February Blog Post

I was talking to my mentor about how businesses like Apple scam their customers by continuously offering "updated" products and discontinuing older products. They brainwash consumers into thinking that the older product they have is useless and that they are subpar compared to the new products. Although this is kind of messed up, this is a good marketing strategy.

Answer 2

1.  What is your EQ?

• What is the best way to maintain profits year round with minimal manipulation to prices

2.  What is your first answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

• The best way to maintain profits year round with minimal manipulation to prices advertising more effectively and offering an experience of some type along with the business

3.  What is your second answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

• The best way to maintain profits year round with minimal manipulation to prices is to maintain customer loyalty and constantly be expanding your products.

4.  List three reasons your answer is true with a real-world application for each.

• While mentoring I talked with my mentor about the products he offers and he said there are bigger merchandise he would like to sell, like bigger and more popular toys, but is limited because of his display.
• Since my mentor owns a small business he rarely has repeated customers, if he were able to get people to come back his profits would increase.
• If people like the services you offered people will come back for the experience they received they will come back allowing more sales.

5.  What printed source best supports your answer?

• An article about customer loyalty

6.  What other source supports your answer?

• My mentor

7.  Tie this together with a  concluding thought.
My mentor runs the business entirely by himself, he does a lot of reading on running a business so he is my most valuable asset.

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

Content:

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• I plan on researching my second answer more specifically with my mentor. My next possible will be related to advertising more effectively and offering an experience with the business so I will ask my mentor how that plays a role in the development and day to day operations of his business.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• I will use photographs and a signed copy by mentor that states my hours completed and what I did at each session.

3.  Explain how this component will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• Since there are a lot of moving pieces to a business from the start up to the general maintenance I think that one of the most important parts of keeping your business alive is your services and your customers. With that in mind I would like to explore that aspect more in depth to gain a better understanding of the businesses logistics.

Blog 14: Independent Component 1

Content: 

LITERAL

(a) I, Brian Arteaga, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

(b) My main sources that I used to complete my independent component were articles mostly from a website called Bloomberg Business Week most published by author Karen E. Klein. 

(c) Update your hours in your Senior Project Hours link. Make sure it is clearly labeled with hours for individual sessions as well as total hours.

(d) As part of my 30hrs when I attended my mentorship I was a salesman for my mentor helping him talk to my customers. While I was selling I used two different sales techniques my mentor showed me the first being "up selling" and the second one "cross selling".   

INTERPRETIVE:
I have a spreadsheet of my hours signed by my mentor. It shows the sessions we've met and how long each session was for.

APPLIED

How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate this.

This component helped me understand the foundation of my topic by giving me insight in little aspects of a business. Little things like advertising more effectively and trying to give the customers a nice experience go a long way in a business even if its something as little as putting up a sign on your display to advertise. If someone sees a sign labeled 50% off they will at least go to your display and look rather then ignoring it completely. If you give someone a pleasant experience and they return to buy again you have an ongoing customer thus increasing your sales. Also if you have a regular customer its easier to up sell and cross sell to them also increasing your profits.

Blog 13: Lesson 2 Reflection

Content:

1.What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?

• I'm most proud of my activity after my 10 minutes of content. My activity consisted of 2 different sales techniques that my mentor showed me and each group had to present an item that I placed on their tables. Those sales techniques are crucial to my mentors profitability and I practice the techniques every time I attend my mentorship.

2. a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation (self-assessment)?

•       P-

 b.     Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.

• I believe I deserve a P- because I met the criteria needed to get a P but there were a few moments where I sort of lost my train of thought.

3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?

• The thing that work the most was the fact that I was able to use my mentorship for examples on the sales techniques I presented on. I had several pictures in my slideshow in which I would reference.

4. What didn't work? If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?

• What didn't work was the items I used in my activity, instead of picking random things I should have chosen them more carefully.

5. What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?

• My second answer will most likely be related to customer loyalty and product expansion.