Final Business Plan

This was my last class for the Entertainment Business Masters Degree with Bill Thompson.  Bill has been an excellent instructor and has many life experience to share with the class, many are pretty impressive and others make you go. "HA-no way" but its true regardless.  Bill has been an awesome support structure from offering to look over resumes and even give a letter of recommendation.  His eyes light up any time that he has or can help out a former graduate of Full Sail University and I am glad I had the opportunity to be not only in his class but to attend Full Sail University in general.

Final Business Plan class had me sweating.  I can say I'm not one for public speaking but over the last year my fear has not gone away but when it comes down to it, if you practice enough times you will do fine.  I had one goal for this class which was to be able to present a business plan, and I gotta say I nailed it hook, line, and sinker.  In the beginning of the degree program we as students get told that we will be working on a Business Plan that we will present to a panel of people for our final project.  Now I was thinking like 5-6 people that I didn't know possibly investors are coming to grade us on how well we do.  Let me clear things up and fast forward to month 12 in Bill's class.  Our panel was 4 people and they were previous instructors to include Bill and our Program director, who at the time of my presentation was the first time I've met her.  I had practiced my Business plan presentation a million times and was ready to use everything I have learned to make it the best possible.  On the day of presentations I was 5th out of 6 students and wish I was first but regardless I got to see all my other classmates go first I am glad we all had different plans.  I went up and presented flawlessly and while on camera in font of 4 panelists and 5 classmates.

After my presentation Steve from Business Plan Development grilled me on my Target Market and how will I draw more people into my business.  When I say grilled he just asked me a few questions for clarification but it actually helped me out more.  These business plans and presentations are real world stuff that I can take to investors tomorrow and ask for funding if I chose to.

In month one I couldn't wait to graduate and now in month twelve I look back and see all the success that I have achieve and learned. like how to prepare Pro Forma Financial Statements, have a good understanding of Entertainment Branding and Storytelling, to publishing and distribution.  Also learned what it takes to be a good leader.  Along with how to manage team strengths and weaknesses to efficiently start and finish projects. I have also learned a good bit of knowledge on how to do online marketing with SEO and Google analytics. I also have an understanding of Entertainment Law and how it pertains to the Entertainment Industry and the biggest achievement is writing and presenting a complete business plan.

I can now say that I have accomplished something that many people only dream of, I have a Masters Degree, I have also completed another goal in my life and I look forward to working with my future employers in the next chapter of my life.  I want to Thank all my course instructors for sharing their experiences and giving us the guide lines we need to succeed  in life and in our future careers.

Business Plan Development

This class is Business Plan Development and the goal that I wanted to accomplish in this class per what I thought ten months ago is “How to correctly use my knowledge and put a business plan together.”

First off, I want to start off by saying I have accomplished this goal every month.  Not full on business plan but each class leading up towards this class has helped me develop my business plan concept. We also have the book "Successful Business Plan: Secrets and Strategies" to help us along the way.

 This class will take everything you have learned and combined them into the basics you will need to have a basic business plan.   I say basic because there are multiple parts to a business plan.  Our very experienced instructors have gone through and carefully picked each part that is most needed in a business plan that will in the future help us out when looking for investors or financial support from other sources.

I can’t say that this has been an easy month, easy in the since that all of the hard work put into all the other classes has helped in the effort to make putting all the information together a lot easier.  But this month I did a lot of research and analyzing target market and the business market for my business plan.  These actually helped me understand better what I am facing when I do go for gold and start looking to deploy my plan.   

This class has also helped me realize that I have a very strong community already in place in my hometown.  Although it has not been home for me for many years, but I would like to build my business there and become reacquainted with what I once loved as a teen growing up there. Overall I am very excited to be finishing up, I have learned many great things along with meet a lot of great people with many different aspects of industry experience.  I am looking forward to my last class.  I’m sure only my instructors read this blog for grading purposes, but I want to Thank you all really you have spent so many hours sharing your experiences and knowledge and I am luck to have had the opportunity.

Digital Marketing

So lets get into this shall we?  What are my goals for the digital marketing class and what have I learned so far? To be honest there has been a lot of information on digital marketing and it’s a lot to take in but I am working on it.  So what are the goals huh! Well the goals to achieve this month are, in no particular order “Digital Marketing Skills”.  Now remember kids I wrote my goals down for this class eight months ago so I didn’t really know what to put for my goals.  “Get a better idea on how to market my brand” and “ who can I contact if I need help in the future with my brand.”

All right so lets talk about my first goal, with knowledge comes great responsibilities.  So when someone has mad marketing skills they have been using their knowledge and some fail and some make it after a few failures but that’s what life is all about failing and learning.  I can’t say I have mad marketing skills but I would like to and ill be using what I have learned in this class to its full potential.

On to my second goal to be achieved in this class is, getting a better idea on how to market my brand.  Well being this is a digital marketing class the idea of marketing my brand can go beyond Facebook.  I should create a few blogs for the JP brand and then do some SEO (Search Engine Optimization) pretty intense stuff if you don’t know what you are looking at or doing. But to better market my brand I just really need to be working on it night and day. I can also measure my marketing efforts of SEO with Google Analytics and click through rates as well.

On ward to my third goal of this month, whom can I contact if I need help in the future with my brand? I wouldn’t call this a goal much anymore because one can simply do a little bit of research and probably find how to videos and teach themselves anything dealing with marketing.  But in case you really need help with your marketing you can always consult with someone who does marketing.  With a quick Google.com search you can find just about anything you want including my brand ha-ha. Just kidding it’s not out there just yet.

Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution

With every class I like talk about the goals that I wanted to achieve from this class so for this month in Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution my goals that I set for myself are, to have mad media publishing skills, and to understand the process of distribution.

So lets talk about those mad media publishing skills, lets face it, to have mad skills in publishing is to do the process over and over again until you become proficient in the market.  But I can say that I have a better understanding of what media publishing is and a little bit of the history behind publishing from back when they were chiseling words into stones, to the point where now everything is digital and newspapers and magazines keep disappearing of the face of the earth. Digital media publishing was not always around and there are many different methods to digital media publishing. Alvin Toffler even wrote a book pretty much predicting the future and its kind of freaky that he predicted correctly.

Now onto distribution, we all know what this is but what is it really?  I mean apparently if you have any product that needs to be distributed then there are companies out there that will help you out.  But be careful not to get into an exclusive deal with any of these sly guys.  Not saying they are tricky but one thing I did learn in this class is.  If you want to make money it’s best that you have multiple deals with distribution companies.  Entering into an exclusive deal with just one distribution company may sound cool and awesome at the time but the end goal is to make money.  If your product is only being distributed through one company you could be severely hurting your potential income from the one or multiple products you have going through that distribution company.

Overall Kim Craft is an excellent instructor, she is not what one would expect but it is not a bad thing I feel like that gives her the competitive edge in this industry.  I learned a lot of about distribution and Entertainment Media Publishing, and I am glad I had the opportunity to not only meet Kim but have to opportunity for her to teach her trade in the Entertainment Industry.

Advanced Entertainment Law

This is my second class with Cassi Willard, at this point I feel like our instructors almost become family in the since that we see each other 3 times a day but now two months in a row. This post is going over the goals that I wanted to achieve overall in Advanced Entertainment Law.  Those goals were to have a better understanding of entertainment law, what rights do I have, and understand the correct way to fill out forms that I will need for my business.

I would like to first start of talking about my first goal.  Getting a better grasp on entertainment law.  Like really I was really pulling for idea when I came up with these goals but nonetheless I did achieve a better understanding of entertainment law.  There was a little bit of everything from legal terminology, contract law, to covering intellectual property.  There was a lot of valuable information that I will take with me into my business.

The next goal that I want to talk about is what are my rights in the entertainment industry?  I have all the rights in the world but there is a way of getting those rights and most of them are through contracts. Contracts depending on how they are worded will give me the rights I need to do business within my chosen career field.  Also attaining licenses will also help in those rights as well.

The last goal I want to talk about is, understanding the terminology for different forms.  For example Trademark forms, these forms are pretty important to anyone really wanting to start their own business.  There are also State and Federal trademarks that you want to know the difference between.  Which will suit your business better.  Personally I want to do a Federal Trademark because I know I will be doing a lot of business in and out of the state that I plant my business.

I know I had three goals but over the course of my undergraduates degree and this class I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of Entertainment Law but more the business aspect of obtaining licenses and having contracts with certain people and artist within the industry will help boost my business overall.

Product and Artist Managment

This was my first class with Cassi Willard at the time she was the course director for two classes this one and Advanced Entertainment Law which the classes were set up back to back.  I think with the classes being together like they were made connecting with Cassi a much easier process and in a class of only 6 it was a very relaxed atmosphere for learning.

My first goal I wanted to achieve from this class was to have a better understanding of how to Manage Artist. The second goal I wanted to achieve was to have a better understanding of Product management.  So here we go lets begin.

So let me talk about my first goal.  Having a better understanding of how to manage an artist as an artist manager. There are many aspects one has to look at when they want to represent and manage an artist.  One is the fit does this artist fit me and can I provide what the artist needs from me.  If the answer is yes to both those answers then take the leap and manage that artist. I also learned from researching other artist managers that you have to be pretty much cut throat in this industry. If you see an artist that already has a manager but you also notice that the artist is not getting the full potential because that manager is inexperienced or just crappy in general.  Don’t be afraid to go up there introduce yourself and give them a pitch or invite them to lunch so that you can talk business.  I also learned the different rolls there are in the artist’s team that is also helpful and could possibly lead to a possible job career.

Here we go off to my next goal.  Having a better understanding of product management.  From learning what I have over the course of the month that there are certain things you want to look at when packaging you product or naming that product.  It needs to be right for you and your business.  Also planning out time and deadlines to if your product is a service.  I have learned there are many different ways to package a product or service and would like to implement some ideas later down the road.

Negotiation and Deal Making

Here is a class in which I had fun and learned a lot about the topic of deal making and negotiation. Today I will be covering what I thought about this class and what were the goals that I wanted to accomplish from the class as well.

My first goal to get out of this class is negotiation skills.  On the first day of class we were told the only way to get better at negotiation was to practice, and even watch or listen to negotiations to see how other people apply different tactics or deploy dirty tricks towards the other party.

My second goal I wanted to achieve from this class is deal-making skills.  Just like negotiation these skills take time to hone in and get right. Just like negotiation, deal making takes practice but more so actually just goes towards any negotiation you will have to make a deal somewhere.  

The last thing I wanted to achieve from this class is how to put these two things together and make them work for me in a negotiation.  But when it comes to negotiation you also have to analyze the people in which you are negotiating with.  Not all negotiations are easy.  Even with the mock negotiations temps rose up and people were getting upset with each other over money.  There are a whole lot of things out there that could make you rabbit hole your negotiation, which can turn out bad for both situations.  This would probably be the time that you would want to bring in a mediator to the negotiation to help the two parties over come their differences and hopefully come to an agreement.  Our mediation mock negotiations were fun.  Vary difficult to say the least as a mediator needs to stay neutral in the whole negotiation it is hard not taking sides.