Week 12: Venture Concept No. 1

Venture Concept

My new venture is my very own financial advising firm. In this brief paper about my venture I will mention things such as opportunity, innovation, my venture concept, and finally I will mention on the three minor elements. These three minor elements are three questions: What are your most important resources? What is next for your venture? What is next for you? In the following few paragraphs I will touch on each of these points to describe my venture.

My financial advising firm will have a great amount of opportunity with the correct amount of advertising and good customer service. The main focus of clients for this business is going to be the middle class to upper class person in their low to mid 30’s and up. It is an obvious fact that everyone is one day going to get old so long as they live. My job is to help people reach financial goals. One of the very important financial goals most people must strive to achieve is retirement. Because of this idea that everyone gets old and people need assistance making good portfolio’s in order to have the best opportunity with the least amount of burden to reach these financial goals, this business is something that will be around for a very long time. Another great point is that in this particular era all of the baby boomers are reaching retirement age and are seeking financial assistance in order to be sure they will retire comfortably.

In addition, innovation in this industry is more or less just based on technologies to make doing the investments easier, or the types of investments themselves are always changing. They could also have some new methods to be more or less risky for a person. What I will be selling to the customer is my time and friendly service to give them my knowledge of the markets and what types of investments would be best suited for that person based on their unique situation. The way that I make money doing this is by charging either commission or some kind of fees upon giving my knowledge and managing their portfolio’s for them.

A very important question that comes up is why someone would even want to spend money on my service? To me, that is a very easy answer. I value someone who is not afraid to do what is right for helping the client at all times. If that involves me loosing that persons business to send them to another firm because I feel they have a better chance at helping them, it is something that I will proudly do. I am a strong believer that if you give unheard of customer service to one person, it will lead to an exponential amount of possible future clients from that one lost clients word of mouth saying how I really value taking care of my clients. Many people have told me that this is what all advisors are offering, but there is a difference between commercials to advertise great customer service and simply doing it and allowing the clients to spread the word for you. I am doing an internship this summer with Raymond James, and in my interview with a 50 year financial advisor there for the firm, he told me that probably a solid 90 percent of their client base comes from referrals rather than any other kinds of advertising. When it comes to giving your money to someone you have never met, it is much more assuring when a life-long friend, or anyone of significance to that person, is telling you that they have an incredible amount of faith that I will be able to take good care of them. Sure, this is a business like all others, and the goal is to make money. I believe that it is not impossible to do the right thing and follow your values all while still being able to make money simultaneously. It is also very important to have enough employees to be efficient while maintaining this family and personal connection with the clients. It is critical to not rush into a hire unless I feel that they are a reflection of my values, meaning, the employees values should line up in a positive way with my own and any other owner in the firm so we are all giving the same genuine customer care and support.

Finally, there are the three minor elements. The first is what I believe to be my most important resource, or what makes my company a better choice than any other in the industry. As I just mentioned in the point above this, my customer service is going to be some of the best and most genuine every seen by a company. If you do something good for someone else, not only does it make you feel good, but it will more often than not allow your company to gain long term trust and maintain clients for a long time. Since in this industry you get paid based on percentages and numbers, if you are able to maintain a long term relationship with a client, or get them to want to give you more money to invest than they otherwise would have, you are still leading the game in the amount of money made. Next is the opportunity that I will tackle next, and I believe that trying to get people to start looking into their financial futures earlier in life (prior to their mid-30’s) could be very beneficial to both the company, and most importantly, the client him/herself. The final point in the three minor elements is what is next for me, and where I would be in the next five years with this venture. I see myself with a growing client base and becoming one of the top financial services firms in the United States. Once I am able to gain the experience needed to become a credible financial advisor, I plan on either taking my own firm to the top, or bringing Raymond James with me as a continued leader operating my own Raymond James firms.

   

Week 11: Reading Reflection

1. "A strategy is nothing more than a commitment to a set of coherent, mutually reinforcing policies or behaviors aimed at achieving a specific competitive goal." This quote from the article is something that I found very interesting. I think that it is a really good idea of what a strategy is.
2. I was not able to come across anything from the article that was very confusing. Some parts of the reading I maybe had to read over more than once to see what the author was trying to say, but I felt like I understood what I was reading about.
3. I guess if I had one question for the author it would be about the connecting innovation to strategy section. My question is pretty broad, but it is how important it is to do this in a business and how it helps the business overall.
4. There was nothing that stood out that I thought the author was wrong about. I enjoyed reading this article.

Week 11: "Amazon Whisper"

The main drivers for my financial advising services revenues are fees from each client that is helped. There are many different things that an advisor can do for their client and the fees all very. I guess if something was to change about my service, it would be the people I target. I think if I could find a way to market towards the younger population and get them interested in planning ahead financially that I could open up even more business in addition to people around 35 years and older. I think that doing this would increase the effectiveness of certain types of financial plans for people depending on what they want to do in the future. This is not something that is found on Amazon because it is a service, but I definitely could see how the article can help you understand in a service or product sales business.

I feel like targeting younger people would be able to create a larger network of clients to work with. Also, and maybe more importantly, it gives me a client potentially for even more future financial goals in the time I am doing business for them which could lead to a closer personal connection as well as maybe more money.

Week 11: My Unfair Advantage

List of 10 resources:
1. Family atmosphere: Many firms say that they have a family atmosphere, but none can really take the amount of time that I will to be more of a friend to the client than anything else. It is really easy to trust your friend to help you with financial situations than it is to hand money to a "businessman".
2. Welcoming office: The office will look like a home versus a traditional business building look to make the clients feel more comfortable.
3. Highly skilled employees: Clients will be able to know that they have very educated and devoted people doing everything they know to reach financial goals with them.
4. "Client comes first" mentality: No other company will take the time to be sure that each person is more than just another client and really take each case seriously.
5. Convenient location: People prefer not traveling long distances, especially for something many would not be excited to do anyways, so if we could make it as convenient for the client as possible over other firms we would have an advantage.
6. Live blog with market updates to educate clients so they know why you may make certain decisions: I cannot think of another firm that would take the time to really educate their clients via blog to keep them up to date easier on what is happening.
7. Often connection to clients: It is very important to keep in contact with you clients so they do not feel forgotten or abandoned. This goes back to the family feel.
8. Events for clients: It is boring always talking about finances with the clients, so I think it would be a good idea to have events to get together and socialize about other things. Again, this ties back into the family feel of my company.
9. Constant education of employees: Education is obviously something very important when dealing with finances, therefore, it is imperative to have continuous education of all employees dealing with clients.
10. Organization Involvement in community: As a family company, it is very important to have the great opportunity to give back to the community. Since advising is to help reach financial goals, why not help the community as a whole reach other types of goals and continue the trend?

My number one resource is my companies family atmosphere. In my other posts, people commented saying how that is not anything different from any other financial advising firm, but I disagree completely. Yes, all firms try to show that they are client first before all, but, it comes down to the root of the actual company culture to really determine if it is a significant difference to sway someone to go to my firm versus another. My values lead me to believe that this resource is what will set me apart in some ways from other firms of the same service. Please feel free in comments to give specific examples of something else that may make my advising service above another.

Week 10: Reading Reflection

This chapter was very interesting to me. I think that it is one of the most important things in owning a business is that you understand how to handle the money to start it as well as keep it going. One thing I enjoyed in the reading is about the budgets and things like that. Budgets are not just something that you need for a business, but also just as an individual. The chapter was rather straight forward to me and I do not have anything that I am really confused about or questions for the author. I am just pleased that I was able to learn a little bit of application to things that you might find in business finance. Things like budgeting and cash-flows are some of the best things to know and definitely cash-flows since that is one of many ways business are valued.

Week 9: My Secret Sauce

1. If I was to really think about what makes me, me and my human capital Id say that I am very friendly, hard-working, dedicated, and other types of things that show that I really care about what I do in my everyday life.

2. The link to my father's recording: https://youtu.be/TMWYvTtPCMM

The link to my mother's recording: https://youtu.be/vTlJYuJl1Ks

The link to my girlfriend's recording: https://youtu.be/5-b645PUFYI

The link to my girlfriend's brother recording: https://youtu.be/nkc5R0JdB4Y

The link to my roommate's recording: https://youtu.be/p5PBwCfuV7A

3. After completing these five interviews, it seems that most of my family and close friends all feel the same about me as I do about myself which is a pretty good thing. I am pretty transparent in my personality so it makes it relatively easy to see what kinds of qualities I have. This was a very interesting group of interviews, and I was happy to hear all of the great things that my friends and family had to say about me.  

Week 9: Reading Reflection

1. One thing that I guess I could say really stood out to me is the great emphasis it seems that online marketing and other forms of new technologies are transforming the way marketing is done overall. Marketing today is definitely not the same as it was, say, ten years ago.

2. During the reading there was not anything really that I found extremely confusing. It helps that I recently took the marketing course so this chapter was essentially a review.

3. One question that I would ask the author of the textbook is very general, but if you are an entrepreneur and you are about to start a business, would you follow these same questions and steps to discover your business plan as you would to seek who you will be targeting to sell your product or service to? This is the only question I really had about this chapter.

4. Lastly, I felt that the reading was very clear and more conceptual with definitions and things like that so I don’t feel that I disagree with anything that I read.

Week 9: Idea Napkin No. 2

My napkin idea is something that most people would not choose to do. It is something that everyone in their life will eventually have to deal with. What is my idea? It is a financial advising service. At some point or another in your life, you will have to decide the best way to invest your money, and just how much you should spend or save. That is my role in the job. I am here to help you make investments and become a part of your family so that you know I am doing everything in your best interest and not my own when it comes to your money.

1. You. My name is Derek, and I am an aspiring financial advisor who is striving for the opportunity to open my own advising practice. What I hope to get out of being a financial advisor is the opportunity to take my knowledge and be able use them to help people live well and grow with their money. It is very important to me that I build a strong relationship with each person I work for so that they are assured that I am working for them and they are not just a dollar sign to me.

2. What are you offering to customers? As I had mentioned before, it is a given that everyone in their life will be faced with financial decisions whether it be having a safety savings account and needing to know how much is enough, to investing in a retirement plan so you do not have to fear outliving your money. My service is to give my educated opinion by using my financial experience and education to help make these life changing decisions.

3. Who are you offering it to? Since money is a large part of everyone's life, I am offering this service to anyone with an income. My clients could be a new family trying to save money for their child to go to college, or an older person trying to make sure he/she can retire comfortably. It is important that people start saving money earlier in life so rather than targeting just the older population, I think it would be beneficial to also target the younger as well.

4. Why do they care? My clients would care because it my service is there to better their lives in any way that I can. I will have a great amount of knowledge in the markets as well as many kinds of financial knowledge to give them that they could most likely not do on their own. Another thing that is of value to the customer is that it takes a lot of the worry out when it is my job to take care of their portfolio rather than them having to deal with work, a family, and any other things that take a lot of devotion on top of taking care of their financials.

5. What are your core competencies? What really sets me apart from the other financial advisors is the amount of time I will take to really get to know the client and how personal I will take each persons situation. Life is about much more than just money and it is a great passion of mine to be able to do what I enjoy and share my experiences with other people and help. This career is a great way for me to meet many different people all while being able to make their lives better as I had mentioned before.

I feel like all of the five elements that I described above came together very well. I think that it was important for me to say how personal I want to be, as well as to describe my knowledge that will be able to do the best job I can for my clients. 

For the most part, I had very positive feedback from the comments. One thing that someone had mentioned was for me to not let my young age hinder my success as an advisor at the beginning of my career. I feel like this napkin idea is a little more detailed to how I am a better choice over competition and I think it is a little more effective than the last.