My journey to obtain my masters degree has been a challenging yet intriguing journey. I have pushed myself past my limits time and time again to ensure I met deadlines and kept the GPA I desired. When I first decided to enter the program, I knew I was going to learn something, but I had no idea I would learn as much as I have in such a short amount of time. In this year, I had learned how to develop a business plan, marketing plan, and executive leadership just to name a few. During this post and recap, all my courses and what I’ve learned.
During my first month, I took Mastery: Personal development and Leadership and I learned a lot about myself as a leader. In the text Mastery by Robert Greene, he discusses discovering your Life’s task and what the keys are to mastery in this area. This class showed me how to understand what is expected of me as a leader and how to further develop my leadership skills.
This course also taught me how to deepen the mentoring dynamic with others under my leadership. I got to explore different tactics to help develop my team members and assist them in honing in on their individual leadership skills. This course started out the program on a high note and helped me understand what it takes to master a task once you start your journey.
In month, two I took Executive Leadership, which introduced me to an entire new view on how executives lead. Both textbooks compare and contrast the difference between soft approaches and stern approaches in business. In the 48 Laws of Power, rule number 28 states to enter action with boldness. Being that I am a female to in a male dominated industry, I learned that I have to enter this industry with boldness and have a different determination for myself as well as my team in order to make a real move in this industry.
From the text Developing the Leader Within I learned that there would be situations where I will have to take a calmer approach to certain situations that call for a certain type of finesse. Maxwell is all about knowing when to take the high road and trying to understand effective problem solving. This course was a real eye opener and I am applying what I have learned every chance I get.
In month, three I took Project and Team Management. This course was all about building effective team and management. I learned about conflict resolution, which has helped me a lot in managing my team to keep the drama to a minimum. The main project for this course showed me how to take different personalities and blend those personalities to achieve a common goal.
During this course, the instructor had the class do a DISC assessment in order to give us a more in depth look at our own personality. From this assessment, I learned that I have a very dominating personality. I also learned that I have a very strong inner motivation to create, bring new ideas to the table, and handle pressure well all while striving for excellence. This course gave me a lot of new ideas to implement in my business and my team and I can honestly say this course was amazing.
Month four got into the real meat and potatoes of this program. Business Storytelling and Branding Development taught me all about telling your company’s’ story and branding your company. During my initial overview of this course, I thought I would just learn a few key things about branding, but I learned about creating your brand’s identity and what stories keep consumers coming back.
This course taught me how to conduct market research and build an effective and interesting brand story. In just one month, I felt that I learned years of valuable information. Mr. DeGillio’s personal knowledge of branding gave use an in depth looks into the world of branding and what tactics real business owners are using to brand their companies. The 22 Immutable laws of Branding textbook was a great read and the information I obtained from this book has helped me understand the importance of branding.
Month five I took Business finance and I will admit I was a bit intimidated going into this class because I knew everything would be brand new to me. After my first week I dove into my textbook and all the dots connected. I learned about investments, cash equivalents and different formulas to calculate common shares, ROI’s and Net profit margin as well as a few other key things needed for business finance.
Though I enjoyed the program in its entirety, I would have to say this was one of my favorites. The amount of material I learned blew my mind and I started to apply what I learned immediately. The textbook Rich Dad Poor Dad showed me the difference between assets and liabilities and outlined the mentality of those who are rich versus the mentality of those who are poor. This book gave me a lot of inspiration and helped me truly understand how to obtain financial literacy.
Month six marked the midway point of the program and I took Negotiation and Deal –Making. Even though I learned different tactics for negotiations and deal making this was one of my least favorite classes of the program. We had an assignment where we paired up with a classmate to conduct a mock up negotiation between artist and manager. In this project, I learned how to draft a contract and what details should be enlisted in a contract. I also learned different personalities of the negotiator.
This course taught me about objective criteria, mutual benefit, and underlying interests of each party. These lessons allowed me to know what tactics I would need to use when entering any type of negotiation. The most interesting topic I learned was game of theory. In Game of theory, you utilize the use of probability and research to foresee the outcome of a negotiation. This was a very interesting class and I did learn a lot.
In month, seven was Product and Artist Management. In my initial overview of this course, I just thought the course would briefly explain management to give me a look at what managers do. During this course I learned about the day-to-day activities that a manager is involved in such as planning of an artists career and different tasks they take on to ensure an artists success.
Product management is totally different from artist management. A product manager focus lies solely on the physical product. Product managers ensure and that a product is maintained on the market or that the product is market ready before entry. I learned how to drive business results; deliver results through people manage multiple priorities. Overall, this class allowed me to explore different aspects of the industry and showed me how to utilize everything to my advantage.
In month, eight I took Advance Entertainment Law. This course showed the different legal aspects of the industry from copyright infringement to the different product categories trademarks and how to fill out registration forms. In this class, I learned the difference in product marks and service marks as well as got to research real cases.
Learning the do’s and don’ts of what to do legally has helped me avoid common mistakes that new entrepreneur make when entering the industry. This course was structured to put you in real world experiences that will teach you how to handle situations if you are ever sued or brought up on legal charges. Though we were advised to get legal counsel this course helped you understand the terminology that will be used as well as showed you how to handle small things yourself.
In month, nine it was time for Entertainment Media Publishing And Distribution. This course was all about getting your music out using different platforms and P.O.D sites such as Cd Baby. I learned how to create a professional press kit, and pitch query letters to publishers.
Learning what a query pitch letter consisted of and how to word the letter was a great trait to learn. Your pitch includes a sizzle line in which is used to grab the readers attention and draw interest. This class made me research different P.O.D sites in which I then and compared and contrasted the pricing and benefits of each site. After this course, I was ready to get my artists music into online stores and am currently working on a release for April in which I will utilize the tools I learned for this course.
In month, ten I took Digital Marketing. This class blew my mind. I had no idea that marketing called for vast amounts of market research and SEO know how that I came to find out. I got the opportunity to learn all about Google Analytics and install it on my blog to track results.
In this course, I learned how to develop a marketing plan for a specific product release, which helped me create a marketing plan for my artist Hypeman upcoming album release. Using what I learned for this course, I now have a marketing plan that consists of market research and different tools such as email marketing, and social media tools we use to market the product. This class was great and gave me the tools needed to further my business efforts.
I month, eleven I took business plan development. This course took everything I had learned in previous classes and helped me implement them into my business plan. This class pushed me to have late nights that called for research, research, and more research to ensure I had census data and statistical numbers of the industry.
This course was another favorite of mine due to the fact that it made me act as a professional and create solid content. After some long hours and critique from Mr. Burhoe I know how a business plan that can be used to obtain funding. Knowing the use of the one-minute pitch has allowed me to gain interest from potential investors and solidify my company direction.
As the program came to a close in Final Project: Business plan I feel that I am prepared to enter the entertainment business world with the knowledge needed to succeed. This course was all about the final business plan. This class took this year of course work and brought everything full circle.
All the resources made available by Mr. Thompson helped me get everything needed in my business plan to make it professional and grab the interest of investors. After everything I have learned this year I am sure that upon entering the industry that I will be able to become a serious competitor. I am currently waiting to meet with a family member who is interested in investing in my company after I presented him with my business plan. I am so grateful for all the things I have learned, and plan to take full advantage of this knowledge as I move forward in my career. I would like to thank each instructor as they all gave me valuable information that I am confident will help me achieve my dream of becoming a viable business owner.
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