I Attended A Business Workshop

So we all know I aspire to be wealthy.

My school uploaded a post about a university holding a workshop about students in Grade 11 and 12 interested in the fields of Business, Finance and Law.

You know, I said, "fuck it," wrote the application form and emailed it forward.

And I'm going in alone. No friends. Nothing.

Although, I think only one friend in my friendship group is considering the same business pathway.

I got accepted.

"Let's go!"

Going by the questions on the application form, my expectations were different to what I actually got.

Yet, I fucking take a day of doing business than being at school.

So, I arrived at the venue.

I was on time, and people were waiting in the foyer.

Everyone was on their phone. What do you expect? We're a bunch of high schoolers that can't socialise.

The organisers were ready and took us upstairs.

From there, they had us get our shirts with the sizes we said on the application.

Just polos with the event's name on the back and the sponsors.

I was surprised by the number of people that turned up at the event.

For some reason, I would have thought there would have been a smaller number, probably because of the need for an application form and approval by a panel.

There were six tables across the room: all rectangular.

I knew absolutely no one, well, at first.

There was small talk with this one guy, who was half-white, half-Asian, and I thought we'd sit together.

He moved away, and I felt rejected for a second but forgot about it.

Most people sat with their friends or people from the same school. They all sat at the back tables or the outer tables.

No one wanted to take the middle front table.

But I did.

I had the best seat in the house: the head of the table.

Why? It's obvious, the CEO sits at the head.

So, I took my seat with no one else sitting around me.

Then, a guy sat next to the left of me. He was great to talk to.

He had to drive a couple hours north to attend the event.

As we talked to each other, we discussed owning property in multiple countries. We even had the same logic as to why. When we travel, there is always our place to stay in.

He was a DJ as well. Passionate fellow, envisioning himself in Ibiza at a famous nightclub. He also discussed profiting out of his passion for disco jockey.

Good on him!

We wouldn't talk more after; we got moved around.

"Where Do You See Yourself in 10 Years?"

The workshop started.

Our workshop coordinator was a business lecturer for universities.

The first activity he had us do was on a piece of paper is to draw where you are in 10 years.

To that, I answer:

I'll be 26.

I have my first home owned.

I wanted to travel: so I drew an aeroplane.

Then I thought of investing in real estate or dabbling in property development, so I drew a building.

The company I would own was 'Duke Bros.'.

I own a grand piano.

I own a three-piece suit.

I have a family with a wife and kids as well. (Maybe too young as a 26-year-old.)

I should have kept the drawing, but it was elaborate.

After we drew this, we had to present it to the rest of the workshop attendees.

Hearing from people's ideas was surprising.

One that I remember was them laying in bed with their dog.

10 years! And that's the best you've got?

It makes me think is it wrong to not know where you'll be.

It's nice to have a goal to strive for. Yet, the reality is, as teenagers, we have absolutely no idea of where we want to be.

I don't know if it's because I know where I want to be in 10 years.

Aside from that:

It is the perfect ice breaker activity.

We can discover a bit of yourself of where you envision yourself.

The importance of having a goal was mentioned by the coordinator.

How can we strive for something without aiming at something?

An Epiphany

There was another activity, I can't remember if it's the same one as the vision activity, but everyone said what part of the business they wanted to be in.

You had accountants, human resources, lawyers, managers and all that.

But I didn't hear any entrepreneurs.

Not everyone wants to be extraordinary; they want to have a safe, secure, average job.

Nonetheless, you can still have a good life if being average is what you are content with.

Yet, for a workshop about business, I expected more people talking about wanting to be future entrepreneurs in the room.

It got me a bit disappointed.

I wanted to be in a room full of my people.

Still, there was an activity that got us to be in the role of managing a business.

Developing a Business

We got into groups.

I was still at the head of the table; and the only male there.

The task was to create an idea of a business and write them down.

Anything.

No matter how crazy, stupid or genius, write it down!

Not much talking within the group.

They did teach us about effective teams. When introduced to new people, it's better to introduce yourselves and get comfortable with each other before tackling the problem at hand.

That is some solid advice when put into a new environment or a new group of people for work.

Anyways, I got my inner Jordan Belfort and thought of selling pens.

It was a fucking tangent.

"Everyone uses pens! No one values them anymore. Imagine if we sold quality pens that would make you never lose them again. The pens we use are disposable (probably their selling point). We can sell red, blue, black, green and coloured pens. Everyone needs a pen!"

I was met to deaf ears.

To most people, having multiple people reject your idea destroys them.

Still, for people, it's hard to reject others.

If you think being rejected feels bad: think about giving out the rejection.

There was a bit of awkwardness when one of them had to tell, in summary,

"Um...I don't think it's a good idea."

I knew that!

And to lessen the burden for them, I admitted that I was going on a rant, and it was a terrible idea anyway.

From what I've learnt, it's easier to admit to fault, so they feel better for disagreeing with you.

Then, I popped another idea of creating a manufacturing company that created robots to replace low-level workers.

I know it sounds bad: that's what they told me as well.

Yet, the principle is one of the formidable risks to a business is employees; only second to failure.

Have shit employees, customer approval goes down, revenue goes down, they might steal off you etc.

And the cost for these employees seems high compared to a robot.

Instead of having to pay an hourly rate each week, the cost of the robot only contained the upfront and maintenance.

This is still an idea I play within my head, believing it to be the future.

The group argued about people not wanting to lose their jobs.

It is a valid fear.

Jobs are usually associated with security. And without it, most people have nothing.

Still, the coordinator introduced the concept of business-to-business transactions or business-to-customer transactions.

With increased revenue from less profit being eaten up by employees, more can be invested into the business for the market.

Yet, would you want your company reputation to be known as the destroyer of people's security and jobs?

Then there is always the argument of eliminating the need for low-level jobs, and those people educate themselves to earn high-level professions. That is where I would draw the line between the robots taking jobs.

And again, the idea got scrapped.

Eventually, one of the members thought of beauty products specific to different skin types.

Who would have thought?

I extended the idea to like a subscription, then a survey on our website that customises and caters to your skin type.

I asked about "Cleansing, exfoliating and moisturising."

To my surprise, out of the four women in my group, none of them heard of that.

We then needed a name for this.

I thought of France.

(Do you see a pattern of me suggesting?)

When I think of France: I think of beauty, love and a sense of luxury.

That is what beauty products do, heighten our attractiveness to others.

No one in our group knew French, so I thought,

"Madame Monsieur; Miss Mr."

The point of our market is a brand for everyone.

Most beauty products cater to only 50% of the market: women.

And the other 50% of untapped potential of men.

Unlike women, we don't wear makeup. But we could still tap into the skincare routine products.

Pitching the Idea to Potential Investors

With our idea set, we had to present and pitch it. The other groups roleplayed as potential investors.

I don't think it was said in the workshop, but generally, you want to emphasise what value you provide and which market.

We developed a bit of script as well to hit all the points.

I can't remember all of it, but I'll do my best:

1. Discuss the market. Both males and females.

2. Talk about catering to different skin types.

3. Discuss the options: apply for a monthly subscription or buy the products separately.

4. Say the packaging is 100% made from recycled material.

5. Say we donate a part of the products to an animal organisation.

When you pitch, you obviously need someone or some people to speak.

Ah, the art of public speaking.

I was chosen as one of the representatives because I was "...confident."

How can I pass up this opportunity?

The person who came up with the idea became the CEO. She also wanted to present as well, albeit a bit nervous.

I tried to poke at her, if she was all in, saying,

"Are you sure? I can do it by myself, you know."

I will admit, it was a bit of a dick move. Truthfully, I wanted to present myself, picturing Steve Jobs at his Apple events.

Still, she reassured me, and herself, that she was going to present alongside me.

With presenting, as groups, we were tasked to ask a specific type of question to the groups who pitched.

Now I cannot fucking remember what specific area of weakness we had to question; all I can remember is I asked the questions mostly.

Eventually, it was our time to present.

The hook was to visually show our market.

The question asked was,

"Raise your hand if you use skin products or beauty products?"

Personally, I was expecting just the females to raise their hands. The idea was to point out the untapped market potential of the other 50% of the room: the males.

To my surprise, nearly everyone raised their hand.

With some improvisation, I had to flip the script to show the market potential by 100% of the population.

After that, we did our pitch. Got asked questions. And deflected any hesitancy or scepticism thrown at us.

Our coordinator then asked,

"Who would invest in this company?"

Almost everyone raised their hand. To that, I say, I think that was a pretty good pitch.

Getting Interviewed

During the breaks between activities, one of the university's journalists would interview us about our opinion on the workshop.

I got selected, and other people too, but we all were interviewed separately.

I can vividly remember one of the questions,

"Why do you want to do business?"

I replied nonchalantly,

"Money."

"Is there anything more than money?"

"No, not really."

"Come on! There's got to be a better reason than money."

"I'm telling you, I do it for the money."

It was a funny interaction.

Sometimes in society, it's taboo to discuss having a job or studying with the motive of money in mind.

Truth can be funny sometimes.

But I picture being in front of a job interviewer, and they ask,

"Why do you want the job?"

And no one would expect the answer of, "Money."

Seriously, one of the reasons why I want to do business is money.

Still, I will admit it is a surface-level answer.

I love the challenge and reward aspect of a business.

I am still fascinated by the relationship between value and money; business is about exchanging value.

Not satisfied with the answer, the interviewer got me to answer again.

I think I responded with the idea of a challenge: I like the chase.

What I Learnt

The event was meant to recruit future university students to the university that hosted the workshop.

Still, I got hooked.

I'll discuss this more elaborately in another article about my direction in life; it seems reasonable to stay where I live, study at my local university then move south after obtaining a degree.

I was still a bit disappointed by the event.

Don't get me wrong, having fun creating an imaginary business is much more fun than staying at school.

I had high expectations that it would go down to the specifics of the business.

Teaching the participants how to create, maintain, buy or sell a business.

I realised that the one day workshop was a taste tester for what subject matter will be studied in university.

As I study for my last year of high school:

I cannot fucking wait for university.