Entrepreneurs Diary

Small Business Management Course

SAMPLE

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Table of Contents

I. Individual Assignments

§ Lean Startup Link……………………………..Page 2

§ Student Network List………………………….Page 3-5

§ Elevator Pitch…………………………………Page 6

§ Reflective Essay………………………………Page 7-11

II. Group Assignments

§ Teams List…………………………………….Page 12

§ Small Business Consulting Report……………Page 13-21

III. Resource Citation…………………………...…….Page 22

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Lean Startup Link

Ø Canvas Name: LifeAid App Editable: https://canvanizer.com/canvas/w1PSRpUqxfikv Read only: https://canvanizer.com/canvas/r0T12R4tIYA3P Read only 2.0: https://next.canvanizer.com/canvas/r0T12R4tIYA3P

Lean Startup Progress (from another student’s diary)

Student Network List: Sources for Network Connections

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Student Network List: Sources for Network Connections

Ø Family: For my family members it would include my parents, my brother, my sister, my sister- in law, and my brother-in law. These are my close and far away family members that I constantly keep in touch with.

Family Members Names Contact Info Where they could be reached

Florencio Guerrero (Dad) (909)997-2090 Cell Phone Emma Guerrero (Mom) (909)641-2832 Cell Phone Erwin Dominguez (Brother) (909)641-3631

[email protected] Cell Phone, e-mail and Facebook

Esther Brown (Sister) 01149-17627822483 [email protected]

Cell Phone, e-mail and Facebook

Evelyn Dominguez (Sister-in law) (951)316-0041 Cell Phone and Facebook Jeffrey Brown (Brother-in law) 01149-17673852322 Cell Phone and Facebook

Ø Friends and neighbors: My friends would include my four closes friends and my two next door

neighbors whom I get along with well. The friends and neighbors that I have listed in this chart are people I am close too and know well.

Friends and Neighbors Contact Info Where they could be reached

Miguel Zambrano (Close Friend) (909)921-9832 [email protected]

Cell Phone, e-mail and Facebook

Xitlaly Inzuza (Close Friend) (909)562-6244 Cell Phone and Facebook Kassandra Inzuza (Close Friend) (909)652-8145 Cell Phone and Facebook Crsytal Jimenez (Close Friend) (909)806-0093 Cell Phone and Facebook Bertha Camarena (Neighbor) (909)582-6384 Cell Phone Lorenza Munoz (Neighbor) (909)565-5502 Cell Phone

Ø Bank: The bank I could ask for introductions and referrals would be Bank of America and

Chase, both being my personal banks. I have been a client with specifically these banks for many years.

Banks Contact Info Bank of America 1(800)432-1000 Chase (909)875-7010

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Ø Customer Contacts: I am a customer to my doctor called Dr. Llamas, an insurance client to Que Buena Insurance and a dentist client to Ehrler Orthodontics. For the following customer contacts, I have been a client for many years.

Customer Contacts Contact Info Client to Dr. Llama (909)854-3790 Customer to Que Buena Insurance 1(800)917-1244 Client to Ehrler Orthodontics (909)823-4246

Ø School: The school where I could keep in contract with faculty and students that I had classes

with would be California State University of San Bernardino. I have attended this university for about 3 years in half.

School Contact Info CSUSB (School) (909)537-5000 Liang Guo (Professor) [email protected] Brandy Hadley (Professor) [email protected]

Ø Business Association: The business association where I could join them in order to be able to

network with them would be the company Herbalife. I’ve actually been a member with them for about 7 years.

Business Association Contact Info Where they could be reached

Herbalife 1(866)866-4744 Phone Number, Facebook and Instagram

Ø Work: The work place where I could contact my co-workers and boss would at Fontana High

School and the Educational Testing Service office. I am close to my co-workers and bosses because I have been working with them for about 3 years.

Work Contact Info Fontana High School (work place) (909)357-5500 Nayelly Tamayo (Co-worker) (909)201-4869 Mario Echeverria (Co-worker) (909)253-4571 Clarissa Berosbe (Co-worker) (909)641-3655 Dawn Costa (Boss) (909)746-6517 e-mail: [email protected] Shelly (Boss) (909)702-8945

Ø Small Business Support Organization: The small business support organizations I would

contact are the National Federation of Independent Business, National Small Business United and the National Associations for the Self- Employed.

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Small Business Support Organizations Contact Info

National Federation of Independent Business (877)709-7104 www.nfib.com National Small Business United (202)293-8830 www.nsba.biz National Associations for the Self- Employed (760)559-3389 www.nase.oeg

Ø Electronic networks: The electronic networks that I would use to network would be Facebook,

Instagram and LinkedIn. These are my every day social media networks that I currently have an account in.

Electronic Network Contact Info Facebook Facebook.com Instagram Instragram.com LinkedIn LinkedIn.com

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Elevator Pitch

There’s no such thing as being too safe, with the LifeAid app the extra assurance will always be there. The LifeAid app always cares for it users no matter the time and location. Whether you’re a child, teenager or adult LifeAid is always there to assist you and make sure your health is always good. This app is available for smartphones users and iwatch carriers at an affordable price. So next time when you’re out, there’s no need to worry if you have known or unknown health problems, LifeAid is always by your side.

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Reflective Essay

I. Learning Reflection Summary

Attending every class session for this Small Business Management course provided me with a whole new perspective about small businesses. Actively being involved in every class session, I was able to derive valuable skills, both as an entrepreneur and as an accountant. There is no doubt that the concepts and lessons I have learned in this course will help me and continue to do so within my business career. Grasping all the information that is applied towards a small business and how the whole process of businesses out there work, has provided me with different realizations about businesses in general. Throughout the course and within each class session, there were some questions I had regarding small businesses, but they were all answered during the given lectures. There aren't enough words to describe how much this course has helped me and has provided myself with a whole new way of perceiving small businesses. The following paragraphs will provide a more in depth explanation as to what this class, as a whole, has provided me with.

In each class session, I was able to derive valuable skills such as having confidence in yourself, speaking up and owning your name as an entrepreneur. Both, the way the classroom was structured and the involvement of each student in our class discussions, gave me the secureness and confidence I needed in order to share my ideas with the entire class. Obtaining that comfort level, yet being professional at the same time, is hard to be able to establish in every class a student takes. As part of being involved in the course as well as feeling comfortable in the class environment, speaking up and socializing has a lot to do with building up a student confidence and I feel like I have obtained that in this class. Being there for the first day of class, I did feel intimidated by the way the classroom was structured, but along the way I gained comfort and confidence to participate in the class. In addition, what I found interesting yet valuable was when the professor, on the first day of class, mentioned how as an entrepreneur you need to own your name. I found this interesting and at the same time true, due to the fact that your name is what identifies you as who are, therefore its ok to correct people as to how your name should be pronounced, the correct way. It was the actions and discussions, such as the ones mentioned prior, that has enabled me to derive such valuable skills from this course. I would identify confidence, speaking up when you’re speaking in front of public and owning your name, all as skills because they take time for anyone to master and once mastering skills like these, it will come to great use in the working field. These were some of my top three valuable skills that I have derived from this small business management course.

As an accounting major, this class has opened a whole new world in front me where I was able to learn so many concepts and ideas about small businesses. Beginning with the class lectures and power points provided, I gained a visual idea and format as to how small businesses operate. With every chart, picture and examples of small businesses, I grasped a clear overview as to what it takes to make a business function work. Out of all the lessons that I have learned throughout the course, some of the teachings that I enjoyed learning about were about small businesses opportunities and rewards in our meeting two, product and pricing strategies in our meeting three and human resources management under small business consideration in our meeting six. Looking back on what I learned in our class meeting two about small businesses opportunities and rewards, I recall that it was in this chapter where I began to view small

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businesses from a different perspective. In this chapter, what I enjoyed learning about were the four key ideas that as a new entrepreneurial, whose opening up their small business, must know about. These fours ideas include believing that you can do this, planning plus action equals success, helping helps and do well do good, are key ideas that keep an entrepreneurial motivated when times get hard. Within this chapter, I absolutely enjoyed analyzing the six myths about small businesses. It was shocking to me learning about each and every myth. These myths about small businesses include, not having enough financing, you can’t start a business during a recession, to make profit you need to make something, if you fail you can never try again, students don’t have the skills to start a business and ninety percent of all new businesses fail within two years. I was surprised to find out how most of these myths I actually believed to be true. Before having this class I use to believe that it was hard to obtain enough financing to start a small business, that possibly the worst time to open a small business was during a recession since apparently nobody has money during that time and that as soon as you fail once it’s not the best option to try again. After analyzing such myth, I loved the idea about if obtaining your own small business then the possible rewards you could obtain as an entrepreneurial are growth rewards, income rewards and flexibility rewards. In continuation with other lessons that I learned from this course was in our third meeting when we touched on the topic about product and pricing strategies. What I enjoyed learning about this lesson was all the different pricing strategies that, as a small business owner, you could apply. Such pricing strategies include skimming, prestige or premium pricing, odd-even pricing, partitioned pricing, captive pricing and price lining. It’s fascinating how in our everyday lives we notice such strategies, but we don’t become aware of it until learning about them. The pricing strategies that I didn’t know about before this course included skimming, partitioned pricing and the price lining. As part of my realization about the existence of these different pricing strategies, it’s satisfying knowing that as an owner of your own business you have full authority to choose and decide which pricing strategy you would want to implement in your own business. Regarding the lessons I learned, now looking back at what was taught in our class meeting six, the topic had to deal with human resources under small business management. For this lesson, I was able to learn what would be most beneficiary for a business owner to have, either full time or part time employees. What I realized about this is that, it matters what type of business you have and that there’s some considerations that need to be taken, such as how many employees would I need, for how long will I need them for and what skills do they have that I need to make my business successful. These are some of the questions and ideas that need to be considered when opening a small business. Furthermore, the lessons, ideas and concept mentioned above are just some of the few, but enjoyable, lessons that I learned throughout this course.

Before registering for this class, it was difficult for me to visually picture how and what was required in order to properly start a small successful business. It seemed so difficult, for me, the whole processes of planning and obtaining enough money to open a small business prior to this course. I couldn’t find the spark in me to actually even think of an idea of how I could possibly start a small business on my own. I started this course with so many questions as to how, why, when and where do people find a business idea, plan it and then pursue it to make things happen. I mainly had questions about how do you actually manage a business. I understood, from an accountant perspective, that as a business owner it is necessary and helpful to keep track of the business expenses, liabilities, monthly fix and variable cost. In addition, I always wondered how people actually made their business idea become a reality. It was all of these questions, and possibly more, that I had at the beginning of this course and as more deeply we went into the

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whole idea about small business management, all these questions were soon answered. I found the answers to all my questions in either, the class lectures, power points, and discussions. What I found very helpful and answered the majority of my questions, were the small business case studies. Such examples allowed me to visualize and better understand how it all starts from the idea, to planning then to the opening of your small business. From the day this course started up until this very week, a lot of my questions, such as those mentioned prior in my paragraph, were answered and I had a better understanding from an entrepreneurs perspective.

Overall, this small business management course has provided me with way more knowledge than any other class has. I enjoyed every day of this course and all the aspects that came with it such as, the class concepts, the lectures, the class involvement and all the discussions that took place. This being the first entrepreneurial class I have yet taken, it has really impacted me in a very positive way. Now, I can visualize myself as a small business owner in the near future, now knowing how simple it is to get a business started. I do understand that along with being your own boss, there is a lot of hard work and responsibility to be had, but in the end it’s worth it with rewards you can obtain in both the short and long run. This course in general has become my absolute favorite class and course that I have taken.

II. Top 10 Takeaways

1. The six myths about a small business Leaning about such concept like the six myths about a small business has changed my point of view about small businesses in general. Prior to this course, without me knowing what the six myths included, I use to believe most of the ones listed. I used to believe that there weren’t enough financing to get a business start, that the worst time to start a business would be during a recession and that once you fail the first time then there’s no hope for you to try again. I consider these myths important to me because now I know what not to consider valid reasons once I open my small business in the future.

2. The four key ideas for an entrepreneurial to start its own small business Considering the four keys ideas are very important overall because they are a small and simple guideline for entrepreneurs to follow for those who decide to open a small business. As an entrepreneur that I hope to become in the future when I open my small business, these four keys ideas will help me stay put through the rough times. I view these important ideas as way to help entrepreneurs not just only open their small business, but also as helpful guideline to follow when they face a problem within their small business.

3. The discussion about Paul Scheiter, the hedgehog leatherworks The discussion about this entrepreneur, Paul Scheiter, has given me a real life scenario for someone who has an idea, but doesn’t know how to build the product. I found this case very helpful to me because before registering for this class, that use to be one of the problems I wondered how I could solve. I use to think that if you’re going to open a small business then you need to create a product, but the how to create the product was my problem. This discussion was important to me because it has cleared up the problem I use to see when trying to open a small business.

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4. The reason why businesses like Costco and Sam Club are close to the freeways and in the outbound of the city. I found it intriguing discovering the reason behind why Costco and Sam Club have their business locations near the free-ways and in the outer bound of the cities. Visually seeing how it’s more convenient for Costco and Sam Clubs to be near the out bound of the city because they don’t have to pay transportation cost, really shock me. Personally being a Costco member, I use to think that obtaining such membership was a huge benefit. I use to believe that having a membership will save me money because everything that Costco sells is in packages. After discovering the reasons behind such locations, it has become an important concept that I will now look upon when going to any stores.

5. The type of firms that there are Analyzing the pie chart which demonstrates the different types of firms along with the percentage of each different firm that make up all the firms that there are within our country. This chart states that fifty three percent of business owners are working in their businesses as part time. Twenty two percent are traditional business owners, twenty percent are high performing small businesses and lastly five percent are high growth ventures. I found this pie chart important because it provides me with an idea in which category I would want to become part of when I open up my own small business.

6. The rewards an entrepreneur could obtain from starting a small business Being a small business owner, it takes a lot of self-effort to manage and run a business. With all the problems that a small business owners encounters, there are some rewards for such entrepreneurs. Such rewards include growth reward, income reward and flexibility reward. Prior to his course I use to think that the only reward small business owners could get is availability to make up its own working hours and any profit they make from their business. I found this concept important to me because these are some rewards I will keep in mind in the near future when I operate my own small business.

7. The use of the Canvanizer website, along with its lean startup link The use of such a valuable tool like the Canvanizer website has provided me with an additional skill. As an accountant, and in the near future as a small business owner, I have obtained a resource through the Canvanizer website where it enables me to keep track of my ideas for a business. Knowing the existence of such tool, has become important to me because from the time right now until I open a business, I will be able to write down some ideas that I have for a business.

8. The discussion about the Cheesecake factory and the reasons behind the formatting of their restaurant I found this discussion in class interesting because it never appeared to me that restaurants like the Cheesecake factory implement a specific formatting to conduct their service to people. Before I use to believe that the formatting of the restaurant depended upon how the location place was already built as. I found such information important and valuable to me because as a business person, it is little aspects like these that matter.

9. The differences between hiring part-time employees and full-time employees

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When opening a small business it is good to consider which is best to have in your business, full time employees or part time employees. Taking into consideration, the type of business you have, it matters whether as an owner you have enough money to afford to pay full time employees or part time employees. Identifying the differences between a part time employee and a full time employee will help me in the future when I open my own business.

10. The life cycle stages of a small business This concept regarding the life cycle stages has provided me with an overview of what process a small business goes through within time. What helped me better memorize this cycle was how the professor provided a similar sample cycle as to how someone is born and eventually matures just like a business would. This concept is important to me for the reason being that in the future I could keep track of what stage my small business is going through.

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Team’s List

Team Member’s Names Team Members E-mail • • • • • •

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September 1, 2016

Small Business Consulting Report

I. INTRODUCTION

In this small consulting report, we will be analyzing the company WOSH to determine its strengths, weaknesses and possible solutions to all of its operational problems which can be addressed from a consulting perspective. We will provide an in depth report which will outline the approach we feel should be deemed best for the company to follow to gain success in their industry. In this report we will not present a financial analysis of the company due to the fact that the company’s owner has decided the information is too confidential to share with anyone, but himself and his personal financial team at this moment. We will instead focus on the other aspects of the business which can be fully analyzed and possibly improved upon.

In our report we will be looking directly into many aspects of the company’s current operations. We will begin by analyzing the company’s background. We will look briefly at when and where it was founded, who founded it, what their mission statement is, what their ultimate goal is in terms of expansion and what are their primary products or services they offer. We will then take a brief look at what the company’s structure is like. We will do this in order to try to later determine where all decisions are made and by who and which level in the company has the most influence on how effectively the company is run. This can be very important when analyzing how a firm conducts day-to day operations.

We will then take a look at all aspects of the company separately to try to find problems in the company’s operations. We will first take a look at the company’s current management approach, which refers to the way current management is handling all assets and employees which can be either loosely or closely managed. We will try to determine if all assets are being put to the best use possible with their approach or if a different approach is needed. We will also be looking into the company’s current marketing strategy and we will try to determine why they have chosen that specific strategy. In addition, we will determine whether or not this chosen strategy is the best fit for the company or if a different strategy approach may serve the company better and more effectively. Next we will look at the company’s current target market and we will determine if it is in fact the current target market the company is attracting. If it is not, then we will try to analyze why this is happening or even try to evaluate if they are even reaching those who they want and need to reach.

Additionally, we will also take a look at how regular customers and businesses customers feel about the company. Talking to regular customers and business customers will help us determine their level of satisfaction and also to determine whether the company has any competitive advantages which helps distinguish it from competition. We will then evaluate if these advantages could possibly can be expanded upon. Having this conversation with customers will also give us an insight into any operational or managerial problems. Also, customers usually have much to say regarding their experience and how pricing affects their level of satisfaction or of retention. This will help us understand how the current pricing model affects regular and business customer’s attitudes towards doing business with this company.

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Next we will use what we learned to go on to the next section which is a prescription for the problem. All of this information will provide us with a clear picture of what type of problems this company may be encountering. By understanding this information, we can then formulate a plan of action or a prescription to try, to the best of our abilities, to remedy the problems and or improve upon aspects of the business. This will be our prescription and remedy that we recommend this company to implement.

Finally, in our conclusion we will restate how we identified the company’s daily operational problems, restate the approaches we took in order to solve the problems and lastly we will reassert the prescription we provided to the company. In it we will again provide a suggestion on how we feel the current problems the company is facing can be remedied.

We hope that this report shows a complete and thorough picture of the operational capabilities of this company. And with this information we hope to make the correct adjustments to improve all of the aspects we are about to touch on in the following sections. Next we will explore the company’s background along with its internal structure.

II. COMPANY BACKGROUND

WOSH was established in 2014 with one vision, to offer carwashes, also known as “car woshes” which is where the company’s name WOSH derived from, as eco-friendly as possible. This innovative company mission statement states that they will like “to bring the car wash into the 21st century and save two of the most precious resources known to man: time and water.” The company is located in Los Angeles, California with entrepreneur Logan Voxx leading as the CEO. This eco-friendly company uses no water to wash cars instead they make good use of their primary company product called the “Eco Smart Solution”.

As any business starts up, times are difficult and creating a reliable team is considered the primary key to success. The first year, the WOSH team worked day and night in collecting contracts with business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) clients around the downtown area in Los Angeles. What mainly supported the company and lead to it’s success up until this day was Mr. Voxx’s dedication to secure investors in order to help the growth of this business. The idea of an eco-friendly car wash company encouraged many investors to invest their money into this company, which enable WOSH to raise funds.

As an overview of how this company functions, the company uses waterless solution based from plants with embedded wax compounds to clean each and every car. This process of washing a car saves around 40 gallons of water per vehicle. Being under such strict restrictions and regulations of the proper water use in California, this company highly encourages the less use of water. Making a huge impact within California’s water supply as the state is still consider to be in a drought crisis. WOSH primarily serves different properties around the downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood areas. There are different packages offered from a small car wash to a full detail with extra optional add ons. The company motivates and promotes the message which reads “We are a carwash that comes to you. When you want it and where you want it.”

Overall, WOSH’s vision is for people to be able to continue their daily lives, but with a more reserved and proper use of water. With all the misuse of water, WOSH hopes to start making a

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difference by providing alternate ways for people to save water, yet continue their normal routines. By providing a daily carwash service, WOSH intent of this is to make an impact and help prevent further serious drought crisis. Along with these goals and plans, WOSH ambitiously aims for a better eco-friendly future for our planet.

III. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEMS

In this section we analyze several aspects of the company and the problems we found with each. These aspects include the following: current management approach, product effectiveness, customer satisfaction level, and marketing approach.

I. Inconsistency

One of the problems the company is currently having is great heterogeneity in their service of water-less carwashes. There may be many reasons why this may be happening, but we found that two main factors are probably at most fault. The first factor relates to employees being really under supervised during their service calls and the second factor has to do with employee motivation. First we look at the factor of under supervised employees.

The current way the company manages its employees is in a very liberal way. The company receives orders for their waterless-carwashes and managers assign individual orders to associates who actually provide the service. The associate then receives the order, has to travel to the customer's location, provide the service and do it in a timely fashion to be efficient. From our perspective we feel that workers are not being held directly responsible for the quality and timeliness of the service they are providing. According to reviews and complaints we have analyzed from sources including company review sites and direct customer conversations we have found this to be widespread in the company.

The other factor that affects heterogeneity is employee motivation. According to our employee interviews we have found that many are not satisfied with their pay for the amount of physical work they have to do. This leads to employees not performing to their best abilities because they just feel they are not being compensated for the amount of work they are doing. This is a common problem for many start-ups. Although the company would like to increase compensation to their employees it cannot be easily done because during start-up cash is especially important for the company to remain a viable venture. The problem is that if they cannot find a way to increase employee motivation without increasing pay, they will continue to have heterogeneity in their service from their employees and low customer satisfaction.

II. Defect with “Eco Smart Solution”

The second problem that we as business consultants have pinpointed is the defect with WOSH’s primary product which is the “Eco Smart Solution”. As part of the car wash process, the use of the eco smart solution needs to be mixed with water in order for it to clean the exterior part of the car well. If the eco smart solution is not mixed well enough, it will leave streaks on the car after washing. This poses a serious problem because the streaks are hard to get rid of which makes it harder to satisfy the customer.

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On the other hand, if we analyze the product defect from a customer perspective, no customer would want to see streaks on their car after believing what the product promoter said about such highly value eco-friendly product. As a customer, it is expected to obtain the good results that the product and service promoters market to people. Even though some customers might understand how WOSH is a car wash company that saves water, they expect to see no use of water during the process of washing their car, but with same results as if their car was wash using water the old tradition way. In addition, since the customer’s word of mouth is another way for the product and service to self-promote, it is important to give a first good impression of the product and service being provided to them. Customers have the tendency to have expectations of every product and service they obtain from companies like WOSH.

Overall, having such a product defect could both on the short and long run affect the company’s profit or number of customers they have on a daily basis. Having analyzed both a business and a customer’s perspective, the outcomes on the defect of the eco smart solution is unsatisfactory, but could be resolved.

III. Battling Condensation

The third problem that we found had to do with condensation affecting the time it takes to complete a wash. In order for the eco smart solution to work, cars have to be completely dry for the solution to work effectively. Cars that are left out at night build condensation in the morning which means that they have to be wiped dry before the eco smart solution can be applied and the waterless car wash process can begin. This extra step can greatly increase the amount of time it takes to complete the wash and it can cause the washer employees to fall behind on schedule and leave some of the orders incomplete in the day.

We found that this condensation problem makes it really difficult for employees to meet their goals, in terms of number of washes completed. Also, it forces the washers to rush through the process possibly hurting the level of professionalism and service the company is striving to achieve.

This problem comes from management's failure to think more precisely about the timing of scheduling the washes. Starting early may mean that the company may complete more orders in a day but it may also result in a less cost effective system where it’s taking too much time to finish a wash for the cost of the employees and product.

IV. Marketing Approach

Being a business that is available to many people of all ethnicities and ages varying from 16 to 100 years old, it is important to analyze, based upon their marketing effectiveness, which current market is WOSH targeting. It is essential to take into account what income base customers is this company attracting. For instance, if WOSH sets its carwash prices too high then it only attracts people with high income who could afford to pay some to wash their car. If the company is setting the prices too low, then it’s not giving of the impression of a fairly good valuable company. The price needs to be set at an average price compared to its competitors. In addition, we also need to examine if WOSH is only attracting single people or married couples. This will help us pinpoint whether WOSH should make their service more family oriented or individually

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oriented. Based upon these analyses we could identify what marketing approach WOSH is currently conducting.

Within the last few year, we have analyzed that the targeted market WOSH attracts customers who would like a fast, convenient car wash at a reasonable price. Most of the company’s car wash locations are in high end estates. Time is the essence to these customers as they simply do not have time to go out of their way to wash their cars so in return, WOSH sets up shop at these locations. Companies also need cars cleaned but creating a facility or internally hiring employees to wash cars can be costly. So they hire mobile company like WOSH to do the bidding for them. Offering waterless cleaning to businesses gives them a short, quick, and convenient solution.

IV. WHAT WE DID

To begin our consulting report, we first took a look at the company background and looked at how they had set up their operations. We found information on the internet from their website, from their Facebook profile, and from reviews on their company from sites like Yelp. Next we talked with our partner Lawrence, who is actually a manager in the company and gained a lot more insight into how the company actually works. He educated us on what the company was about, how the ran day-to-day operations, and what their internal structure looks like. He also provided information about how the company was started and how they managed to get funding by leveraging the green concept in their idea of waterless car washes to gain interest from investors.

After we gathered as much information as we possibly could, we planned a day to meet with the director of operations, Jelani Bee, and asked him a few questions about his operations and if we could arrange a ride along to see how a full car WOSH is executed. While on the ride along we talked to the employee that were on the job and asked as many questions as possible regarding what they thought was right and wrong about their service process. We also engaged some customers to gain insight into how they viewed the service and why they chose to do business here rather than at a regular car wash.

We learned that the first year, the struggle of keeping a start-up company afloat was ever so challenging. With a limited amount of employees, everyone had to put in their part. They had to work both business-to business and business -to-customers parts of the company every single day to keep the company rolling. Members often found themselves working 18 hour shifts at a time leaving them sleep deprived the next day. After an entire year passed by, the company was able to start hiring new employees to split the work. This enabled the company to show its true potential in the car washing business.

V. PRESCRIPTION

In this section we describe the solutions we have determined are the best path towards helping this business solve the primary problems it is facing. These solutions are based on our observations, conversations with employees and customers and on our experience in finding solutions for small business operational problems.

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I. Solving Inconsistency

Like we described in the prior section, this firm is facing a problem of service inconsistency. By this we mean that many employees are not providing a professional wash service and they are leaving jobs unfinished. Or they are providing very sloppy service. The problem is that the employees are not being well managed and are not being held accountable for their service level. Also adding to this problem is low employee motivation. Together they provide a formula for very low customer service and the consequence is inconsistency in service.

We feel that a practical way to hold employees accountable for their service, is to perform regular customer surveys. What we mean by this, is that the firm continuously ask customers to rate the level of service which in turn would reflect how professional a job each employee is doing. This would help the firm identify possible problem employees or learn about new problems the firm may not be aware it’s having.

Another way we feel the firm can hold employees accountable for their service and in turn decrease their inconsistency, is by having employees take before and after pictures of the service. This will provide some insight into the level of service they are giving. By providing pictures, employees will feel personal accountability for their work and they will feel more pressure to do the kind of work that is expected from them.

To solve the problem of low employee motivation we feel the firm should do a better job of screening the type of employees that are willing and able to do this physically demanding job. From our observations and conversations with employees we found that many are not a good fit for the position because of many reasons. Some have never had experience working in this type of demanding environment, some are overqualified and expected to be doing other kinds of work which is why they now have low motivation, and some just are not self-motivated themselves and somehow managed to slipped through the screening process.

II. Fixing “Eco Smart Solution”

Analyzing this product’s defect from a business point of view, there’s a fairly high level risk of not obtaining the products good results if not knowing how mix well enough the eco smart solution. As a small business, having a high level of risk of not attaining good product results, should be minimize or fix as soon as possible. In this case, WOSH has two options of possibly fixing this problem. Option one includes considering to reevaluate the product performance and come up with a better non streak product. This will allow the company to promote a better product along with its service, attracting more customers to its business. There are many products on the market the company is able to try. Many vendors offer free samples to customers to try their product. Option two includes to better train its employee as to how the eco smart solution should be mix. The CEO, Logan Voxx, could make a video demonstrating the process of only the process of mixing the solution well enough. The video could include such information as to how much water do you need to mix into the eco smart solution, how much eco smart solution do you need to pour and for how long should the solution be mix with the water in order to obtain good results. It is such options like these that looking at it from a business level could be taken into consideration to solve this problem.

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III. Getting rid of Condensation

As stated in the previous section, inconsistency is a huge problem and condensation is one of the biggest issues this company faces. This mainly affects WOSH’s business to business operations as all cars are cleaned at night. The fact is there is no way to counter this problem, it is inevitable. But there are many measures the company can take to adapt to these issues. First suggestion, the operations manager needs to work closely with its partners to come up with a better time and location to clean the cars. Cars left in the middle of a parking lot have a higher chance of condensation build up than cars parked in a multi-story parking garage.

The allocated time to clean the cars also has an effect. The moisture content in the air varies from place to place. Cars closer to the coastal area tend to build up condensation earlier on then cars located in the Inland Empire. So scheduling these cars earlier can make a difference in the quality behind each wash. Another suggestion the company can use to counter the condensation issue is by changing up the supplies used to clean the cars. Instead of using microfiber towels all around to dry and polish each car, maybe use a shamwow to dry the vehicle first. Instead of using the towels to clean the windows, use a squeegee. This will not only help improve the time spent on each car but also counter the streaks commonly found the next day.

VI. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

As an overview, we have analyzed and examined the company WOSH. We first provided some of WOSH’s background company information along with a small description of the company structure. We unfortunately were not able to provide any financial information or projections because of the owner's privacy decisions. Once having introduced the company’s background information, we then identified and analyzed some of the problems WOSH has been encountering. For each of the problems we identified, we provided a description. Following this, we explained what actions we took in order to try to figure out ways that the company could change in order to solve their problems. Lastly we made our prescriptions based upon our analysis of the different problems along with some suggestions we strongly recommend WOSH to make.

I. Conclusion

Starting of with the company’s background information, we briefly explained how WOSH came to be the company it is today. It was mentioned under this section how the company operates, what their mission statement states, and how is WOSH positively affecting communities near by Los Angeles. After this we highlighted some of the difficulties that WOSH faced towards the beginning of this company's journey. Lastly we went in depth as to how the company functions and how it makes use of its products.

After the company’s background information, we described some of the WOSH’s problems. We identified four problems of which they include the following: inconsistency with its customer service, defect with the “eco smart solution”, battling condensation and lasting their marketing approach. For the first problem we identified which was WOSH inconsistency, we examine and

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explained how WOSH employees do not provide the same customer service and satisfaction to each customer.

As for the second problem which was a defect with the “eco smart solution”, we mentioned how WOSH’s product, if not mixed well enough with water, could leave behind unwanted results in the form of streaks after the carwash. In the third problem identified, battling condensation, we studied how condensation affects the completion time of a car wash. Lastly as part of our problem analysis, as consultants, we analyzed what targeted market WOSH was aiming at for the past two years since the first year the business opened. These were the problems that we were able to pinpoint with the WOSH company.

As for our third section, after looking at the company’s background information and problems, we then moved onto explaining what we did in order to obtain some possible solutions to WOSH’s problems. As a group we planned a day to meet up with the manager of the company and asked a few question regarding how the company works and what problems they could perceive in their operations. We asked where he thought the root of each of the problems came from and what were some of their current actions being taken in order to combat and solve these problems.

The following section in our report consisted of prescribing some solutions to WOSH’s problems. We format this section by first talking about ways to solve inconsistency, secondly fixing the “eco smart solution”, and third getting rid of condensation. To solve for inconsistency, we recommend WOSH to provide its customers with surveys, where each customers could express its opinion on the company’s customer service and product. For the product malfunctioning we recommended WOSH to provide its employees with an instructional video where it elaborates in detail how and for how long to mix the “eco smart solution” in the water

and how much of the solution to pour. Lastly we suggested a solution as to how to get rid of condensation. We provide a few options of which some of them included for the manager to close watch its employees to make sure they're doing the job right and to provide better car wash accessories like microfiber towels to prevent condensation. As mentioned in this paragraph, these are some of the solutions we believe that could help the company WOSH resolved their problems.

Overall, with all these analyses that was conducted, WOSH is a good company that encourages the less use of water since California is currently going through a drought crisis. This eco- friendly company has become an example to follow for many other car wash companies. They provide and encourage the sustainability needed to help the state of California with the drought problem. Just like any other company, WOSH has some business problems that we have identified in prior sections within this small business consulting report. As entrepreneurs, we have invested our time and effort into analyzing the problems of this company with the consultant’s best knowledge we provide possible and most reachable solutions to WOSH’s problems.

II. Suggestions

Based upon the small business analysis on the company, WOSH, we suggest the company to further continue expanding their business into different cities and locations. Being such an eco-

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friendly company, it has opened its business at a right time. Especially since we are in a time where most companies are trying to become as eco-friendly as possible whether it’s recycling or preserving water like WOSH, every act counts. Also, we would like to suggest that they take full and immediate action against these operational problems they are having which include inconsistency, defect with the “Eco Smart Solution” and the problem with condensation.

Regarding the problems that we found within the company WOSH, we have suggested some approach solutions for WOSH to accomplish in a short period of time. For the first problem of inconsistency we suggested for WOSH to simply improve their customer service by providing surveys to customers where they could rate the employee’s performance. The problem we found regarding the product, “Eco Smart Solution” we suggested WOSH to reevaluate the product because of its defects and consider either designing or adopting a different product with better and improved results. This will not only improve the image of the company, but also the quality of the product that will make them stand out from their competitors. Lastly, for their third problem of battling condensation, we suggested for WOSH to book early appointments for those clients that live near the coast line. This will make it less probable for condensation to build up through the day. These suggestions that we have included in our report are meant to help the company WOSH meet and accomplish its objective. WOSH’s objective is for the company itself to grow with partners by offering a reliable eco-friendly service.

As we outlined in our analysis there are multiple issues in the company ranging from product to service to management to marketing issues. They all have practical solutions which can be solved, but only if action is taken. Overall we feel this company has great potential and is in a good product and service niche. If the company manages to overcome these problems, we expect to see much more of them in the coming future.

Resources Citations

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Ø Katz, Jerome A., and Richard P. Green. Entrepreneurial Small Business. Boston: McGraw- Hill/Irwin, 2014. Print.

Ø "Facebook." Security Check Required. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Aug. 2016.

<https://www.facebook.com/GETaWOSH/>.

Ø D., Irwin, Bobby R., and Craig A. "Wosh - Hollywood - Los Angeles, CA." Yelp. N.p., 07

June 2016. Web. 15 Aug. 2016. <https://www.yelp.com/biz/wosh-los-angeles-11>.

Ø "GET A WOSH." WOSH. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Aug. 2016. <http://getawosh.com/>.