Prompt:
The purpose of this first week is for you to gain insight into the operations of a local small business. In week 2, you will be completing an initial interview, so you will want to begin making contacts now with a small business owner in your area who will agree to three separate 1-hour interviews over the course of the next eight weeks. Start by finding a small business that (a) is of interest to you, (b) you may have had business dealings with, and/or (c) with which your family may do business. Some ideas for a small business to make contact with are: your family’s insurance agent, HVAC service company, a local restaurant you may frequent, an ice cream or frozen yogurt shoppe, a local dry cleaning operation, a local music instrument store, or, possibly, any other family owned business you know of in the area. After identifying the small business and making contact with the owner or key operating manager, you will be putting together an outline of the interview questions you wish to ask. As this course focuses on “Small Business Growth and Development,” and you will be asking for three interviews, make sure that you are clear about the topics of each of the interviews.

Interview #1: Background of the Business

Interview #2: Challenges/Barriers to Success

Interview #3: Survivability/Recommendations

This course will be a challenge to your time management skills. There is a lot to cover each week, not unlike running your own business. Plan your weeks carefully and get started quickly finding the small business owner or manager you want to interview. Finally, be sure to review the reading materials supplied in the Reading & Resource section under Contents each week.

Instructions:
The deliverable for this week’s assignment is to write up your choice for the project, the name of the person you will be working with and his/her background, and submit it by Sunday midnight. Your paper should be at least 700-1050 words as your initial background will be several pages in length once you write it all down. The first section of the paper should be the name of the company you will be interviewing, the street, city, and state address, the owner/manager you will be working with and his or her title.

Other areas to consider:

Legal structure of the company (what and why)
Primary products and/or services offered
Years in business and years current entrepreneur has owned
Financing used (original and ongoing)
Budgeting process used
The market area
Customer base
Routine advertising
Company assets (building, rolling stock, etc.)
Inventory and inventory management
Management organization
Employees
Licenses required to operate
Skills needed by the owner/operator

NOTES FROM ME:

Busniess will be a doctors office
interviewing a pyschologist
name Jay, Smith
15 Marygold Lane (fake address)

this assignment will be the first of many 8 all assignments will build on from this.