Week 12: Reading Reflection

I enjoyed reading this chapter because it was a good reiteration of management. If I had to say that I was surprised about something it would be that it is even worth saying cons to making a strategic plan. I feel that it is always important to plan or you have no sense of direction. Fortunately, there was nothing in the reading that really confused me. Also, I did not think that anything was wrong about the author’s chapter. I thought that it was a pretty cut and dry chapter about management. If I had to ask one question to the author I suppose I would ask how exactly it is best to take failure and grow from it. For example, if a company fails, what is the best way to bounce back and grow as a company? This was a fun chapter to read and I enjoyed it.

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.