Blog 19: Independent Component 2

LITERAL
(a) I, Brian Arteaga, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
(b) My main source of help for my independent component was my mentor himself Alex Ahmed. I felt that he would best help me understand my EQ since he has experience with small businesses and because before opening his business he was a salesmen in his home country.
(d)When mentoring with him I was focusing mostly on my second answer, advertising more effectively and offering an experience with the business, but found that my third answer was most related to my work. While completing my 30 hours I talked and jelled many customers and would address their concerns, until my mentor gave me advice when doing so. He noticed that i was very serious when helping customers so he politely mentioned to me that I should be more out going since it was toys that we were selling. He also told me that even joking around with customers every once in a while is really good for customers to return and purchase again. Since toys are often seasonal my mentor explained to me that updating his display was crucial in maintaining sales since toys come and go he finds himself buying toys based on popularity to best keep customers happy.

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 7: Independent Component 1 Approval

1. I plan on continuing to go with my mentor and put in more hours there. I was hoping to work on the field hands on with my mentor and interact more with the customers. I'm hoping to gain more experience in the field because that is very important in owning a business. I also hope to learn the finances of the business and how it runs financially.

2. I plan on showing photographic evidence as well as a documentation signed by both my mentor and I demonstrating the hours and days in which I completed hours.

3. Since there are a lot of moving pieces in a business I think experiencing as many aspects of it as possible and role playing will help me understand all the pieces of the puzzle and the different perspectives of it, since there are many positions in a business.