Josh Howard Incident

Above the Influence

Family Guy Clip

1980's

1930's

Extra Credit

I have FINALLY gotten around to writing about the speaker series, big day for me. Any way, I have to say that I really enjoyed hearing from an entrepreneur that began in the non-profit world. We often hear about successful entrepreneurs who went on to create massive public companies and create large profits. This was a bit different. On March 30th, Jeannie Howe spoke about the non-profit side of entrepreneurship as it exists today. She spoke about the American entrepreneur as a risk taking business person that is highly motivated, passionate, creative, committed and intelligent. She began her career with a background in theater from the University of Denver. She later left the theater and entered into human services as the campaign manager for the united way. Later, she was promoted to marketing manager in the organization. During this time she secured many business partners, expanding her social network. While at United Way she worked on a campaign with the postal service and "Family Circle" magazine to expand the marrow doner registry. Later, she left United Way and went out on her own beginning on the board of "Every Man Theater." During this time she realized that she had a passion for consulting and connecting the needs of different companies. She created a business plan and found a coach to guide her through areas of uncertainty. Through research and guidance she created a client base and consulting fee. "Every Man Theater" is now her biggest client because she established a very efficient matrix of relationships that greatly benefited the business. Howe stressed the importance of social networking and having friends in different placed with different skills. I asked how to go about approaching an acquaintance that you have not talked to for years to ask a favor. She said to show there is an interest in the personal and professional dealings of the acquaintance. This tied very well into the lessons of Dale Carnegie in "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Clearly, the personal interactions we have can greatly influence the success of our business. We might as well be friendly, it couldn't hurt. :-)

Updated Financing Sources

To fund my business the most probable sources would be the local banks. The Small Business Administration would be the primary target for a loan, especially with the state of the current economy. Venture Capitalists in the area deal primarily with technology based companies limiting their reliability. The three SBA offices in the New York region reside in Buffalo, Syracuse, and New York. The Buffalo office deals with many local banks to distribute loans. Two banks that provide SBA loans are M&T and First Niagara Financial Group.

M&T Bank Contact Info:
Alfred F. Luhr III
Senior vice president
M&T Bank Corp. group manager for business banking
750 Main Street
Niagara Falls, NY 14301
Phone- 716-285-1285
Fax- 716-284-8656
E-mail Through Website

The second bank that provides SBA loans is First Niagara Financial Group.

First Niagara Contact info:
Steve Brennan
Vice president/ SBA manager
7350 Niagara Falls Blvd
Niagara Falls, NY 14304
Phone- 716-283-0749
Fax- 716-284-5296
E-mail Through Website

The Statewide Zone Capital Corporation (SZCC) has a program in the Western NY development region. The Zone is located in Niagara Falls at:

Niagara Falls Empire Zone
745 Main Street
P.O. Box 564
Niagara Falls, NY 14305
Fax: 716-286-8836

Ms. Clara Dunn, Empire Zone & MBE Coordinator
Phone: 716-286-4481
Email: clara.dunn@niagarafallsny.gov

Updated Enterprise Value

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Updated First Year Budget

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Being a Leader Interaction 2

This weekend the UMBC softball team went to Boston to play our second conference series. I was to room with another upperclassman and a freshmen. In the world of sports the rookie, or freshmen, takes in the brunt of manual work and jokes. I have found that people dont really respond well to this technique. Year after year however if there is a job that needs to be done the call of "freshmen...do___" is almost inevitable. Uperclassmen are given first choice for pretty much everything and the freshmen have last choice. The beauty is that nobody remains a freshmen forever. That is the typical hierarchy of collegiate athletics. This weekend there were three people in the room, two full beds and a cot. Naturally the two upperclassmen (myself included) would have the full beds and the freshman the cot. When we got to the room, the other upperclassman took one full bed already, leaving another bed and the cot vacent. I looked at the freshman and used the principle from chapter 4 of HTWFIP, "nobody likes to take orders." I could have just said "seniority, i have the bed, so you take the cot." I chose however to take the Dale Carnegie approach and said "oh man these cots are really short and my feet will probably hang off, would you mind if I slept on the bed?" She said, "nope its all yours." I think she really appreciated the lack of dictatorship.

Being a Leader Interaction 1

This week I employed the chapter 9 principle of HTWFIP entitled "making people glad to do what you want." I am currently enrolled in the class Speech 210- interpersonal communication. This class is infuriating. There is absolutely no purpose to the things we do in class and the professor is impossible to talk to. Attendance is worth half of our grade in this course. Unfortunately, the spring is also softball season and I miss a significant amount of classes through the course of the semester. In addition to this damaging my grade I received a very low score on a paper I had recently submitted. I picked the paper up during her office hours and this gave me a chance to speak with her one on one. I received the grade and was very irritated however I analyzed the situation and used principle 9. I began by expressing my desire to do well in the class and how important interpersonal relationships are in every day life. As she is the professor of the class, she strongly agreed with this statement. (This is actually the yes yes approach.) She nodded her head as if to say yes, this is important, and yes, I also want you to do well. I then led into my poor grade and said this paper was not a true reflection of my work. How would I be able to better express myself in the context of this assignment? My goal was to be able to somehow add some points onto my paper. She told me that my personal life was missing from the paper (god-forbid I did not talk about my personal life during a reading response-I simply responded to the reading, how foolish.) To better express myself I could plan a presentation (for the entire class) about how the reading relates to my personal life. Well I got what I wanted, the SPCH 210 class will soon be fortunate enough to listen to an entire presentation about how poor interpersonal communication physically harms the body. Somehow it turned out to be a good thing that my sister currently has four ulcers.

Updated Enterprise Value 4/6

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Financing Sources

To fund my business the most probable sources would be the local banks. The Small Business Administration would be the primary target for a loan, especially with the state of the current economy. Venture Capitalists in the area deal primarily with technology based companies limiting their reliability. The three SBA offices in the New York region reside in Buffalo, Syracuse, and New York. The Buffalo office deals with many local banks to distribute loans. Two banks that provide SBA loans are M&T and First Niagara Financial Group.

M&T Bank Contact Info:
Alfred F. Luhr III
Senior vice president
M&T Bank Corp. group manager for business banking
750 Main Street
Niagara Falls, NY 14301
Phone- 716-285-1285
Fax- 716-284-8656
E-mail Through Website

The second bank that provides SBA loans is First Niagara Financial Group.

First Niagara Contact info:
Steve Brennan
Vice president/ SBA manager
7350 Niagara Falls Blvd
Niagara Falls, NY 14304
Phone- 716-283-0749
Fax- 716-284-5296
E-mail Through Website

Revised First Year Budget

CLICK HERE TO VIEW FULL SPREADSHEET