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.

Entertainment Business Finance

Here we have a class that I was not looking forward to going into.  Not that I was afraid of the class but when you think finance you think math.  Yes there is math in Finance and it’s really confusing if you don’t know what you are looking at or doing.  But to be truthfully honest I have learned a tremendous amount of information in this class. The Personal Finance lecture portion of the class was very informative. 

The first goal I wanted to achieve in this class was, wanting to understand how to financially operate and fund a new business.  Did I get this information?  I think so to an extent.  The final project the Pro Forma I believe really opened my eyes to what I could possibly be looking at to open a small audio production company.  A lot of good information this whole month on how to figure everything out from assumptions, to startup costs, and over all income statement with expenses.  I really wish this class was longer or doubled up in this degree program.

Next up is, wanting to know how to prepare finances. Well seeing this goal that I thought I wanted to achieve this month makes me think of this one statement said in class a lot.  Hire an accountant, hire an accountant, and hire an accountant. Now there is a lot of information in this class.  A lot of it was geared towards figuring out the numbers I will need to possibly start my own company.  So in a round about way it prepared me in what it will take me financially to do this business.

Last but not least, I wanted to have a better understanding of Finance.  This class nails it through and through.  To the point, that I am making a better effort of keeping on top of my financials. I am pretty sure, if I can keep mine in good working order.  I’ll be able to handle the up hill battle to get my business off the ground and standing.

Business Storytelling and Brand Development

This class was excellent, I had set-up goals for each class and what I wanted to achieve and looking back through all these posts makes me realize that there was one crazy ride down the path to success.  In this class we learned how to properly brand ourselves and how to correctly do business storytelling.  This was the class that I also created the Logo for my business Soundable Audio Works. 

So Business storytelling and brand development was a very challenging class for me.  Even with a planned surgery thrown into the mix.  So the three things that I wanted to accomplish in this class were.  Learn and have better branding skills.  Did this get achieved?  Yes it did, I was totally unprepared for this. There are multiple things you have to do to brand yourself and on top of that you have to make sure that, that brand/logo is available to use.  Let alone coming up with a name was supper difficult.  Although there was a very informative virtual session that we had in week four that I wished we had in week one. But over all, I did accomplish my first goal from this class.

Second goal I wanted to achieve in this class was too.  Be better at business storytelling.  This was a fun topic to cover and difficult.  I had to do a lot of reading and researching of other brand and how they did their business storytelling.  For me this was difficult because at the time going through this class you also have to be thinking of your own business and what its going to be.  Then you have to tell the story of your business which again difficult because I feel like I had to come up with an idea instantly and then come up with the story to back up the business and the brand.  Overall this goal was achieved.

My last goal that I wanted to achieve from this class was learn how to brand myself.  Which going over the first part of this blog we cover branding skills.  Although I feel that the only way to better brand yourself is to get out there with your current brand and see what and what doesn’t work for your brand. Although I feel the class does give you a good idea of what you can expect.  You are still going to have to have trial by fire and see how it goes.

Project and Team Managment

All right, this was probably the most interesting class that I have had.  Today I will be talking about what my thoughts of this class are. I will be talking about a previous post about three goals I want to achieve from this class and if I achieved those goals or new ones.

Like I said most interesting class.  When your instructor gives you creative freedom on every assignment makes ones ears perk up and go what!  So I was a bit confused at first but came around slowly.  I think the hardest part of this whole class was being creative in how I turn my assignments in.  Not that I couldn’t think of anything.  It was just that there are so many different avenues one can take.  Now on the flip side of this you get a good amount of time to do the assignments, which actually helped me out towards my goal of time management.  I say this because I am a master procrastinator.  Didn’t start out that way but I’m there now.  Most the assignments were easy to accomplished if you did the time and put in the work.  Although I have one last assignment that…. I feel if I didn’t start it and work on it over the past few days it would be impossible to get it all done in one day.  I really enjoyed this class overall.

My three goals to achieve from this class are to have or be better at Project, Team, and Time management. I would like to think that I achieved a better understanding of how the workings of projects and teams should work out in a perfect world.  To fully achieve these goals I think I would have to jump in with both feet and start the production of the project that I have been working and planning the logistics of all month.  For my time management I would like to say I achieved the goal of managing my time better. I’m not one that waits till the last day usually give myself two days to do any homework assignment.  But after past experiences and crunching a lot of work into two days I figure I would stretch out the work over 3 days and try and achieve most the work in the first two days so that my third day is a touch up review day before turning my assignments in.

One of my favorite assignments for this class was the Character building assignment, where we were given five fairly famous people and had to put their skills and backgrounds together so that they all can work efficiently as a team.  Here is the link to my Prezi presentation on how I used my group of people to work as a team. 

I learned a lot about myself and how to read other people and what the meanings of those things are. I have already started using this in my day-to-day life as the information became clear in class and in the go-to trainings.  The biggest challenge I had in this class was the character studies.  But with a better understanding of why we use character studies will help build a good team in the future.

What kind of Leader am I?

Hello all, in today’s post I will be talking about weather I am Maxwell Leader from John C. Maxwell’s book.  Developing the Leader within you or a Greene Leader from the book 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene.  Or am I both and why do I think that.

Hmm I have had a few days to sit and think on this subject for this post. I would definitely believe that I am both.  More Maxwell then Greene.  I am going to point out some chapters in the Maxwell book and some Laws from Greene’s book and give you a better Idea of why I think I am both but more the other then equal or opposite.

I’ll cover a couple chapters from Maxwell and a couple of chapters from Greene.  

Maxwell:

·      Chapter 3 Integrity

·      Chapter 6 Attitude

Greene:

·      Law 38 Think as you like but behave like others

·      Law 9 Win through your actions, never through argument

I believe any good leader needs to have a certain amount of integrity for me to consider them a leader.  So I am going to lead by example I want people to look at me as someone they can count on and that my integrity wont be over come with uncertainties.  I also think that a good leader should have a positive attitude when approaching any project with a team of any size.  I’m not saying when things go sideways and everything hits the fan.  You have to approach the situation with a positive attitude even though the situation is horrible and everyone knows it.

I also believe that to be a good leader you have to have some evil leader traits.  I don’t think I could pull of half the laws in Greene’s book but if given the right situation it’s fight or flight.  Back on topic I choose to believe I follow this law now today even if not in a leadership role or position.  I have so many different thoughts that can be used at any time or place.  But I feel that this law is also playing off Law #34 Master the Art of Timing.  Do as all the others do in a manner or leading but leave your thoughts to yourself until the time is right to do as the reversal of law #1 and that is take over when your master is no longer the star and you have to out shine her/him. With Law #9 I feel should be a law everyone should follow in your career to be a successful leader.  If you prove to anyone time and time again that you can deliver on your word then there is no reason to argue about it.  Unless you are practicing becoming a professional liar and trying to get out of a lie then try to win through argument.

The Road to Mastery

My very first thoughts when going into my mastery program at Full Sail University.  Wasn’t what I would of expected myself to think if you would of asked me 10 years ago where I would see myself today.  Today I see myself as a very accomplish person.  I’ve completed a grueling six years in the United States Air Force.  I have recently completed my Bachelors degree in Recording Arts from Full Sail University and before I even graduated I was starting my Masters in Entertainment Business.

So my intentions started out way before I left the military. A good friend of mine, who also attends Full Sail University, shares the same dream as I. Together we dream that one-day he and I will own and operate our own studio, work with students and local bands, and eventually expand, taking advantage of more opportunities.

My military career ended with that dream, one huge chapter of my life was over.  The transition from solider to civilian was a scary path, it is almost as if everything is brand new.  But with my head held high and with my new found freedoms I ventured back to my home in good old Florida.  It was there that my journey to mastery started. I was home for a couple of months and during that time I was starting my Bachelors degree.  I already knew that I was going to get a Bachelors and Masters degree from Full Sail University, both with the help of my GI bill.

So here I am now, starting my graduates’ degree.  Two years have past by and I’ve accomplished my first goal towards reaching my dream. Although my intentions have been slightly altered, the dream lives on.  Over the next year I hope to accomplish many things.  I want to have a greater understanding of my chosen career field and become a business owner. In order to accomplish this, I need to have something the consumers’ want, and that is where my bachelor degree comes in; this is the first half of my dream.  My mastery intentions are to become a successful business owner, even if it’s just me running the company or I utilize a business partner, I want to know that my first intention was a good one.