19A – Idea Napkin No. 2

1) You. Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? specifically, regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?

I am currently enrolled for the online BA in Business degree at UF. I work full time as a Sr. Talent Acquisition Advisor for a $17 Billion automotive company that is recognized by Fortune as one of the best companies to work for in the US – I’ve had this job since September 2016. I spent 6.5 years as a headhunter, with the last 3.5 of those years before joining my current company helping a company in Chicago expand into the South Florida Market. I was the first hire in South Florida and built the office into a team of 12 generating $2.5 million of revenue yearly before I left. I see this opportunity as a way to eventually run my own business. With the 6.5 years as a headhunter for recruiting agencies and the 3.5 years now on the corporate side, I feel I have the experience needed to start my own business. 

2) What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs).

I am offering customers a way to grow their revenue by improving how they hire. My firm would train their employees, redesign their hiring processes, and help them select the best technologies needed to have an effective talent acquisition program.

3) Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common?

In general terms, I’d be offering this to any companies who want to grow their revenue by hiring better people. More specifically, companies that have current challenges hiring and retaining top performers due to limitations with their people, processes, and technologies would be my target customer.

4) Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe it is valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service.

They will care because my solution will have significant long-term ROI for them. My firm would not be coming in for a one-time fix. We’d be positioning the companies to have sustained success after our engagement is over. My firm would be providing value like the Chinese proverb "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." I feel companies will care, especially now with the COVID-19 financial impacts because they will want to save money longterm by hiring the best employees. If companies are able to pay the upfront cost for my service, they will absolutely not only save money but also generate more revenue long term. 

5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has?

I personally already have 6.5 years as a headhunter in South Florida where I acted as an external consultant to companies who were not able to recruit for specific positions. I had to negotiate contracts with leaders from Fortune 500 companies down to family-owned small businesses in which I provided a custom solution to fill their positions. I am skilled and influencing and changing business behaviors by leveraging data and getting emotional buy-in.

In addition to these five elements, please spend a paragraph evaluating whether you believe these elements fit together or whether there are aspects of your business concept that are weaker / out-of-joint with the others.

I feel my experience and career/education choices have positioned me well to tactically execute on this business opportunity. Additionally, I have worked very hard over the last 3.5 years to grow my emotional intelligence. I have been a part of a start-up environment before when I was hired to start a South Florida office for a company in Chicago. I know what it takes to enter a new market segment and how to scale processes and teams to meet business objectives. I have established relationships and an established brand in South Florida, so I feel I am positioned as well as I can be.

Feedback Memo:

So I only received one feedback comment from my peers for Idea Napkin No. 1. The two main points from that feedback are that my experience certainly aligns with my business idea and that companies who are able to pay for the service will do so due to the longterm value. I added some of this feedback to why companies would care. They will care because they will save money by hiring better. And in certain roles that are revenue generators, they will be able to grow their revenue more as well.

17A – Elevator Pitch No. 2

What stood out to me the most about the feedback from my first pitch was that I had a solid delivery. There was some feedback to be more specific with what my startup does and to clarify a statement I made about technology that seemed to come out of nowhere. Another piece of feedback was to further define how a bad hire actually costs a company the $114,000.

I took all of that feedback and added in a couple of clarifying statements, specifically defining/quantifying a bad hire while also being more specific with what my startup consulting firm will do. Even though I received positive feedback on my delivery, I feel I smoothed it out and had more energy while also shortening it. I feel the whole pitch is improved from the first one and I would be confident actually pitching this to a potential customer. I am certainly interested to see if the improvements I think I made are actually seen as improvements by whoever reviews it.

18A – Create a Customer Avatar

My ideal customer is a 42-year-old female Director of Talent Acquisition for a company that has between 100 and 200 employees. She has 15 years of professional Human Resources and Talent Acquisition experience and currently manages a team consisting of 2 Talent Acquisition Advisors and 1 Talent Acquisition Coordinator. She is an avid reader of books focused on developing her emotional intelligence and she attends group fitness classes at Orangetheory at 5:30am every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. She drives a 2019 Lexus RX SUV, which is perfect for her to transport her 2 kids to school and sports activities on the weekend. She loves watching reality tv shows in order to completely disconnect from the daily challenges her job brings. She was an avid support of Amy Klobuchar before she dropped out of the presidential race.

I have several things in common with my ideal customer. First, we both have been successful in our Talent Acquisition careers. This will create instant credibility and a common language between us when I meet with her. Secondly, we are both focused on self-development - specifically with our own emotional intelligence. We recognize that the more our emotional intelligence grows, the more impactful and influential we will be in our people-focused roles. I think we have these things in common because it speaks to the type of people who are successful in our industry.

16A – What’s Your Secret Sauce?

My Human Capital:

• I feel I am skilled at building relationships with all types of people.
• I feel I am strong at influencing peoples behaviors and decisions.
• I feel I am a contrarian and always bring new ideas to discussions.
• I feel I am able to use my emotional intelligence to navigate tricky situations.
• I feel I am action oriented and can quickly identify a solution to a problem.

Five Interviews:

• Interview 1: Katie Jones - Katie feels I can use my energy and soft skills accurately assess people and situations.
• Interview 2: Jennifer Furbino - Jennifer feels I am a strong relationship builder and that I am able to share my knowledge in a way that doesn't come across pushy.
• Interview 3: Mayra Kotch - Mayra feels I do what is right no matter the circumstance and that I live by my convictions. She also feels I bring humor to people's lives.
• Interview 4: Sergio Sibaja - Sergio feels I am able to flex my personality to get along with people at all levels in all circumstances to build strong relationships. He also feels I am able to identifying opportunities.
• Interview 5: Jason Holland - Jason feels I am skilled at deconstructing problems down to the core cause in order to create the correct solution.

Reflection:

I feel the observations made by the five colleagues I interviewed were extremely accurate and align with my own thoughts. I am glad that my colleagues feel I am able to build relationships and solve problems, especially since it is a core part of my current job and is important moving forward for my business idea. I would not make any corrections to my list based on the feedback from the interviews. 

15A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

I interviewed two business leaders and one HR leader. The Two business both communicated that an alternative to my services would be for them to simply engage more external recruiting firms to help fill their open positions. Their mindset was more tactical about quickly filling the positions and potentially saving overhead costs by outsourcing their talent acquisition function. The HR leader said she would send her team to more industry conferences and pay for skills training and certifications in order to increase the skills of her team.

All three interviewees communicated that ultimately, their CFO and Procurement team are responsible for negotiating and making final buying decisions. They will typically go through an RFP process to get competing bids and demos from competitors in the same space. They will then build out internal requirements of the need they are hoping the vendors can solve and then rate the bids and demos in key areas in order to come to a final business decision. Once the decision has been made, they then move forward with the implementation. Part of their agreements include yearly evaluations of expectations versus outcomes in order to see if they need additional vendor support. They do pay for yearly support through an annual licensing agreement.

I would say this segment has a solid process in place to buy a product/select a vendor. I believe this is the case out of necessity since each interviewee came from medium-sized companies that are growing, which means they are constantly evaluating new partnerships to help continue their growth.

14A – Halfway Reflection

Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course?

• The main behavior I have used to keep up with the requirements of this course is sticking to a schedule. I use one hour every Sunday to plan my week out. I group my week into time-blocks based on the importance of what needs to be done while considering deadlines. If I see that my week is filled with activities that are not value added, I remove those and focus on what is important.

 

Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this?

• So, I honestly have never felt like giving up in this course. If anything, as each assignment has come and gone, I have grown more invigorated at continuing to move forward. It does help that I commit to my schedule, so I am never caught off guard by a deadline and I am never working from behind.

Three tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset'?

• Don’t lose focus.
• Work ahead at every possible opportunity.
• Have a growth mindset so you will truly learn from this class.

13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

1) I read about Steve Jobs:

What surprised you the most?

• What surprised me the most was how singularly focused Steve Jobs was to make Apple products an extension of the user. He truly felt that people could change the world by using Apple products.

What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?

• I honestly admire his conviction. He made many unpopular decisions at the time, some worked out and some didn’t, but he remained steady based on how strong his convictions were that he made the correct decisions.

What about the entrepreneur did you least admire? 

• I am a big family man and have extremely strong friend relationships. I did not like how Steve at many points in his life prioritized work above all personal relationships. There certainly were some negative consequences as a result.

Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

• Yes, he encountered adversity and failure multiple times. When he did, he always got to a point of picking himself back up an using it as a chip on his shoulder to improve and get back what was his.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited?

• The best competency I noticed was his ability to inspire. He was gifted in communicating his vision and getting others bought in, even though it meant they would be going against the grain and would have to sacrifice so many personal things while working on his projects.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

• I don’t believe any part was confusing to me. There were a few parts, related to some decisions of how he approached certain situations that negatively impacted his personal relationships, where I was sitting there questioning why he was making those decisions. But it wasn’t confusing when you understand who he is, it was more contrasting to how I would have done it, which caused me to question why he made some of those decisions.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

• Would you do it all over again the same way knowing how/where you and Apple end up today? I’d be curious about this because by every measure he and Apple were/are successful, but there was a lot of heartache along the way.
• Can I work for you? This is obviously self-serving, but I’d love the opportunity to be around him if he was still alive.

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

• I think his opinion of hard work was if it wasn’t hard, impactful, and a passion of yours, you shouldn’t be doing the work.