3 October 2013

All good things have to come to an end

This is the last day for blogging for the year. We also had our last Genesis workshop yesterday with Stuart and he talked mainly about Transformational leadership. I really enjoyed this session. He discussed the three evolutions of Transformational leadership.

1^st Evolution: highly capable individual

This is about being a proactive person instead of being reactive. A highly capable individual is lives by design not by default, is self-driven and have an abundance mentality (having positive mindset). This is the individual who lives in quadrant 2.

2^nd Evolution: The Master Manager

Mater Manger is a manager is people-oriented and is good at managing paradox. He/she understand power dynamic, organizational culture and structure.

3^rd Evolution: Transformational leader

This is the type of a leader who can “take mismatched group of tired heroes and forge them into a team capable of achieving success and sustaining it in the face of overwhelming odds”.

For the entire duration of this course, this is the type of leaders we are aspiring to become. This course had provided us with all the necessary tools and skills to become that leader and now it’s up to us to apply them when we leave this course.

“Don’t be transactional…. be transformational”

Some pictures we didn't share from last week.

Picture of the Tiramisu from Thrift's dinner with our lecturer

Thrift with our Lecturer Stuart and his wife

2 October 2013

Closure of our business

Today we had our last weekly group meeting for the year. Time does fly indeed. We have reached the end of the road. Today in our meeting we discussed the dissolution of the business and the continuation of Thrift next year. We also discussed and delegated work for the closure of business report. This is one thick document, which consist all that we have done as a group. It is more of a reflective report for the entire year about all that we learned and how we have managed our financials, sales, production etc. Tomorrow will meet again to discuss the future of Thrift.

We managed to make this year full of good memories and laughter. I am going to miss our weekly group meetings because we always had a good time as a group. Not that I am bragging or anything but our team was awesome, we all got along so well and I think we are one of the few groups which never had any major conflicts or issues, so well done Thrift.

1 October 2013

Last Directors Meeting

Wow. I cannot believe yesterday was our last directors meeting. We endured till the end and I would like to give credit to the wonderful directors we had this year. They were super awesome, always giving us constructive criticism which helped us in running our business as well as managing our team effectively. During this meeting we were able to focus more on what we learned as individuals during the duration of this year. I think for me personally, looking back now, among other things that I have learned is to always put my team first. I learnt that all my priorities have to be towards enhancing the group dynamic and performance. To be successful as a team, we all need to work towards a common purpose, the interest and the needs of the team needs to always come first. From the very beginning I realized that in everything I do I should always give in 100% effort or even more because I became aware that if I do not pull my weight I am actually putting other peoples marks at stake. Therefore I always ensured that I work hard and effectively to ensure that all is than for the greater good of my team. I have also learned that having an accountability system is very important in the team. I believe that one way of setting an effective accountability is by clearly defining the roles and responsibilities for each group member.

Looking back now especially with regards to the directors meetings we had, I am so thankful to all our directors for being always encouraging us and for acting as mentors. Their wise guidance indeed helped has a lot especially with our business. Thank you.

Monday, 30 September 2013

Our final directors meeting day. I won’t hesitate to say that it was definitely slightly emotional on some level. This year really must be drawing to a close. In retrospect, these four humans who ten months ago we would have walked straight past in the streets have come to be such great assets to our lives and who we have become as Thrift.  All of them have contributed in their own unique ways to impart wisdom from their incredibly varied experiences and provide with support that we would never be able to fully thank them for.

So to our board of directors, I don’t know how we struck it so lucky, but we know we won the lottery getting to spend those six hours with you.

Luke Ramsay

Beth Durham

Anthony Hill

And David Priilaid

We’ve had our moments, (of which we will leave in the dark), but we are so thankful for everything you have done for us. All the best of luck for your future endeavors and we feel privileged and honoured to consider you as a part of our ‘networks’.

Saturday and Sunday, 28-29 September 2013

Saturday and Sunday were spent very differently for very different people. Some of us awoke with a glint of freshness in our smile and a hop in our step and went for a run around our beautiful city of Cape Town to clear our thoughts and burn off lasts nights tiramisu. Others woke up to a sniff neck on a couch to be greeted by the wonderful consequences of knowing that you had a great night.

The rest of the day was spent somewhere between recovering and trying to complete assignments on coffee shops which we had never actually been to and probably never would. This weekend taught us that too much of a good thing can just sometimes be a better thing.

Friday, 27 September 2013

Today is the day that we have been waiting for months. With this great amount of anticipation we wished away our few lectures for the day and before we knew it, it was 6pm and time to get the team together for Dinner. After finding the boys quenching their excitement in Slug and Lettuce watching the rugby, we threw them in the shower and hurried over just in time for the Llundadno Sunset cocktails which Stu had waiting for us.

One cocktail led to another, which led to beer, which led to starters. Those starters were just the beginning of a night of heavenly delights. Crayfish, prawn and avo starters took the opening act as a main of Chocolate Chili fillet took center stage. Some Thrift members at this stage being slightly more pukker than others decided that this was the point at which conversations surrounding the Genesis award would begin.

“Stu we need to discuss the fact the you know that we are the best Genesis group”

“Murray the only thing we need to discuss is the order in which your names will appear on the trophy.”

The night ended with a grand finale of tiramisu dusted with a cocoa stencil of the Thrift logo.  A big thank you to the Hendry family for having us all over, it was a night that we will definitely not forget (right up until Murray passed out on his kitchen floor that is)

Thursday, 26 September 2013

Today we spent the day doing two things, having the realization of the amount of work that we have due for the next few days and preparing our minds for the glorious dinner that Stuart was cooking for us the next day.

Starting class at 12am we had a Politics of Enterprise lecture. This lecture was incredibly interesting as we had a guest lecturer Sarah come to speak to us from a recruitment company called Layer Cake. She spoke to us about next year and the plans that we would be making. Although this doesn’t have a great amount to do with the company of Thrift, it gave us a large amount of personal insight that allowed us to start thinking about things which we had put aside.

As we listened about 2014 and the possibilities which it held, we were reminded of the possibilities of Thrift and the places it could be taken to. We as a group have all committed to supporting each other in this transition as we begin to decide what will happen to the company.

Wednesday, 25 September 2013

After a slightly later start than planned, Genesis Wednesday was soon in full swing with lectures and group meetings. We had an extremely productive meeting that everyone attended except for one group member who shall remain nameless. This said group member then gave the group the opportunity put our accountability principles into practice. it is always good to demonstrate the values which we outlined in our shareholders agreement at the beginning of the year and we were grateful to them for allowing us this opportunity to remember. Seven coffees later and accountability restored, this is a mistake that they are sure to never make again. 

It is important that the agreed upon understandings are acknowledged and respected. Through this trust and accountability can be maintained.

Tuesday, 24 September 2013

Today is heritage day. This is one of the main Christian public holidays within South Africa. This day is to encourage our nation to take time to celebrate the culture and diversity as well as the beliefs and traditions of the country in which they live in. this being said, the only thing Dean and Murray were encouraging was that of Braai-ing.

The Genesis specifications indicated that our products had to be new to the South African market. What better way to get in touch with this South African market than to spend an entire day focusing on it? So with National braai day in full swing, we as Thrift decided to take the liberty of taking the day off.

Some of us then decided that the stresses of life got slightly too hectic and went away for the night on a yacht.

Monday 23 September 2013

Today we had to shoot the final footage for the sustainability video that we were making in order to win the competition for the sustainability award. This award comprises of many aspects of your business with requirements you need to meet in order to win the award. Since our business not only recycles old clothing but also donates money to the underprivilegedwhen we buy our materials from the thrift stores around town we figured we had a pretty good shot at winning this award and so we decided to enter. We started our filming at signal hill where we took a short video of each one of us speaking about academics, sustainability, innovation, success and passion. We then took several videos at places such as the hospice shops where we buy our materials from to give the public an idea of where we source these materials from, as well as footage of the CMT and her production team that produce our backpacks for. The video was an absolute success with our fantastic video editors doing such as outstanding job (don’t tell them we said that ha ha ;) ) we were very proud and confident that we might win.

Heres the link if you guys are interested in going to check it out J (Totally worth it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlMCyjLUAdI

Sunday 22 September 2013

This was an easy Sunday for the team considering we knew we had a lot of work coming up with things such as marketing projects, our close of business report a Politics of Enterprise assignment, as well as an assignment we all figured we would take the rest while we still could and considering Tuesday was a holiday it seemed as though we were all in store for a treat of a well-deserved long weekend.

Saturday 21 September 2013       

Thrift took it easy this Saturday considering it had been a long week and the miserable weather outside permitted all of us to spend the day in bed.

Friday 20 September 2013

Today mainly consisted of lectures with David Priilaid where we watched the remaining half of a video he had been showing us called Shakleton. His aim of showing us the movie is to show us the power of strong leadership and the effect it has on the team. We all found the movie very intriguing and capturing considering that it was probably a movie none of us would ever have rented or watched had we not been shown it in lectures. The message came across loud and clear and it gave us all a good view of the effects of leadership and the importance of entrepreneurship in everyday life. After that Lisa came in to give us some hints for our exam preparation and some advice on the time of questions we would be asked and also how we would be expected to answer them because o think a lot of the students were having trouble figuring out how we could be examined on a meditation course. Her insight was very helpful and gave us good direction as to what the examiner would be looking for in our answers.

Thursday 19 September 2013

Thursdays we have Politics of Enterprise which is subject all about the law of business. This lecture today was again extremely helpful because we also have a politics of Enterprise assignment due for next week and well if we thought we were struggling on the marketing side this was a whole other ball game. Trying to understand the Law Lingo is slightly challenging as one can imagine and now trying to complete a 1500 words write up was proving to be even more challenging. This lecture did however clear some things up and tie up some loose ends.

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Wednesdays are always the same for us starting with our genesis workshop at 9 until 11 where we all move the party to our weekly group meeting where we discuss the upcoming academic assignment and decide on false deadlines in order to try and stay on top of everything because we’ve learnt the hard way how good this course is at sneaking up on you. In this particular meeting we split up the parts for the close of business assignment and starting doing some brain storming for the sustainability video that was due soon. We also knew we had a directors meeting coming up soon and since everyone had already had turn to chair a meeting it was Deans turn to chair this one which saved us a lot of arguments over ching Chong cha (which is normally how we decide who is going to be chairing). After that we ventured off to our weekly meeting with Stuart where we discussed the requirements for the close of business reports and what exactly he wanted us to do for particular sections such as the dissolution document.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Tuesday the only lecture we have is our retailing and services lecture. Today the lecture was more beneficial than usual (because it’s always beneficial) because we have a retailing assignment coming up and they discussed the certain topics that were being examined for the assignment. This made things a lot more clear for the entire class and allowed us to get planning on all our assignments.

Saturday 14 September

Saturday was a quiet day regarding work, however we felt a little bit of group bonding was in order for the later hours of the evening…

Sunday 15 September

Sunday has been considered the day of rest for over 2013 years… So that is what we did.

Friday 13 September

Today was interesting as well as a long day. We had a great lecture on Sir Ernest Shackleton and the ways in which he embodies the characteristics of a leader. The two things that really stood out to me, and I know us at Thrift, was his humility, and his undying, iron will and resolve. He went through some hardships and struggles on his adventures that most people on this planet cannot even begin to imagine about. He chose a crew to support and travel with him, and they essentially needed a leader of incredible stature to get them to their goal. This is even more prominent when this crew don’t fully understand the extent of their travels. People go mad, they get crazy and make irrational decisions and take wild actions. The crew did not think they would even survive, but Shackleton’s amazing leadership got every single one of the crew back home safe, despite the treacherous conditions.

He really was a burning example of what a leader should embody and the way in which they can go about their leadership experiences in their everyday life.

Thursday 12 September

Today was a quieter day but did involve a lecture in MTIP on empathic listening. This is essentially ensuring a greater understanding from both parties. Ensuring an understanding is agreed upon. And this is highly effective and useful seeing as yesterdays lecture was on self preservation and making sure we leave with ourselves well looked after. This too relates to the fundamental human needs, as well as coveys habit 5.

Wednesday 11 September

Today is the memorial of those who lost their lives in the terrible terrorist attacks on the twin towers. This got me thinking about all of those people who were involved and lost their lives. It also got me thinking about those people that were involved in the helping process, from the rescue teams, to the clean up teams, to the rebuilding crews of Ground Zero. It came to me that all of these people were leaders. They were leading with the ambition to improve and help those around them. They were ‘others centered’ and really did what they could for the greater good. There was a leader at the head of every single team that helped get New York and America up and running again after those attacks. I just felt this needed to be included because I don’t think a thought like this would have come to me before this year.

We started class with a Genesis workshop. This workshop was based on power and was extremely insightful. It was something and one of those lectures that sticks with you long after (and hopefully forever) it is done. We learnt that self preservation is the fundamental interest and something that we need to know when entering a room. This means that if a mutual understanding of such a fact is known, both parties can work around such an understanding and know that a mutually beneficial and win/win situation is best for all.

This also lead to the topic of how leadership should be based on influence, and most definitely not on manipulation. This has a strong message that needs to be brought out into South Africa. We feel like we have certainly done this with Thrift this year as we have not had one bit of conflict that even deserves mentioning. This we all feel is just one result of this leadership through influence, rather than manipulation.

Tuesday 10 September

Tuesday is the usual day for our group meetings in which we catch up on everything that needs to be done academically, and business wise. It is always great to meet up and keep it light hearted for the beginning of the meeting, and then to get into the serious stuff. We spoke about production, bags that needed to be collected from clients with faulty stitching, or incorrect shoulder straps. This was an issue for us as firstly, it is embarrassing, and secondly, it’s a mission to fetch from customers. We decided that it is something we really don’t want to happen again in the future, and so we decided to do a total recall of all of our stock. This seemed like quite a dramatic step to take, but we all agreed it could possibly damage the name of Thrift, add additional hassles to the group, and cause unnecessary administration for both us and the clients.

Monday 9 September

Today was our soft submission date for our group sales report two. We all put in a lot of work for it and I think this time around we are expecting a better mark in that regard. I am always amazed at the functionality that our group has grown into. This is because of things such as accountability that is playing a large role in us achieving what we have achieved. These soft dates are so easy to not listen to, and to put on one side and say that they are not the proper date. We have stuck to every single soft date and respect the amount of work that goes into the editing. Therefore we know the assignments have to be in for these soft dates for a reason, and this includes a good result.

On a note of the team dynamic, I can safely say that we just keep moving in a positive, and healthy direction. We really do all get along really well and are yet to have any conflict of any nature. We all respect each others’ opinions and are happy to hear each other out. This means that no action is taken without a clear and well thought out reason for action.

 

 2-8 September 2013

This week we have been on holiday, therefore we have shifted our focus to selling. Sarah has gone to Johannesburg for the week and so she has taken about 10 of our backpacks back with her to try and sell them to friends and family back in Johannesburg. Kim has gone back to Durban where she has also taken about 10 backpacks with her to sell there. The rest of us have stayed in Cape Town for the week and we have been pushing our Cape Town sales. So far we have all done really well, we have sold about 8 this week, which we are all really proud of. Overall, we feel that this week has been a week of learning. Since the beginning of the year we haven’t had the chance to purely focus on selling, we have had lectures, projects etc. but now we have been on holiday for a week and we have used this time to focus only on selling, and this proved to be more challenging than we though.

We have learnt that people want good value for their money, they are not just going to purchase something without knowing the value that they are receiving from the product, therefore we have put a value proposition together that we pitch to our customers explaining all the value they receive from Thrift backpacks in order to encourage them to purchase our product, because once they know that they are donating to charity for example, they are more than likely going to want to purchase our backpacks because there is great value in purchasing a Thrift backpack.

We have also learnt how important good customer service is, we have constantly been keeping in contact with our potential customers and have been meeting them where it is convenient for them etc. this good customer service makes it easier for the customer to actually purchase our backpacks, which will encourage a sale. If we had bad customer service and made them meet us 40 minutes away from where they live, they would not purchase a Thrift backpack because we have made it challenging for them to do so.

Over this past week we have also learnt a lot about our target market, we have come to realise the type of backpacks that our customers love and the types of backpacks they do not like so much. For example we have noticed that our target market prefer plain material on their backpacks as opposed to patterned material, therefore in future we are going to make sure we have more “plain” backpacks as opposed to “patterned” backpacks.

We have also learnt how important it is to be committed to the sale, a lot of people say no they are not interested initially but if you encourage them to stay they end up buying a backpack. If you are not committed to the sale, the potential customer will just walk away, but if you are committed and give them reason to stay to hear your “pitch” about Thrift backpacks, they are more than likely to purchase a backpack. It is just so important to stay committed and not get discouraged if their first initial reaction is negative. ALWAYS BE CLOSING!

Saturday (31^st) and Sunday (1^st)

This day was rather depressing seeing as the ‘Bokke’ seeing as the Championship was taking a break for the weekend and would only start again on the 7^th. This was crying shame and the boys in our group were absolutely heart-broken!

Blah blah blah.... its holiday!!! Haha

Friday (30^th)

On Friday we had a guest lecturer, Lisa Firer, who is some form of artist and overall spiritually gifted human being. Needless to say we had our doubts after the previous lecture where we sat and left, smelt and tasted raisins. However, in this lecture Lisa introduced us to the art of meditation which was surprising relaxing and peaceful. None of us had ever meditated before and was a wonderful experience for all of us.

The mediation – use one’s natural capacity to tend to the sensations of the breath. We practiced both focused awareness and opening up more broadly. It is vital that you find a place and position that is comfortable and where one can be mindful without being disrupted.

After this Lisa couldn’t resist breaking out some food and we made marshmallow towers which were sooo delicious! We really enjoyed this lecture as it opened our minds to a new art that many of us had never experienced.

Through this entire class I semi-blacked out from shear excitement that we break up for HOLIDAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!! Oh yeah! Nothing else matters.... See ya next term homies.

Thursday (29^th)

On Thursday we didn’t meet as a group and the delegated people ( Dean and Shea) were organizing our future sale day in Stellenbosch. We decided to create a Facebook group about the event to get people excited as well as give them enough time to plan their studies around this day so they are able to attend and come buy our bags!!

Generally Thursdays are rather painful and frankly quite boring with a capital B. We have Politics of Enterprise which is surprising not used as a torturing technical in the middle east however I believe any man would crack after a solid 2 hours. We learnt about the value of business contracts and the benefits of having good legally sound documents when forming relationships in the business world such as partnerships and contracts with suppliers. This did strike a chord as we believe that a legal contract would’ve come in handy when dealing with our producer. If we had drawn up a contract to define our relationship with our supplier we would have been able to include a penalty clause for products that do not meet the basic standards, which would also be stipulated in the document. A legal document can also be used as protection and protect business’s from getting messed around by their suppliers. We would therefore not pay for our previous stock to get fixed, and it would be the supplier’s problem.

We also watched a movie about sustainability in South Africa regarding our wildlife which is one of our country’s greatest assets.

Wednesday (28^th)

On Wednesday we had our usual group meeting at 11am before our genesis meeting. The general moral of the team was down and we were not motivated to sell anymore bags as we feel like we had lost confidence in the product. However, there were a lot of positives we tried to focus on coming out of our last director’s report including the possibility of having a sale day on the 7^th of September in Stellenbosch. The 7^th is a Saturday and would be at the famous Stellenbosch ‘slow market’ where people from the surrounding areas and beyond come to sell anything from clothes to steak rolls. We were keen to get our bags back up to top quality and rename our brand in a positive light. This was a big turning point in our group as we feel like it was a first proper defeat and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. This is where we as a group need to come together and overcome our defeat by picking up our heads and move forward. We have to treat each fail as an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and rather see it as a chance to improve our product. This is a valuable lesson to learn especially being an entrepreneur as there is a high probability that you will fail in your first 5 years of business. Thomas Edison’s famous quote about failure below.

Tuesday (27^th)

After the directors meeting yesterday we decided to perform an AAR (after action review) and look over the feedback we had received from the directors about or product. It was apparent that we had a rather serious quality issue and almost no quality control process. Anthony had stated that two of his three bags are broken and he was worried about the possible repercussions of us having to fix customers’ bags.  We as a group decided it would be for the best to send the remain stock we had left back to the manufacture and ask her to double stitch the connection points to prevent any more bags from breaking. This situation was very hard to deal with and the group really took a blow to the confidence and moral. We were unhappy about selling products that did not live up to the expectations of the customer.

Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 August

Another quiet weekend in Thriftland unfortunately, though I think the sales team has met up to take photos of new backpacks to put up on our Facebook page. We have gotten a number of messages from people who want to buy the backpacks on this social media platform so we want to make sure that we can use this as a selling vehicle as much as possible. The current problem we are encountering with our product is that each one is unique therefore people have to see the bags to choose one so constantly updating Facebook whenever a bag is sold is proving to be overwhelming and difficult. That is the advantage with standardisation. I am confident that the group will try as hard as possible to keep up with that. Tomorrow we have a board of directors meeting. Sarah is chairing this time. Fingers crossed for us that it will go well. Speaking about our Facebook page, I love the look-book for backpacks on the Facebook page. Shea did an amazing job. She managed to communicate the spirit of the brand. Our brand is about fun and individualism, people that aren't afraid to stand out.

                                       Thrift Facebook campaign

Friday 23 August

Today was a good day even though not much happened with regards to the group. My day was particularly busy because I had lectures from 8am until 3pm with no breaks in between. Next week is the Board of Directors Meeting. I am a bit nervous about it because even though it is not for marks I think the group has been slacking just a little bit. We were given so many great ideas and so many avenues to explore in terms of what customer markets we can target (e.g tourists) but in my opinion we have not done enough to explore those markets. Like I was saying yesterday two of the areas that we scored low on were productivity and accomplishment. Other groups have been approaching neighbourhood newspapers and blogs. Getting their product into shops, going to markets every weekend, having pop-up parties among other things. To push this product we are going to have to sacrifice and put in the work. Sacrifice is the key to success. Sometimes you have to sacrifice time and money to be successful. While I think one should have some balance between all the different roles he or she may play, I believe in prioritising. You have prioritise what is important to you, if you whether it is a relationship or a business. If you don't it will never reach its full potential. That is a big lesson I am learning. 

Thursday 22 August

Today the Entrepreneurial Strategies class was particularly interesting because the group did an exercise based on Quinn's organisational culture model that not only helped to identify the group’s strengths and weaknesses but also individual strengths and weaknesses. The group realised that while we scored high in areas such as participation/openness and commitment/morale we scored low in areas such as stability/control and productivity/accomplishment. We were advised by the lecturer David to make sure that in the areas where we are weak as a group, we should encourage those team members that have scored high in those areas to step up and lead the team in those areas. It was good for the group to see where our strengths and weaknesses are. This one was even more helpful than the Basadur profile we did at the beginning of the year because it had a lot more components to it and it also helps you identify what the how strong or how weak you are at each characteristic.

Quinn's assessment and skills building exercise

Quinn's organisational culture

Wednesday 21 August

Today we had our weekly group meeting. The importance of having a Shareholders’ Agreement once again came to mind. We have a clause that says when a decision needs to be made and there is not a total consensus then the majority counts. The group has received a lot of orders for backpacks on our Facebook page so the group was trying to decide whether or not we should have an official website as well. Some people were of the opinion that our target market was most likely to use a Facebook page versus an official website. Others felt that a Thrift website would make us seem like more an official business. The clause allows the group to finalise a decision before tempers flare or before things get too heated. It also saves the group time, because instead of spending too long debating an issue if a decision time drags on for too long we can quickly make a decision and ‘keep it moving’. The Shareholders' Agreement has also been great for group accountability. Adding the clause about group members getting a fine or a warning when there is an infringement on the rules occurs has also helped make sure that the group functions better and made it clear that we are all essentially business partners even though we are all friends. If a group member gets three fine or warning, they immediately forfeit half of their profit and it share among the rest of the group members. Assignments are done and sent to the editors on time and meetings are taken a lot more seriously. One can not rely on someone being a 'good person' because ultimately human beings are flawed, they are selfish. They need something to motivate them to do the right thing and the Shareholders Agreement does that.

Stuart Hendry, our Genesis course convener, once again stressed the importance of a business  knowing their target market at the Sunrise Workshop. The guest speaker who came did not have any advice to give this week but he talked to the class about his online store.  It was nice to see an entrepreneur who was out there trying to make it nonetheless.

A shareholders agreement

Tuesday 20 August

Currently the group is working on the product so that we can better satisfy the needs of our consumers. The production team is working on trying to make sure that the Thrift items that are going to be used for the bags is made from mostly thick and dark and autumn colours materials that have interesting textures. We had one particular bag made out of leather that was very popular during the exhibition. We only had one and even though we  had only produced one and reserved it for a customer that had gone to the ATM and several customers kept begging to buy it. Stuart keeps stressing knowing your customer so it is important for us to make sure that we develop a leather product line for those customers. 

Monday 19 August

After a long seven months of high highs and low lows, everyone in the course is clearly exhausted. The word “over it” comes to mind unfortunately. The group dynamic is positive and strong (by that I mean , however the level of passion and work required to really push the project has been a little low as of late. With so many things going on in terms of school work and our personal lives it has been difficult to give 110% to the business. The question is “ how to does a leader keep a team motivated?”. Just like any business we have competition internally within the course and externally with other legitimate businesses. It is hard not to be distracted by what other groups are doing, or comparing ourselves with other groups. Like we learnt in Entrepreneurial Strategies at the beginning of the semester, people get into envy and instead of focusing on what they are doing they start to concentrate too much on what other groups are doing. People then begin to get de-motivated about their business or product instead of focusing on doing the best they can with their own stuff. I think the group needs to do some team building to get us back on track to finish off the year strong.

 Remember to have fun along the way

Kim and Sarah looking very Thrift on the day of Exhibition

Sam and Teboho at the Thicket booth 

Dean and Murray having fun at the Thicket photo booth

Sunday, 18 August 2013

Weekend over

I do not know if it’s just me but the weekend always seem to pass so quickly. But anyway I am looking forward for this week especially for the Management Theory in Practise (Mtip) lectures. This coming week we will be focusing more on personal and organisational effectiveness. We started this topic last week and so far I am enjoying. We focused on the individual values, motives and problem solving skills so as to understand organisational effectiveness using the competing values model. Competing value model basically aims to help organisations to become adaptable, flexible, stable and controlled.  On order to understand this principle we had to answer questionnaires based on your problem solving, values and motives as leaders. I realised that my main strengths as a leader in team building, setting the direction and clearly defining the roles within the group. It was quite an interesting exercise and I am looking forward to learning more about tour group management which is going to be the focus for the next session. 

Saturday, 17 August 2013

Time so for some rest

I think after such a hectic week, everyone is glad that it’s Saturday, time to rest and breathe for two seconds. I mean literally seconds because we have a lot of work to do in terms of building our brand. We have been thinking of couple of ideas as to how to go about this but it is such a mission to make everything work. But we are entrepreneurs, we make things happen therefore I think this weekend will serve just that by brain storming on developing creative ways of building a strong sustainable brand.

I think I will leave it short and sweet for today because I need to do more creative thinking our brand.

Friday, 16 August 2013

Oral presentation

This week has been quite hectic, preparing for the exam and oral presentation while also running a business and also not forgetting going to lectures. It was a very intense week. Our oral went fine (Even though I feel I could have done way better). Like I said yesterday, I really appreciate PCU because I have learned so much from it. They are equipping us with all the necessary skills and knowledge that will help us to communicate effectively at work, conferences, etc. This is also helpful to us as young entrepreneurs.

We have learned that in order to deliver a good business presentation, one need to do the following:

1. Know your audience

If asked to speak or pitch a session, then the first step is to research your potential audience to know about things such as their level of experience in the area you are presenting, topics of interest, etc. If you don’t do this, then you are guaranteed to fail.

2. Construct a plan

This can be achieved by using the plan that suits your style. Having a plan is important because it helps to contrast a coherent and logical message. Then once you have clear idea, you can start thing about what you will say and what you will show using PowerPoint slides flipchart posters, etc.

 I have really learned a lot from this course. Anyway I will here for today.

Thursday, 15 August 2013

PCU (Professional Communications Unit) EXAM TODAY

I cannot believe that the day is finally here to write PCU exam. Wow, this year has gone by so fast. I remember it was just few months ago attending PCU lectures and today is the day to write the actual exam. I really do not know how I feel about it but one thing I can say is that I am very grateful for those input lectures and workshops because they taught us a lot about working in a group. Some of the lessons I can recall from those lectures were how to build team spirit and group dynamic.

I learned that in order for everyone to have the same team spirit, we need to work towards the same goal; we need to have shared responsibilities, resources and benefits. In addition, each member needs to feel a sense of belonging to the group and this can be achieved by being good listeners and having a non-judgemental working environment.

I have also learned that as a group we can foster team spirit by celebrating our achievements as a group, giving credit to individuals (by praising them for the job well done), identifying each other’s unique strengths and then allocate task according to each members strengths and then lastly encourage a sense of unity (maybe by having a panic as a group).

So all in all I can say that I have learned a lot from PCU both as an individual and as a team player. I have also improved in my business report writing skills which was a struggle for me at the beginning of the year.

Oh, I almost forgot that tomorrow we have our PCU oral presentation rehearsal with Christel (I will speak about that tomorrow).

That is all for today (as I need to finish revising for the exam at 17:00). 

Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Great lessons from the Genesis Workshop

Wow. Today I was so inspired and encouraged by the lecture given by guest lecturer, Tim Shier, during our weekly Genesis workshop. Tim shared with us some of the most important lessons he has learned as an entrepreneur. These lessons were quite informative and applicable to us especially now that we are official entrepreneurs, running our own business.  Some of the things he shared with us are key attributes that Stuart has always preached to us. So here are some of the lessons he talked about (I will just list five as they were too many to write all of them down)

Kim and Sarah sellng the backpacks

1. Failure is a key learning process

·         Learning is about change and failure provides us with the feedback necessitating change. He also mentioned that as entrepreneurs we are always pushing to be innovative and therefore it will difficult to be innovative if you are afraid to fail.

2. Give more than you take

·         Always be willing to be the helping hand in the community whenever you can.

3. Always live by design not by default

·         Stuart had also touched on this subject and now we are hearing about it again, so it means it is important. Living by design, means setting your own goals and purpose in order to achieve your desired outcome instead of following the society norms and way of doing life.

Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

4. Only do things you are passionate about

·         If you do only things you are passionate about, you will do it well. It will be more like a hobby to you than actual work.

5. Empower your team

·         This is very important as it can increase the morale and team spirit as each member will feel valuable to the group and as the result perform very well. It also increases the group dynamic and the workplace become fun and non-judgemental one.

I really enjoyed this workshop today and now I am ready to face and conquer the world.

Later...

Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Strategic plan forward

Today we had out weekly meeting and everyone shared what they learned from the Young Entrepreneursr Product launch, whether it was in direct relation to the product itself or related to team work.  We discussed the way forward in terms of creating more brand awareness. We are still busy constructing our website, which should be up and running before the end of this month. Having a website will further help to get more exposure of our product to a broader market segments as we are planning to make limited backpack edition for corporate market and also have a leather range of backpacks (as it seemed to be the favourite). In addition, we are also planning to create a cool advert video which will be out in mid-September in order to position our brand in the mind of our target markets. This is very exciting and we are keeping our fingers crossed that all goes according to plan.

Yeah. That was all for today.

Monday, 12 August 2013

Lessons learned for the Launch

The Young Entrepreneurs Product launch is over and I am so thankful that it went well. Albeit I was worried about it because of insufficient advertising of the product, however everything went better than I anticipated as the students responded well to our product. Some of the things we learned during the preparation and on the actual launch day are discussed below and tomorrow, during our weekly group meeting, we will perform an after action review and make all the necessary changes. These changes will ensure that our business expands in terms of market share.

Setting SMART Objective

Setting clear and SMART objectives within the group is vital as this will keep us in the right direction and ensure that everything is done during the time it was suppose to be. This was a very important lesson learned especially with regard to production. We did not have clear and realistic planning with our CMT and as the result we only had 90 backpacks on the day of the exhibition as she was still making the other 60 bags. This caused a lot of pressure and stress within the group and our CMT. I think we failed to plan and communicate with Evette (the CMT) effectively about our launch date so that by the exhibition all the bags would be ready. Everything had to be rushed, you can just imagine the quality of those bags. But thankfully because we have a CMT that has been in operation for more than 20 years, they were able to at least deliver 40 backpacks out of the remaining 6o which were of good quality. However the stress and panic we had to go through was too much.

Putting the team first                                                                                                                  

 I have learned that as a team player I need to put my team first at all times, therefore all my priorities have to be towards enhancing the group dynamic and performance. This also means that I need to trust my team and they need to trust me, as trust is everything. The team trust is earned through integrity, consistency, honesty and transparency to just name a few. Therefore I have learned that it is my responsibility to always conduct myself in a manner that will reflect these principles to ensure the success of our group. I saw that during the launch, we needed to support each other and help in the sales our backpacks. For instance since I am in the production team, I cannot say that I will not help the sales team. I was very happy with the group because I saw that we all exhibit qualities of a sales person.

This has taught me that as a team member, I should not wait to be told what to do by others but I should take initiative and set an example within the group. Instead of worrying about lack of performance, productivity and commitment of others, I should simply set the example and show my team what hard work, passion and commitment is.