Alex Clouser- Elevator Pitch No. 2 Assignment 17

For this pitch, I decided to listen to my comments on my other post and I started with a hook instead of my name and I also got rid of my major.

Alex Clouser- Create a Customer Avatar Assignment 18

I believe that my prototypical customer in the retail segment is someone who loves to play video games in their free time, specifically games like Minecraft or SIMs. They tend to drive some model of a mini van or a family SUV such as a RAV4 or Highlander. They normally prefer their cars to be white in color, but also like a navy blue or silver color as well. They tend to watch TV shows like CSI and NCIS because they love trying to figure out who did the crimes. Occasionally, they like to watch game shows such as Family Feud because they like to see if they could win if they were on the show. They usually have 1-2 children, they don't really want a big family but they love children. None of their children are adopted, but they always wished that they would adopt a child, so they adopt a puppy instead. Their favorite books are mysteries and fantasy, as they love the Harry Potter books and are currently invested in the Song of Ice and Fire books after binging every season of Game of Thrones. Their favorite politicians are moderates because they do not believe in little government involvement, but also do not want an overbearing and controlling government. They are about 35 years old on average. They feel about 32, they cannot believe how fast time has flown by. 

What I have in common with my avatar is that I occasionally enjoy watching shows such CSI, Family Feud, and Game of Thrones. I enjoy these shows a lot, but other than Game of Thrones, I have never sat down and watched large chunks of these shows. Another thing that I have in common with my avatar is that I love the Harry Potter books as well ever since I was in 1st grade when I read the first book. I believe that many of these things I share in common with my avatar are a coincidence because many people like these shows and books but have nothing else in common with each other, they are just very popular items.

This is a picture of a white Toyota Highlander that I envision my avatar driving.

Alex Clouser- What's Your Secret Sauce? Assignment 16

1. I do not believe that I am very unique but I do believe that my qualities are what set me apart from many others. I believe that I have strong human capital in that I have an extremely strong will and work ethic. I always give 110% of my effort into everything I do and I am very passionate about anything I work on.

2. I was not able to interview the 5 people who know me best in person as my parents, brother, and sister are all out of the state and my best friend is also out of the state away at college, but I did speak to them over the phone to ask them what makes me different. My parents believed that what sets me apart is my generous heart and kind nature. They believed that this would inspire confidence in me from my customers and also make any future business partners or employees very happy in working with me. My brother and sister both said that my tenacity and sense of humor would get me very far because I am tenacious and will tirelessly work to make my goal a reality, but I can also step back and chill out for a little bit and laugh things off instead of letting them bother me. They believed that this could let me quickly get over small missteps and obstacles in my way that prevent me from succeeding, and get back to work trying to further my goals. My best friend Jacob, whom I have known since birth, said that my qualities that set me apart are my intelligence and my positive outlook on life. Jacob and I have competed against each other since we were little kids, always besting one another in anything whether it be soccer, video games, or schoolwork. He said that my intelligence has always surprised him because I have pushed him to try his very best in school in order to not be beaten easily. He said the same is true of my positive outlook on life as it has always surprised him that even when I am in the lowest of lows, I somehow continue to look on the bright side of things and find some ray of hope in the darkness. He said that these qualities would help me a lot in the struggle to achieve my goals.

3. I believe that I see myself very similar to how others see me. I think that others tend to see more of my emotional traits and I tend to look at my abilities more, as every one of my interviewees mentioned at least one emotional trait of mine, while I focused on my abilities such as my strong will in my reflection upon myself. I believe that what causes these differences is my self image that I want to portray vs. the self image that I actually portray around people I am extremely comfortable with. I agree with all of their assessments, these traits just did not come to mind at first while I was reflecting upon myself. I don't believe that I would any corrections to the list from part 1 because I believe that both parts are a very accurate representation of myself.

Alex Clouser- Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2 Assignment 15

1. I interviewed a manager at a Macy's in a mall in Orlando, my friend Sam who works in retail, and a cashier at Dillard's at the Oaks Mall.

2. From what I gathered with my interviews, all 3 of my interviewees said that they do not really have many alternative options with regards to data collection, as there are not many companies that are capitalizing on this need at them moment. They did describe to me their preferences for choosing a reliable data collection company, however, and said that price was very important as they would not pay more than it would take to internally deal with data collection. They also said that quality matters a lot because they would not want to pay a considerable amount of money for something that is of poor quality and would not benefit them greatly. All of them said that they did not care for style as this product does not need to be flashy or get the attention of everyone. In conclusion, there is more than one factor that is important to my segment, as evidenced by everyone's interviews.

3. When asked how they would prefer to buy this product, all three said that they would prefer to purchase the data collection service in person rather than online because it is much easier to judge the quality of the service and also gives you a sense of the character of the person selling you the service and whether or not they are reliable. They all agreed on this even though they are currently working different levels of the retail business. They all said that they would likely use cash to purchase it because they would rather pay the service in full than pay it back a little bit at a time, even after the service is performed and useful to them. Sam and the Macy's manager are both involved in the purchase decision making process for their respective stores, but the cashier at Dillard's said that he was not. I believe that even though they are varying levels of status in retail, their answer was the same regarding the services because they understand each other in retail and the way that one retail store operates is very similar to another one.

4. After asking my interviewees about their post purchase evaluations for data collection, they replied with varying answers. The manager at Macy's believed that what constituted a good purchase was if the data collection increased sales in the long run and helped to make their marketing and future innovation easier. The manager believed that it would be a bad purchase if the cost to buy the service exceeded the amount it would cost to internally create a data collection system. The cashier and Sam had a  different idea about what makes a "good" purchase. They believed that it is a good purchase as long as it made money, period, no matter relative increase in income compared to the cost of the purchase. They believed that it would be a bad purchase if the service did not increase any of their income or help them at all.

5. In summary, all of my interviewees had similar answers to all of my questions, which I believe is reflective of the similarity of retail from store to store. While they had slightly differentiated answers, the core of their answer was mostly the same. I believe that this makes retail a great market for my product, as was already evidenced by part 1.

6. I learned a lot in my interviews about this segment in relation to my product and discovered that my beliefs in part 1 were only confirmed during these interviews as I was shown once again just how lucrative my product could be in the retail segment. Overall, I believe that most retail stores would think the same way as these interviewees with regards to post purchase evaluation, alternative evaluation, and purchase decision because of the similarity of each retail store to another based on the same general type of market they are accustomed to.

Alex Clouser - Halfway Reflection Assignment 14

1. Some behaviors that I have used in order to tackle this course are things such as working on the assignments a little bit at a time throughout the week so as not to have them pile up. Also, I watch lectures on a higher speed that makes it possible for me to still comprehend what is being said while taking less time to actually watch, leaving more time for my work in other classes.

2. One moment during the past two months when I felt like "giving up" was when I studied very hard for one of my exams and was really disappointed with my grade on the exam. While I did average, I really thought that the amount of study time I put in would help to give me an excellent grade and I was very discouraged. What really pulled me through this was just shaking it off and focusing on working harder for the next exam in order to bring my grade up and to start studying even sooner than I did for this exam. I feel as though I have developed a tenacious attitude through this semester so far and am very excited to see how it helps me in the future.

3. One tip that I would lend to next semester's students is to try to work ahead every night, even just a little bit in order to make sure that this class does not pile up on Thursday nights and Friday mornings. Another tip is to make sure to watch lectures as they are very helpful and if you do not watch them, they pile up very quickly and you will need extra motivation to get through them because of how daunting a task it looks like on paper. A third tip that I would give is to really try and understand and relate each assignment to your own life as it helps in understanding the concepts, but also in understanding yourself and your mindset in relation to that of an entrepreneur. This image is what I would like to say to next semester's students, just keep going and chugging along and you will make it through your classes.

Alex Clouser - Reading Reflection No. 1 Assignment 13

1. I read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. What surprised me the most about this book was how, although it was long, it was extremely entertaining and interesting and I never really got caught up with how long it is. I most admired Steve Jobs' tenacity and sense of innovation when it came to creating new things, it was said that he had a "reality distortion field" because of the way he molded reality to his own will. I least admired the way that Steve handled the situation surrounding his first child, Lisa. He denied that she was his child during the entire pregnancy, later regretting his treatment of the situation and the fact that he could make such statements about his own child. Steve did encounter failure many times in his career, most notably when he left Apple and started his own company, NeXT. NeXT is where Steve made some of the biggest mistakes of his career, but he also learned his lesson from this failure and used it to help Apple when NeXT was bought out by Apple in order to bring Steve Jobs back into the fold.

2. I noticed that Steve exhibited many competencies including his penchant for marketing and innovation, as well as his insatiable hunger for perfection. This was displayed during many parts in his career, most notably through the accounts of some of his employees, which said that he strived for perfection so much that oftentimes he would listen to their ideas, berate them for being stupid, and then they would hear him presenting the ideas a week later. This extremist perfectionism carried into the way that Jobs looked at the world, always seeing the world as black and white, which he is quoted as meaning that people are either "enlightened" or an "asshole".

3. One part of the reading that was confusing to me was when they started talking about technical situations involving the Macs and computers because I do not understand technical jargon that well and was forced to look up some of the more technical terms in order to understand what was being talked about.

4. If I was able to ask two question to Steve Jobs, I would ask: "What made you want to invest in Pixar after you left Apple?" and "What was the moment that made you realize just how successful you actually were?" because I would be very interested to get into his thought process about the decision that made him a billionaire and also I would like to know just what made him actually believe his success for the very first time.

5. I believe that Steve Jobs was very strongly opinionated about hard work and believed that hard work was necessary in order to create the perfect product, as evidenced by his incessant demands that his computers had to be of the highest quality and styles and constantly innovated.

Alex Clouser- Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No.1 Assignment 12

1. I believe that a segment that would exist in my venture's market would be retailers.

2. For my three interviews, I chose to interview an older friend who has experience in retail, a person I worked with who used to be upper management in retail, and a current employee at a retail store.

3. Need Awareness: All three of the people I interviewed had the same problem with data collection; they wanted to increase data collection, but were scared of losing business because of the social stigma relating to data collection and privacy. My friend who has experience in retail, Jimmy, said that his need for data collection becomes most prevalent when trying to determine what items would be more successfully sold if they were on sale and which items he would make more money from by not putting them on sale. I spoke with my old coworker, Rachel, and she described that her need for data collection becomes most salient when trying to decide on future clothing lines to put out in stores based on consumer history and also when deciding on pricing for items based on consumer history of the consumption of similar products at similar prices. A current employee in retail, Mark, stated that his need for data collection stems from trying to figure out which products to market to consumers and to personalize his selling strategy so as to maximize his commissions, instead of trying to market things that people will surely not buy specifically to them.

4. Information Search: When Jimmy encounters his problem, he immediately begins to ask friends and family what they would be more likely to buy more of if it was on sale. He said that he also checks historic sales to see if similar products that were put on sale did well, or would be better suited at full price. Rachel said that she tries to find a solution to her problem through looking back at sales data and history to see which products historically do well enough to warrant introducing a brand new line that would sell well. She said that for pricing, she also does the same thing by looking at historic prices for similar products and using them as a baseline for future pricing. She said that this method is not 100% reliable though because historical data cannot predict what consumer behavior is at this moment in time and there are differing variables that may have been in place back when the item sold well, such as social or economic factors that played a part in the success of the item, which may not be replicated in the near future. Mark looks for a solution to his problem by also asking his friends and family and anyone he can about their preferences, so that he can market more current preferences to people. He also tries to stay up to date on current trends and such so that he can make generalizations about a wide range of consumers and more accurately market to a mass group of consumers, such as young adults buying different and more up to date products than older, retirement age consumers.

5. I learned in these interviews that while many already have solutions in place to deal with these problems that they run into, they are not always reliable solutions. The most common solution to these problems is through the opinions of other people, namely asking friends and family what they think about a certain product, which is not a terrible solution but certainly not ideal as you cannot judge the masses on the opinions of a few. I learned that there is certainly a business opportunity that has presented itself, and that there are customers who are waiting for the solution to come very eagerly. All of my interviewees said that they would invest in a business such as the one I have proposed, as it would save them time and probably be more accurate than their current measures in place.

6. I believe that the retail segment should be my main target because there is so much opportunity for data collection in this segment, as evidenced through my interviews. This segment has great need awareness and the information search solutions that are provided are not as reliable and accurate as they should be. I believe that this creates a perfect market for my opportunity to thrive in.

Alex Clouser- Idea Napkin No.1 Assignment 11

1. I am Alex Clouser, a second-year Business Administration major. Some skills that I have are my communication skills, my work ethic, and my ability to pick things up quickly. If I were to start it, I see this business becoming a huge part of my life as I always give my all in my endeavors and try my hardest in anything I do.

2. I am offering an alternative and more interactive approach to data collection for companies that want to collect data from consumers but are stifled because of the public stigma surrounding data collection.

3. I am offering it to companies that use data collection methods that regular consumers are wary of. My customers all have the shared desire to collect data from their consumers so as to further their products and tailor them more to consumer demands in future endeavors.

4. It is valuable to my customers because they need consumer data in order to successfully further their business ventures and create effective modifications to existing products or to create effective entirely new products that consumers will want to buy.

5. What sets me apart from everyone else is my goal to help small businesses and corporations alike because I see businesses and corporations as the backbone of our economy and believe that without them we would fail as an economy because of the revenue and jobs that they create for our nation. Many people think of corporations, especially, as being money hungry and greedy and do not see the importance of them to our way of life and their impact on our quality of life in our country.

I believe that these aspects fit together because they show that my head and effort are in the right place with regards to this business. It shows that I believe in my product and the success it can bring, with the right resources. It also shows my willingness to make things happen and to not give up easily at the first sign of hardship.