Lesson 7 Entrepreneurial Journal

Lessons Learned:

I enjoyed the story about Stew Leonard and the sour eggnog, where in the end he decided "the customer is never wrong."  I'm not sure I agree with this totally, but I know there are many stores who follow this policy.  I do think in today's society there are customers who take advantage of that policy and who are plain rude.  I think there are ways to to tell the customer you are sorry they had a bad experience without telling them they are right, and you can appease them at some level, but I don't know that I believe "the customer is always right" mentality.  I learned from the JetBlue reading that you don't necessarily need to offer everything a customer could every need in your business, just the things that really matter most to them.  The personal television concept was brilliant and gives passengers some say as to what they engage in on their flight.  Something I learned this week is that culture is part of the company's brand.  I have always thought that culture was more of an internal idea in terms of how your company operated from the inside.  But I can see how the Zappos culture of top notch customer service plays into the branding of the company and if one of the reasons people would choose Zappos.  I learned how important customer loyalty is to the bottom line of a business.  I didn't realize the cost differential of retaining a customer versus finding new customers.  It makes sense to try to keep your current customers satisfied.  I can see where it can be difficult to get employees invested in the importance of customer loyalty when they don't have a vested interest in the company.  Perhaps if they were vested financially with rewards-based bonuses that would help.

$100 Challenge:

This week was fun with my $100 challenge.  I created a Facebook page for my business: https://www.facebook.com/documentsdoneright.  I shared it on my Facebook feed and asked some of my friends to like my page.  The next morning I had a typing job to type a recipe book for someone.  I was pretty excited to have immediate success with that page.  I hope to generate more business through this page.  Financials:  Total Revenue $70; Expenses $0; Net Profit $70.