Entrepreneurial Journal

This week I had the opportunity to evaluate the results we are achieving in our quarterly report. I like to compare some indicators to understand if our business is growing or not. I compare the first quarter 2018 with the first quarter 2017 and the last quarter 2017. The indicators I compare are: 1. Number of new enrolaments 2. Number of renovations (retention of students) 3. Total number of students 4. Profit. After have this numbers I realized that, all the things were better than 2017 except the number of new enrolments. I got surprised because in the other two schools that we have this number was excellent. After analyzing it I made a lot of plans for the second quarter for that school which had never achieved the goal. This friday I had a meeting with them (the sale department). But I felt something different, I can say that was an inspiration. We started the meeting, we read the report from last week, checked out what was done, and what was not, and after, we had to sta...

This week I learn one important thing about sales. I was thinking what the salesperson like the most? I asked for the salesperson that work with me, in one of our English Schools, and the answer was unanimous: - WE LIKE MONEY!!! -"That's great!" I told them. -What do sell to receive money? I asked: And they start saying many different things such as: I sell dreams, future, English course,  possibilities, better jobs, among others important things.          I asked them: - What does your client want? They answered: - better jobs, travel, freedom, among other. Exact that! Usually we don´t sell products, even services, we sell feelings, emotion and experiences! When we understand that, we will sell much more, but this is just the basics!          Have you ever imagine that you want money, I as you boss, want profit or in other words money, and your customer also wants money or in other words PROFIT. Your client is always thinking...

          This week I had the opportunity to learn about ads and how to make an ad in Google AdWords. That made me think more about, how important is to choose the right words to attract people. I was thinking that in real life happens the same thing. If we choose the right words, we really can attract people to us and engage people in one purpose.           The challenge is to use just a few words to say everything you want, to engage and attract people to your purposes. That is a tough task. The big challenge in our days is not how to communicate, because we have many different ways to communicate what we want, the internet has an infinity of tools that help us to communicate to the world what we think, want and desire, but the real challenge is communication itself. Usually, we start speaking about one subject, we didn't finish talking about it and start another one, and this one is also not finished and we start another one, and so...

This week I studied about google adwords and how to drive traffic to your web business. I liked the video that adwords has, is very simple, but very easy to understand, specially if you are learning as me. What called my attention, was the importance of being specific, but not too specific, and take care with broad words. Example is if you sell shoes and you use the word shoes, in you ad campaign, It is ok but maybe your customers go to your store but they will finish not buying in your site. Anyways this is a good way to start to make a buzz about your web site, but the question that is very important is, how to convert visitors in clients. How to convert visitors in clients? The suggestion is use specific words such as basketball shoes for example, or running shoes. This way customers that look for specific products, can find it easily in your store. Another important thing is to use negative words. example: let´s say that you don´t sell kids shoe, so you have to use kids shoes ...

Once you create a web business, you have to work on it every day. It is a big ilusion think that after you have your on-line store it will start selling by itself. I saw some videos this week that give good hints for web business. I liked the idea to focus in one product and try to have at least twenty salles of it a day. after you achieve this result you are ready to grow your inventory or products to offer in your business. Another good hint was to search in Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest the trends related to your product. You have to discover if your product has a demand, if your product has demand more chances to sell it. Work with ads on Facebook, Google ads and Instagram is vital for people know that you are in business. As soon you have your first sales you have to understand that you must reinvest a big part of your profit in your business, to keep things going, ads, new products among other things. I will let a link from a video that I liked that explain well how to ...

Yes! after a long period of darkness I surrender to web marketing. This semester I started studying about web business and e-commerce. It is amazing how important it is for your business. In short you will launch your business in the world, but there are some important things to do or make before launch your business to the world. I read an article that call my attention as a beginner in building an e-commerce biz  , this article says something that we need to prepare our business: 1. Domain registration 2. E-commerce software 3. Design 4. Payment Gateway 5. Hosting 6. On line Marketing Maybe if you are thinking about start your e-biz and read it you may wonder that it is so complicated and give up the idea, but I can tell you for my my own experience, that is much easier than you imagine. Today there are many sites that helps you to open your website in a simple way, tools such as drag and mach, copy and past among other simple tools that helps you to build your website. ...

Yesterday, I had a very interesting situation, that I would like to share. This experience brought me a deep reflection, about my responsibilities and judgments. Three weeks ago, I hired a new salesperson to my team, as I was traveling to UK. two days after he started working with us, I asked my manager training him, I made a schedule with the manager, pointed things like: What to teach him and what would be his function in our company. During my stay in London, I was always asking my manager how was the new guy, if he was learning well, if he had some difficulty and everything related to his training. She (my manager) reported that, was all good, he had some difficulties but that is fine. When I arrived from my trip, I call the new guy and asked him to show me how to sell our product. the demonstration was a total disaster! I was terrified! I call my manager and asked her, how was the training to him. She explained and she started to say that he was very slow, and many problems, t...

I  consider myself a privileged person.  I was born from great parents, have the opportunity to know and live with my four grandparents and learn from them. I also have a great wife and two wonderful kids. I also have the opportunity to run my own business and with a great team. I have the opportunity to study in a great university and also know what's is right and wrong.      Right now I'm in a business trip in UK.  That is  an amazing country! While I'm here I was thinking about business.  Nowadays there are different ways to deal with people.  The behavior changed, the demands now are different,  there are many new techniques to learn and many books and courses teaching how to deal and negotiate with people. Now we have the web business that changed the way we deal with people, business model and the decision making process from customers are changing a lot!      With all these changes, there is one thing tha...

I was thinking about the changes that I have passed in this three years. In 2015 I started study again, but this time I was decided to start studying not with the goal to graduate in a certain period. I decided to study with a simple objective, Learn and apply my knowledge, I wanted to improve my life and the life of those who are around me. In this short time I studied mainly about finances and how to manage a business. The interesting was that I realize that I had to call someone to deal with our finances and "manage" our business while I was learning how to do it better. The other interesting thing is that the things improved! But the people next to me, think that the things improved because of the new finance police we adopted and because the "new finantial manager" we have contracted. It is so funny!! We are having better results with the sales department, with the pedagogical department, with the customer relations department, human resources department and ...