Rootie-Toot Tutors

The entrepreneurial spirit is actively engaging many, many students on Planet College. The urge to make something of your own in your own way is  is irresistible. One student, Devon, who did so tells his story here.

During my last year, I was a business major, there was a contest for Entrepreneurial proposals. It had a cash prize and was only open to business majors. I decided to enter but I knew I needed a partner to make it work. I knew Marlene from Student Government. We were on the events council together and put on some programs that went well. A couple of slams and some djs. I liked working with Mar, she could get things done but she's totally chill. When the entrepreneur competition came up I asked her if she wanted to partner. She's an ed major but only one person had to be in the business department to enter. We put together our proposal, it was for a tutoring company, and we entered. The winners were announced and we did not even place. A lot of people liked our idea, though, so we decided to do it anyway.

Our plan was a tutoring company that focused on local families. We would higher tutors from school and assign them to individual students we had found as clients for our business. We made up a catchy name for our business and distributed flyers at locals schools and churches for parent's who wanted their child tutored by a college student. 

Because Mar is an Ed major she knew a lot about lesson planning and student assessment. She is also organized to the max so she took the scheduling and payroll and general administration stuff. I've always been a good talker and sales comes naturally to me so I met the prospective clients and if it looked like a fit signed them up.  Our focus was younger students who were not functioning at grade level. Mar would figure out what the student needed and I recruited the tutor from the students who applied.

Our plan worked OK for a while but after about a year business fell off seriously so we decided to fold it up. I don't think I'd do it again but I sure learned a lot. First of all, it is a lot harder to get someone else to work than it is to do it your self.  We had a lot of problems with tutors who did not show up. I'd have to call around and find some body real fast or else I had to do it myself.  There was a lot more to it than we thought.

Mar and I are still friends but we won't be working together on anything.  That's another thing we learned; real world business is a lot different than planning school functions.

That is the adventure of one entrepreneur on Planet College.

Cold Calling For Spring.

This link from a Planet College post a while back might be some small consolation if you are too broke to engage in the usual festivities this coming break.

Another take on Spring Break can be found here.

The explanation is part of a longer interview with a screenwriter who currently is enjoying some success.  That link has  more detailed exposition about how, as a student, the writer spent one spring break calling for possible internships opportunities.

From his calls he got an interview, went in and did get an opportunity.

From that opportunity he has gone on and is now, several years since,  enjoying some success and some recognition.

There was definitely some preparation and possibly a bit of luck in that the interviewer and the writer had similar interests. Clearly, none of this would have happened, had this student not used this 'opportunity' - the opportunity presented by the fact that he was too broke to go anywhere - to cold call to see what he could find.

"Cold calling', a term derived from direct sales, is often daunting for anyone, even experienced sales professionals.  The 'cold' in cold calling comes from the fact that the caller is unknown to the potential customer, i.e. no introduction, no warm-up.  Still, often, this is the only method available to contact prospects and experienced canvassers will use it in spite of the potentially 'chilly' reception.

Examples such as these, where 'cold' calling has paid off for the cold caller, are typical of the kind of
self-help examples which are used to encourage people to move forward in their careers.  This entry is no exception.  The combination of preparation and luck which resulted in opportunity for this student are not the usual results of cold calling.  But, what would have happened if he had not tried?