forget yourself

The life of an entrepreneur can be a lonely one if you let it. Being able to interview a successful entrepreneur was a great experience. To be able to hear about someones beginning while at the same time being able to see and hear their middle and end. There are many books on the idea of building a business but there aren't any step by step guides on how to build your specific business. Every entrepreneur has their own dream and therefore needs to find their own way of doing things. It is great to learn the fundamentals of business, but when you are building something that hasn't been built before you need to have faith in yourself and your dreams.
There is also the need to be a well rounded individual. To make time for things other than business. We need to focus on building our moral character and making sure that we have set guardrails (things that we will not do) so that when those choices come up in our lives because they more than likely will, we will have made the decision previously and not hesitate to answer the questions in front of us at the time. As an entrepreneur we seek to be successful and we need to prepare ourselves for that success. 

all uphill

The home stretch seems to be an all uphill kind of adventure. I guess I should be happy that it should be an indication of being on the right path. As I worked through new technology and made sense of new terminology I had to read, step away from it for a few hours and then go back and reread. It usually takes time for my brain to become familiar with new ideas. I am grateful that I learned that early on in my life as a student. I don't recall now exactly where and how I learned it, but it has been useful to know my learning style. Especially with my lack of patience.
It has been interesting to take an Ad campaign in Google Adwords live. I would have never done that at this point in the web building process, I don't feel that the blog is developed enough to make a good impression. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a learning process and it doesn't have to be perfect in order to learn from it. I actually think that because it is not perfect I have learned more from it.
After looking at the numbers that come back for what Google tracks it is interesting to see what works and what doesn't. I can see that I need to make changes to the verbal content of the web landing page. Especially to align it more to the keywords being used in the ads. 

Trust is hard to come by

A person can't be a leader if he or she is not trusted. Trust is key in order to be able to lead. It has to be all around trust. Trust that the leaders is going down the right path, trust that the leader has everyone's best interest at heart, trust that they will value and respect those he is leading. Guy Kawasaki states that you trust people first and then you are trusted.

Building a trusting relationship with your customers is key. Frank Levinson stated that you want to weld your customers to you. There are a few great companies that have figured out how to weld their customers to them. This takes good companies and makes them great. In the book Good to Great by Jim Collins he outlines the key concepts that took those few companies from Good to Great. He separates 6 key concepts into three themes: Disciplined People, Disciplined Thought and Disciplined Action. All of the great companies had disciplined people at the head of the company. Jim describes them as Level 5 Leaders with the mind set of First Who Then What. The concepts for the theme of Disciplined Thought are Confront the true facts and Hedgehog concept. Culture of Discipline and Technology Accelerator are the concepts in the Disciplined Action theme. As he goes into detail about each of these key concepts you can see the difference the the Good and the Great companies.

Information overload

It was an interesting process to try to follow directions on how to accomplish something in a software that was recently updated and now none of the directions match. The wonders of quickly advancing technology. In any case Google Analytics is a powerful tool that helps a website owner to quickly learn what is or isn't working on a website. Linking the Analytics to Google Ad Words was the frustrating part since Ad Words is the software that was recently upgraded. It also would have been nice to know that if you want to link the two accounts you should have signed up using the same Google account. Which makes sense, but when I signed up for Ad words I used a newer Google account than the one that I already had that had an established Google Analytics account. Needless to say I was going around in circles. I finally accomplished the task of linking the two accounts after giving up a couple of times. Knowing the data that is available in Analytics I can see the benefit of linking the two accounts. It will give you loads of information to be able to create better marketing strategies.

Building a ship

This week has been a great lesson on the fact that the road to Entrepreneurship is one that requires a lot of grit. In the talk Looking Back and Moving Forward by President Monson we learn that all good and great things will only come through overcoming trials, struggles and set backs. As he looks back at the history that brought him to be in the place and position so that he could fulfill his divine destiny, he reminds us that we need to honor the sacrifices of those that came before us. The short videos of each of the following entrepreneurs echos the need to preserver. David Carrington found focus in his overcoming cancer. Elder Holland reminds us not to quit, some blessings come soon, some blessings come late and some blessings don't come until heaven. Taylor Richard reminds us that we can do anything. He quoted 1 Nephi 17:51 "And now, if the Lord has such great power and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me that I should build a ship?" I'm sure that all of this counsel will serve there purpose for inspiration when I run into the trials and set backs that I will encounter during my entrepreneurial journey.

All uphill

I am pretty sure that I am currently in the space of building a website when I always give up. I haven't. I've thought about it, but keep remembering the inspiration I received at the beginning of the semester "It's about the learning not the perfect grade."
I have had some learning. In the past 6 years I have attempted at least a dozen times to get a newsletter sign up to pop up on a website and I finally did it. Either technology has progressed to the point that even a child can create correct html and placement or I'm getting smarter. My bet is on technology and well written tutorials. I have also finally figured out how to get a good load time on a website that is heavy with images. I've worked with Photoshop almost as long as it has been available (don't calculate me age in your head). This creates a false sense of knowledge. Because the homework was light for this week, I decided to take the time I set aside for this course and I went hunting for knowledge. Some of the processes where frustrating like placing my pop up code into my site code, but I found inspiration in President Eyring's quote "If you are on the right path, It will always be uphill." I haven't reached the top by any means but I have landed on a good clearing to catch my breath and plan the rest.

Win-Win

I have enjoyed the Intro to Entrepreneurship class so far. I especially like all of the video links to business speakers talking about being in business or building a business. They all have one theme that runs through them and that is that you shouldn't ever think of the money first. Most have specifically mentioned to find what you do best and provide the world with the service of doing what you do best. I love the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I've read it a couple of times. Every time that I read a book I seem to pick one or two things to work on, because if I tried to live by an book that I've read and make all changes overnight I would drive myself crazy. I have worked on a couple of the 7 Habits over the 6 years since I first read the book. As this class has progressed I have noticed that I am flying solo through life and have not really been interested in creating friendships or partnerships that would benefit me as well as those I let into my extremely tight personal space. I feel the need to work on the concept of Win-Win. To actively seek out relationship that go deeper than the 2 sentence conversation you have before starting work or in the church hallway. 

Practice makes perfect

I was actually dreading creating an Adworks campaign. The first couple of times I used it, I was able to generate what I needed for the assignments but it felt unfamiliar and gave me anxiety having to hunt around looking for stuff. I'm usually pretty good at learning software fast, but for some reason I wasn't getting the layout of the functions and how they related to each other. I'm a big picture kind of person. As I worked through actually creating a campaign it all came together. I could see how all of the puzzle pieces fit. I lack patience, and I'm easily frustrated when things aren't clear. Especially if I know that if someone would have put forth a bit more effort then I would need to be confused.
As I worked through finding key words for the add campaign I realized that we need to be clear about what we are doing, in order to put out a clear searchable message. If we can figure out what people need we can word our message to reach the people we can help.