My Customer's Avatar

My customer avatar is a 30 year old woman who works in the construction industry. Her hobbies include fishing, hunting, and diving. She drives a black Chevy Silverado and is usually so swamped and beat from work that she does not have time to watch TV. She is married with three children and she comes from a family of republicans. Work takes a toll on her, so she feels like she's 40, but she loves her job and would not trade it for the world.

What my customer avatar and I have in common is that we both work in the construction field and love our jobs. This is not a coincidence because I came up with my business idea through my experience of being on job sites.

Halfway Reflection

                                      

1) Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course?

Managing my time efficiently is a huge behavior I have used to keep up with this course. I have also learned to not procrastinate on assignments, especially when we were given a heads up to start early. A behavior that I have developed during this course is thinking outside of the box and being creative. Coming from the construction industry my past couple years have dealt with more math, science, and management skills than creative ones. This class has pushed me out of my comfort zone and shown me that being a part of the entrepreneurship field is hard work!

2) Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this?

I honestly felt like giving up on this course the first three weeks of it. Week 1 was also my first week interning for a construction office and I am averaging about 50 hour weeks. I was not prioritizing my time efficiently and juggling work, school, exercising, and starting my own contracting company turned into not completing assignments at all. During the third week I counted up my measly points and decided if there was any hope for me doing well in this course I needed to buckle down, so I blew the dust off my planner and got organized! I printed a calendar with all my assignments and started dedicating my lunch and day breaks to the course. With proper time management I started developing a tenacious attitude and stopped leaving everything to all be done at the end of the week.


3) Three tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset'?

-Do not leave assignments until the last minute. Especially ones that are advised otherwise, such as the reading reflections that we were told to start way ahead of time.

- It helps to print out a calendar with all of the due dates so that you allot ample time to complete each assignment and spread out the work accordingly.

 - Take the assignments seriously, you get the amount that you put in. If you don’t try so hard on a reflection or assignment, you aren’t going to learn much from it.

Gruilding - Portmanteau Assignment

Gruilding

(Green + Building) 

In the construction industry, green building is becoming very popular. With organizations such as LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, that give out recognition to builders and buildings for efficiency, we are paving the path for green building to become a normal practice that is used on every construction project. My portmanteau is “gruilding,” and I used it for the past two weeks in the construction office I am interning in. At first, I was really shy to introduce the new word, only telling my boss and close co-worker, but slowly I started using it in front of more people. The problem I ran into was that the younger people at the office, let’s say under 30 years old, found the word funny but started using it. The older people at the office pretty much just rolled their eyes at me every time I mentioned the word. However, I have been finding through my experiences that older people in construction are really slow when it comes to change, I am currently trying to teach half of them the advantages of reading blueprints on an IPad to no avail. After my two weeks I would say “gruilding” was accepted by about half of the construction office staff, which is honestly a better turnout than I was expecting!

Reading Reflection No. 1

1a) What surprised me the most was that I had a negative attitude about McDonald’s before I read this biography, and my attitude turned into a positive one by the end of it. Ray Kroc wasn’t out to make a company that would cause so much controversy and for people to think he had negative intentions, he just wanted to make a successful burger business.

1b) What I admire most about Ray Kroc was that he seems like a humble man. He came from a normal, middle-class family and started his entrepreneurship career selling paper cups to restaurants and other businesses. He was good at his job and believed in the product.

1c) I could not really find anything I disliked about Ray Kroc, he seemed like a great person and entrepreneur. He was successful but always gave back to society and opened many charities and foundations, he also never had an expense account or salary with McDonalds.

1d) Kroc encountered many hiccups on his journey. The fact that he was an entrepreneur during the Great Depression meant that he dealt with a great deal of adversity. Even when McDonald’s was already established he faced difficulty with his relationship with the company’s President, Henry. All of the obstacles thrown his way, he overcame by staying grounded and focusing on the quality of his work, knowing that this is what his customers valued.



2) Ray Kroc showed several competencies. He was a risk taker who always followed his gut and stuck to his decisions even if there was a huge chance for failure. He was a great leader who started one of the largest recognized companies in the world, people looked up to him and see him as one of the greatest entrepreneurs if all time. Ray Kroc was definitely driven and dedicated, working hard to sell everything from paper cups to the multi-mixers which is what set him off to start McDonald’s. Lastly, he was incredibly innovative, constantly coming up with new marketing ideas, food ideas for the restaurant, and even ways of turning the multi-mixer from a 6 spindle machine to a 5 spindle one.




3) One part of the reading that was confusing to me was Ray Kroc’s relationship with Henry, his President. Harry was more focused on real estate and viewed McDonald’s restaurants as revenue once the mortgage lease was up, whereas Ray Kroc focused more on the revenue coming from the burgers and fries themselves. Through the years tension was built between them and even the offices were split on who they supported more, until Henry left the company with plenty of stock and $100,000/year. I do not understand why Ray would have wanted a president who wasn’t on the same page as him, he needed someone who had the same mindset as himself that was more focused on the quality of the food than mortgages rates.




4) If I were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur I would ask:

1) What’s one thing you would change about the McDonald’s corporation?

2) Do you have any regrets on any of your business deals?

I would ask these questions because I believe we can learn a lot through people’s experiences and if there was something that Ray Kroc learned in the entrepreneurship world it would be interesting to know, that way we would have a lesser chance of making a similar mistake.




5) I believe that Ray Kroc’s opinion of hard work included working until you have provided your customers with complete satisfaction and they think your product is of high quality and value. He never sold a product he wouldn’t use or believed in. I totally share his opinion on hard work, if you believe in your product or service then customers will have a positive reaction and your business will succeed, when this happens I consider it hard work.

Idea Napkin No. 1

1) My name is Summer Roque and I am graduating in December with my bachelor’s degree in Construction Management. I am a licensed General Contractor in the state of Florida, and have worked in the construction industry since I was sixteen years old. My skills include knowledge of various estimating, drafting, and project management software’s and being fluent in Spanish. I aspire to own a successful contracting company that holds men and women as equals and that excels in “green” and sustainable construction. This business would play a role in my life because I would use multiple “Pink-a-Potties” on each and every one of my construction sites, and even I would have a proper restroom to use when I am on-site.

2) My business concept is to start “Pink-a-Potties”, pink portable toilets that are delivered to jobsites for women to utilize instead of men and women sharing a typical portable bathroom. Not only are these units pink, but they offer feminine products and proper disposals, as most commercial restrooms for women have. Construction companies who contract our services can order multiple units to their respective project and “Pink-a-Potties” includes weekly waste removal with each contract. We also will always make sure the units are stocked up with our products and toilet paper.

3) “Pink-a-Potties” is not just targeted to construction companies, any party that needs temporary restroom services can order from us. This can range from concert facilities, fairgrounds, maintenance work, and any outdoor events.

4) It is 2016… Women and men are equal. So why have portable toilets that are unisex? Specifically, in construction, the amount of women in the field in increasing. Back in the day only men were on construction sites, so those portable toilets might as well have a label on them that say “Men’s”. Studies have shown that your employees will work better if you treat them better. So why not order a “Pink-a-Potty” for those female employees to be more comfortable on the field, or any outdoor occasion? Especially if you have to order portable restrooms anyway!

5) What sets me apart from everyone else is that these portable restrooms are “pink”, literally and figuratively. We offer feminine products and disposals, along with normal service contracts like most portable restroom companies offer. Not only are we offering a product that in most cases are legally required, but we offer a chance for construction companies and other customers to show their employees or guests that they are all for equality of the sexes.



I believe these elements fit together with my business concept. Due to the fact I am a female in construction I am very passionate about the issue of equality in this field, which would give me the drive to make this venture succeed. I would be able to use this product in my career and have it play a role in my contracting company. None of these elements are a weak aspect for my concept, they further prove the necessity of this product.