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Week 4 Mastery Journal Program Reflection 12th Post

As I gear up to walk the stage I want to take a moment to reflect on my final course in this degree field. My business plan final project course has been amazing to say the least. It may just be the utopic feeling drifting around finally finishing my last class. It might be an understatement to say this this is, if not one of, the most important course in my degree path. It is the culmination of all the courses and also the construct of what will ultimately be what we pitch as our grand scheme. It has to not only me actionable but feasible as well. Continuing from last month’s course, it seems this material is so important that It takes place over two courses.

Now I would be remiss if I failed to cover all of the supplementary materials that this course offers. I am elated for the instruction of how to put together a business plan and even the additional training aid offered afterwards that makes constructing a business plan even easier. In the second week, we were given a collection of entrepreneurial websites. One of them did just this. All throughout the last 4 weeks, we are given narrated lectures that contain tips and tool for landing a job after school. I must say that the last Go To Session was the one I waited patiently for. There were so many tips on searching for industry jobs that my head nearly burst.

I can’t state how much of a learning experience this has been. I have friends at work that tell me that getting a degree is useless and that I could’ve learned all this material on my on with YouTube or Google. When I’m honest about it, there material that I have been put onto that I would have never thought to research or have known about. It is also about the connections. Professor Thompson has made himself available as someone that student can contact now and even after they are no longer students. I am sure this is the same for many of the other faculty. All in all, this was a great course and an exhilaration to boot.

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3.4 Executive Leadership Mastery Journal 2nd Post

Up on reading these two books, I have discovered a lot about myself and my leadership style. Before there were many attributed about myself that I thought didn’t exhibit the best practices of a leader and up to a certain point, I was slightly ashamed of them. For the majority, of my journey to a leader, I always believed that what I now know as Maxwell’s philosophy was the best composition of a leader. After reading 48 Laws of power by Greene, I now realize it not always the most beneficial practice to look out for everyone else. Maybe the old adage, it’s not where you are in the race, but where you are when you reach the finish line. That best describes this journey of leadership. With that being said I consider myself 70% Greene and 30% Maxwell.

The reason I see myself as more of a green leader is because a majority of his laws define how I feel you should act as a leader. For instance, whenever you are a leader in a real-world application selling a good service or idea, it is always a competition or race to impact. This is where learning to use you enemies come into place. You must move with the perception that you are running a business not making friend. Laws likes like Always say less than necessary and learn to keep people dependent on you may seem deceitful but in the long run you have to expect that everyone expects to make it to the top at the expense of someone else. I do not want to be that expense. One must pose as a circle of faces with their true self at the center always pose as the face that is most beneficial.

All should not be done in a deceitful manner. As I said earlier, I am partial to some of the components in Maxwells’s book, such as Serving People and Personal Growth. As you are offering something to the public, you are less likely to get repeat business if your clients feel ripped off. I believe you should cater to the services that make their lifestyles easier. In my opinion Maxwell’s mechanisms reflect outward resolution expressed in an inward manner to improve leadership. Greene Law are of inward resolve of how to be a leader with outward implementation. Very few of Greene’s Laws center solely upon the leader.

References

Greene, R. (2000) The 48 Laws of Power [eBook]

Maxwell, J. C. (2019, Jaunary 8) Developing the Leader Within You (Nashville, TN) HarperCollins Leadership

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2.2 Mastery Journal 1st Post: Inspirational Post

This is an interview from J. Cole, a music artist in the Hip Hop Genre. I resonated with his viewpoint so much it was scary. Most people in the United States find them selves working a job they feel imprisoned by for several decades just to make ends meat. In retrospects, a dramatic portion of US working citizens are not Happy at work. Roughly two-thirds are disengaged according to Gallup State of the American Workplace (Parker, 2018). “Employees who are not engaged may be passively going through the motions without energy or passion, and are unsatisfied with their work or workplace” states Parker. According to J.T. O’Donnell, “We want people to be impressed with us. It gives us a temporary feeling of happiness. The problem is we end up making career choices to impress other people so we can feel that fleeting rush of validation”. This reasoning is almost identical To Robert Greene’s Master – Avoid the False Path (Greene, 2012). In short, Most people involve themselves in dissatisfying activity for Recognition which is what Cole goes on to state.

What makes his response so inspiring and motivational is that it is unadulterated, unapologetic, and rawly honest. It builds up the bricks to the statement that true satisfaction lies in doing what is satisfying in life. You can consider it Creative Cognizance. It peaks at the type of behavior that could turn around societies shattered viewpoint, should we head his words and other with thoughts just like Cole’s.

References

1. Dimple Monroe. (2016 Mar 14) J. Cole On Point In Interview [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v1UJpYNAww

2. Greene, R. (2012). Mastery. [eBook Version]. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

3. O’Donnell, J.T. (2018). I Spent 15 Years Studying Why People Hate Their Jobs. This Is the Top Reason. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/jt-odonnell/how-this-1-question-can-make-you-choose-wrong-career.html

4. Parker, P. (2018) 5 Reasons Why Most People Aren’t Happy at Work. Retrieved from https://www.biospace.com/article/car0-5-reasons-why-most-people-aren-t-happy-at-work-/

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4.3 Mastery Assignment BPD  11th Post

Not surprisingly enough, this class fell right in line with what I expected to be included in a Business Plan Development Class. Naturally, expected to go through great lengths to construct a workable map of my business plan. Everything from the 1 minute pitch (which I had experience in from working real estate) was a great attribute that everyone needed to have ready. The great thing is that if students truly focused on what business they wanted to start. A great deal of the plan is already done. I found myself evaluating real life facilities to see if they could accommodate a studio and an office area. A lot of basic aspects like ownership structure, barriers, and opportunities were a great start to the course because these are the type of things that will lead to the decision of whether each student dream business is feasible or not and it also evaluates how much we are all willing to put into the initial stepping stones of that business.

I’d say the third chapter of week two is where my interest was piqued by a business a constraint that I never considered; I never even stopped to consider sales mechanism, my team organization, or my financial controls. We all can have this be dream built up in our head and the whole travel can be derailed by the thought of who’s going collect the money. To be a business entrepreneur, you can be afraid of business. This means looking at your financial controls or your advisors in distribution and inventory control.

Week three was definitely the start of something I thought would be overwhelming. In fact, I am still confused on some of the tabs in the excel spread sheet but it was important to do the analysis of my business to pinpoint where I lacked knowledge. Namely, I won’t find myself managing a building until I learn how to manage a team of employees. Between the readings and financial spreadsheets, I feel as if I’ve crafted a well understood business plan, identified my shortfalls and I am well on my way to the first structure steps of opening a company. The business plan assignments provided more than what was necessary to design the bare bones of my record label. I learned many things this month and would say this type of information is invaluable.

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3.4 Mastery Journal - EMP 10th Post

My ultimate goal for this course was to learn and create material that catered to distributing material based on my musical career. I feel I more than accomplished that goal. The literary objects that were presented during this course I feel furthered that objective. The guide crafted by Professor Craft was immensely helpful being that my ultimate goal is to run a corporation with division in music, film, and game. My added item to my webpage this month was my resume. I felt this was very well incorporated into the lessons that I took away from this course. This month has been simply about addressing professionals and pitching my creative content to them. Even though I’ve been fond of self-publishing, the guide provided much helpful information on my rights and the process of licensing my music as well as the importance of joining a performing rights society. Many of the questions answered in the week three assignment surprisingly convinced me to read up kore on the topics. One of the biggest lessons learned through this course was how to create and effective Electronic Press Kit. I now imagine if I combine an EPK with my resume, a query letter and an elevator pitch – most of the material I’ve derived from this course, I feel I have a really good shot at landing a position or an Agent to help further my career. There is one more week in this course. I am ecstatic about what may come out of the Marketing and Business Strategies portion of this course. I am two months away from graduation from the degree field and I feel that that is when the real work will begin. Although I am nervous, I am also excited because I feel each and every course has provided me will skills I can take forward into the working world… two more classes to go.

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4.3 Mastery Journal 9th Post

First, I’d like to say that this course has been immensely helpful – if for no other reason, because I have discovered an area where I can research situational data to help be better understand how litigations work, are decided, and what and how to protect myself in these instances. I would even go as far as to say that this course should be moved to earlier in this degree outline along with branding. 

The material we have learned here in this course I feel is among some of the essential basics when it comes to prepping your business for branding and recognition. For instance, the IP audit helped me to lay down the outline of what assets that define my business are important and how to go about protecting them. Slogan, logos, names; they are all investments and should be treated as such. The literature that we receive and the help we get from the instructor is not notch I feel. 

Sadly, I’d wished I contacted her to inquire about real world information I might need. I’ve come to recognize that the Full Sail Faculty are a great yet for some reason untapped resource. Moving along to week three, the legal documents will be a tremendous help. I actually got to the point that I filled out the address of a building I would like to work out of in the future. I assume that I will have to fill out 1 of each of these forms before I graduate. Lastly, for this week I found the discussion post informative. Seeing as each of us will either have a new website or be revamping an old website during this degree course, it’s to know how to protect them. 

Strangely, this has been one of my more satisfying classes even though it had a lot more writing than usual. I feel as though as though at the end of this course I can: create a logo and studio name, trademark them both, generate a website, and protect my domain name. Not to mention, one of the most underrated hidden gems came at the very beginning of the course, the interview with Julle Milham. She went over some awesome information. As I said, this was an amazing and very helpful course.

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4.3 Mastery Journal 8th Post

It’s not that I don’t normally learn from the lessons in school but this course was especially informative. There were many lessons learned throughout this course in the readings. The most special lesson involved analytics and creating more of an intimate relationship with my audience. In the interview with the panel, I learned a valuable lesson on how to assess the biggest areas of success with my fan base and how to capitalize.

Week 3 helped me to really determine how to pick my audience. It’s one thing to construct an experienced based on the generally prevalent cities like Los Angeles, Miami and Atlanta. It is a completely different thing to pinpoint where the greater percentage of your fans are, determine factors like gender, race, household income, spending habits and other demographic habits and then use this knowledge to fashion a precise and specific approach to target these individuals. You may get discouraged and feel as though there are no tools that exists to help you in this manner. It’s refreshing to know that not only are their tools that exist, but they’ve been utilized by individual that have seen real success.

The asynchronous lectures have worked well at allowing me to formulate some of the thoughts I have in my head about managing products and artists. A manager must have the type of mentality that says, “hey I represent a business.” I realize what an agency can do better to represent me. Honestly these were the best components of the course. Originally, I thought to myself, I don’t have much material to pull analytic reports from. The truth is as an artist, if you can’t pull analytics using any of the programs we learned about, you aren’t doing enough to engage your core clients. This course was one of the best attended since being in this degree program and I hope that with the last few months I have left, I can implement some of the material I’ve learned to further myself as an artist.

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3.3 Journal Reflection Assignment 7th Post

This month’s course based on negotiation is a tremendous resource to someone like me going into the entertainment industry. Where it is not that impactful as far as my original timeline objective for this month, upload written music, it does generate an impactful presence. First off, without stating the obvious, as a producer, record label owner, and a music publisher, I will be involved negotiating hundreds of different contract stipulations without exaggerating. This goes from negotiations managing my pay, to publishing deals, to distribution deals etc. With human to human interaction scarce without the actual professional operating environment, it is necessary to perfect these negotiating skills or at least have so contact using them in feasible applications. It is not as though I’d fail without these skills in the music industry, but I know I’d be taken a lot less serious among my peers.

I also feel reading the several different literature options and even the simulation in Week 2 provide an overview of what techniques and experience are important in the idea of negotiating. I will admit, reading the books without the physical application to aid would be difficult for me. It’s similar to reading a manual on how to build something and then trying to build it. Nothing is accomplished if you just read the manual, and reading the manual in its entirety and then attempting to build may be confusing. If just build the item on the fly there’s a 50/50 chance you may complete the project correctly although you could miss vital steps or you may fail entirely and have to resort to what is known in negotiation as your BATNA. The most empowering way is to read your material in conjunction with practicing all of these learned skills we are practicing.

Lastly as I mentioned, although you can’t perfect your mastering attempt, it is nice to have a simulator to walk you through the process. I’d say the best option incorporated into this course are the options to practice these skills in semi real setting with classmates who are learning the process just as I am. I feel as though I’ve developed a lot during this course and I wait to see what else is offered on my journey to Mastery

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4.4 Mastery Journal Assignment 6th Post

As this course comes to an end I’d like to take the time to say I loved the interaction and knowledge that I received in this course. My fellow peers in this course gave an amazing amount of feedback and helped me established a new chapter in my professional mastery journal. If I was motivated before, my energy and tenacity are in over drive now. I even met fellow students that I would like to collaborate with on future projects.

I would have to say this course helped me the most with my Digital Portfolio goal (to publish some of my own personal content on my site) by educating me on the many ways that I could display and market my content. Is it crazy to say that I had no idea of integrated marketing before this? Seeing everyone’s progress already lit a fire under me and now is pushing me to redefine and solidify my Business plan. My take away from this course, to be succinct, was marketing budgeting, measuring my analytics, coordinating my KPIs. I learned different methods of marketing distribution and also how to determine my target audience. I learned what to look for when I’m measuring the success of my marketing and what programs to use to measure that success.

It’s amazing that when I started this course, I felt like, oh I know what my goal is and how to reach it and that this course wouldn’t teach me much. I am not saddened though to say that this was a false intuition. Professionally, I will review my twelve-step business presentation to make sure that I have really met the parameters of my plan. Each section fits into a plan I never thought about before, like KPIs. Before, one could just assume that they were having success with their business plan. I am now aware of methods I can use to measure that success. This course was amazingly informative and I would definitely recommend anyone going into business take the time to sit down and run their business through this process.

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Assignment: Mastery Journal 5th Post

The importance of the Entertainment Business Finance course has expounded on the strides I need to take to illustrate my business plan and bring it to fruition. I feel like every other course is a piece to the puzzle of accomplishing my business. From the finance aspect of this degree, I definite expected how to recognize my revenue and expenses. The Financial Statement and Annual Report definitely prepared me to think about business aspects I never anticipated to give thought to. It also helped me get over the disillusion I had when I realize that a business plan, at least one of a caliber that I want, can’t be done solo. I need a cabinet to oversee my merchandise, distribution, logistics, accounting, and legal nuances. Even the details of hidden cost. One can state they want to have their own studio, and they may even overcome this feat and establish a recording studio in their house. But to be a true professional and make artists feel like you are truly in tune with their music, it may take renting out work space to customize your own studio. I can tell you right now this course has open my eyes to all of the secret cost. I am now closer to knowing what my cost opportunity will be when I pursue this goal in an undaunted manner. It was also useful to learn how to calculate my break-even point. I feel this accompanied with the Net Present and Capital budgeting can help me determine if my business is on the right course or even worth the acting on. I know a lot of what it takes for me to build a company recognized by success will function initially off of trial and error but I have faith that construction like the Pro Forma Financial Statement will put me on target a successfully run my business. The Break-Even assignment, has genuinely made me want to explore the investments options I listen to really see how I can save up for my future. I am just thankful for everything I’ve learned in this course.

References

Alderman, P.J. and Marks, A.M (2009). Entrepreneurial Finance, 5thEdition. [E-book] Pearson Publishing

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5.1 Assignment: Mastery Journal Brand Identity 4th Post

I must admit, at the beginning of this course I wasn’t well informed when it came to a brand. I thought like many other people on many facets of what a brand meant and said about your marketability – your brand was a logo that helped people recognize your product. It is so much more. The goal is to create a unique impression in the customer’s mind so that the customer associates something specific and desirable with your brand that is distinct from rest of the marketplace.(Bueno, B. & Jeffrey, S., 2017).The first thing I learned was how to research brands with a consistent basis in their vision and values to make sure my company displayed the same thing. Three Little Questions contained in the Brand Gap (Neumeier, 2006, p. 31) helped me determine what I wanted the so what factor of my brand to be. A lot of times we create these brands that we think are going to be major representations of ourselves and in the end, they turn out to be miniscule because we don’t do the research or take the time to really articulate our services or why they’re even important. The first step to creating or sustaining a strong brand is to define its purpose.(Hopelain, J. & Phillips C., 2015)The strength of my brand became even stronger when I learned to analyze it using the PEST Analysis method. This method showed me how to categorize the effects of my brand on society and at the same time helped me reflect on the past history of my given field in different social areas to take advantage of emerging trends. Perhaps the hardest part will be utilizing the Brand Prism and Forming a Brand Identity. This is where ideals like brand promises come into play and your logo start to take on a life of their own. I must say, that this was the most confusing area of the course as it required separating many like Ideas to get a sense of what your brand identity is. This took the bulk of my research but helps plot an outline of your brand. In the end my original goal for this course was to understand how a logo meant more for a brand and how to organize the expectations for my brand, which this course answered through charts like the Identity Prism and qualitative and quantitative studies like PEST Analysis. Now that I have these tools, I can cater them to my brand to include and brand logo, my brand promise, an Identity Analysis and other research. My last assignment in this course pretty much consisted of the leg work. This course has really geared me to start taking physical strides to stranding myself and my company.

References

Bueno, B. & Jeffrey, S. (2017, December 13). How to Create Strong Brand Positioning in Your Market. Retrieved from https://cultbranding.com/ceo/create-strong-brand-positioning-strategy/

Hopelain, J. & Phillips C. (2015). Defining Brand Identity. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/CarolPhillips/defining-brand-identity

Neumeier, M. (2006). The Brand Gap. Berkeley, CA: New Riders. [E-book]