dinged a point for offering 5 recommendations instead of the required 4. Or we enhanced a submission in another way. And the commentary on our submissions was very direct, almost harsh. (Word of advice to future classes: just follow his plan, make it a template, do not go over in word count or elements delivered. You MIGHT get more than 6 out of 7.5. I make no promises though.)
Having already figured out the "stickler-ness" of this particular course by the time the reflections journal was due, I took a risk by not precisely following the format that was prescribed. I also took a risk by not sending a sample of my work to him in advance for him to critique. When I wrote my reflections journal, I wrote from the heart. I held his structure in the back of my mind (e.g.: describe the theory, come up with a current example, critique it), but when the writing started, I deleted my template. Oh yes, I had created a template with headings and everything. This template was going to save me from getting burned like I had experienced with the team memos.
Aside: 6/7.5 is 80%... This is not a bad grade, it just wasn't a grade that we aspired to... Despite having a team norm that said "Grades are not everything, it's the learning that is important", we strove for excellence which was measured in the form of grades. Eventually we realized he rarely gives grades higher than 80%, reduced our level of effort, continued to get 80%, and made jokes about it every time we got an assignment back.
At the end of the day, I threw caution to the wind and just wrote about what I knew about IT in five journal entries. Again, it was very difficult to get much higher than 80%. (I got 25/30... That's 5/6 for each component of his scoring rubric.) My true and only reward was the last comment: "A joy to read!"
The prof was a stickler for format and style. For example, many times, my team got dinged a point for offering 5 recommendations instead of the required 4. Or we enhanced a submission in another way. And the commentary on our submissions was very direct, almost harsh. (Word of advice to future classes: just follow his plan, make it a template, do not go over in word count or elements delivered. You MIGHT get more than 6 out of 7.5. I make no promises though.)
Having already figured out the "stickler-ness" of this particular course by the time the reflections journal was due, I took a risk by not precisely following the format that was prescribed. I also took a risk by not sending a sample of my work to him in advance for him to critique. When I wrote my reflections journal, I wrote from the heart. I held his structure in the back of my mind (e.g.: describe the theory, come up with a current example, critique it), but when the writing started, I deleted my template. Oh yes, I had created a template with headings and everything. This template was going to save me from getting burned like I had experienced with the team memos.
Aside: 6/7.5 is 80%... This is not a bad grade, it just wasn't a grade that we aspired to... Despite having a team norm that said "Grades are not everything, it's the learning that is important", we strove for excellence which was measured in the form of grades. Eventually we realized he rarely gives grades higher than 80%, reduced our level of effort, continued to get 80%, and made jokes about it every time we got an assignment back.
At the end of the day, I threw caution to the wind and just wrote about what I knew about IT in five journal entries. Again, it was very difficult to get much higher than 80%. (I got 25/30... That's 5/6 for each component of his scoring rubric.) My true and only reward was the last comment: "A joy to read!"
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