Reflection (Q8)

8. Outline the lessons learned and describe any implementation activities undertaken regarding the solutions

     One thing I learned was definitely the multiple ways of incentives you can provide new people that you bring along to the team. One of the most creative solutions I found, or what I found most interesting regarding an incentive, is the fact that we can exploit the advantage of being so close to the amusement parks. Yeah higher commissions could be cool, but if there was a company that gave out yearly Busch Gardens, Universal Studio, Disney or Adventure Islands pass, there would definitely be a lot of people that would think that is very cool. I learned about this solution doing the Brain writing activity and working in a group in an environment where there is no bad idea, can be really productive and entertaining. 

      

   Along with that, one of the lessons I learned came from the activity of abstraction, where maybe we shouldn't focus on recruiting and focus on the phycological aspect of why people join companies for now, and latter use that to our advantage to grow the best team in the company. 

      

   Activities definitely created an overlap in some solutions. For instance the Random Object, Imaginary Excursion, and Reverse Assumptions activities all created a concept regarding young college students and how we can network with that age group to find motivated people that want to join the company. 

    All in all, I think this was a very productive project. I think being creative is an essence in determining how complex solutions can be solved. This was extremely helpful to use the lessons in class and imply them to a personal problem. Actually, I might just give my boss a call and tell him I have a few ideas on how we can grow the company as he wishes to. 

Applications and Solutions (Q6, Q7)

6. Demonstrate and describe the application and use of each tool or technique selected

7. Identify the outcomes (solutions) developed from the applied use of each tool or technique

(1a) Knowing How to See - Questions

"What if we hired someone as a social media manager?" (Green) 

"What if we started an internship program for high school students?" (Green)

"What if we started an internship program for college students?" (Green) 

"What is the benefit of having higher-educated team members?" (Yellow)

"What is business brokerage?" (Yellow)

"What are some incentives to join our team?" (Yellow)

"What would happen if we gained five new team members a month?" (Blue)

"What if we were able to raise our budget and hire a social media management team?" (Blue)

"How great of a financial impact would it be if each member was generating 3 listings a month?" (Blue)

"How are we able to advertise efficiently with a small budget?" (Red)

"How are we going to get college students interested when we are a small company?" (Red) 

"How are we able to expand our amount of listings when there are only so many employees?" (Red)

Solution:

In order to expand our team, current team members could educate high school and college students about what business brokerage is and offer internship programs. Through these programs students would learn more about the business and how they could contribute to the team/real-estate business. We could also go to local job fairs to seek out older individuals looking for a career change with work experience in sales, management, hospitality, and more. Once we have acquired more team members, with many types of skills, one team member could run a social media account and advertise the company. With a growing team we would be able to expand the number of listings we could get and begin to spend more money on advertising to bring in more listings and profit for the company.

(2a) Make Your Thoughts Visible - Mind Map (Picture attached of my brainstormed ideas and the mind map itself)

Solution: The idea of the "food" category on the mind map made me think of pizza parties or parties in general. Maybe to incentivize people to join the team we can celebrate new listings or have a Friday pizza party. This would not only create an enjoyable work environment, but create company turnover relatively low. 

(3a) Thinking Fluently - SCAMPER 

S: Substitute adult recruitment to college interns 

C: Combine team or group Independent contractor training programs to make the process easier to plug into and doesn't take too much time (Online Webinars, FaceTime)

A: Adapt all three areas of real estate into our business. Have a training program that explains the key characteristics as a whole in real estate. Have the new person choose a field and then provide them with more training specified to that industry. 

M: Magnify the amount of people who know about business brokerage by spending a lot of money up front in advertising.

P: Be a recruiting agency for other businesses. Maybe people that want to get out of business and go to residential, we can provide them with plentiful options of companies we have partnered with.
E: Eliminate in person recruitment and do everything online (more convenient/accessible)  

R: Reverse the situation by joining multiple business brokerages myself instead of me looking to get people to join my team.

R: Rearrange schedules of independent contractors to seek out new people and be a part of their commission distribution.

Solution: Some key solutions here are to Adapt all areas of the real estate field not just business brokerage and attract more people, Eliminate the in-person aspect and create an online program for easy convenience and accessibility, and Reverse the situation by joining new companies myself instead of having more people join my company. 

(4a) Making Novel Combinations - Combinatory Matrix
Challenge: Recruiting more people to become Real Estate Agents for the company Business Broker World.
Parameters:
1. Informing People
- Job Fairs
- Marketing
- Word Of Mouth
- Social Media
- Internships
- Partnerships
- Sponsors
- Investors
2. Incentives
- Health Insurance
- Money
- Team
- Passions
- People to people contact (feel like you're helping)
- Pride
- Self Fulfillment
3. Commission Structure
- High for new members
- Progressive Structure
- Higher Rewads
- Variety of businesses /listings
- Tax incentives
- ROTH-IRA


Solution: Consult with an insurance firm to determine to valuable plans for the lowest possible price to accommodate the current, and soon to be growing, amount of team members in the company. Have an employee of the month and for the next month that employee earns a higher commission rate per transaction.  

(5a) Connecting the Unconnected - Random Object

Items: Essences

Pretzel: satisfies hunger, kids, salty

Sweater: provides warmth, shelter, dependable

Phone: communication, knowledgeable, fast

Solution: A sweater is dependable so we can use this type of essence and item to create a more dependable work environment and encourage new members to join our team. Once potential contractors realize how a dependable work environment can contribute to their successful career they will be more inclined to join our team.

(6a) Looking at the Other Side - Reverse Assumptions

Assumption: Recruiting more people will grow the company and generate more sales

Reverse: Having less people would generate more sales

Solution: When there are less people working in the company, more time can be designated towards advertising on social media rather than training new members. The time spent on advertising would be more efficient in generating sales rather compared to training.

(7a) Looking in Other Worlds - Imaginary Excursion

Trip to Poland Brainstorm: planes, babies crying, meeting new people, food, alcohol, clothing, museums, parks, forests, shopping malls, art, security, politics, government, television, news, grandmother, cemetery, flowers, candles, church, soup, tea, sandwiches, volleyball, pool, weddings, birthdays, family reunions, billiards, movies, bees, honey, grass, dogs, children

Solution: Use parties as a way of welcoming new team members and interns so that they can spread the word about the company. At the end of each quarter we could throw a party or attend a dinner to help team members bond. This would allow members to work better with one another and increase sales. It would also encourage more interns to apply to our company and become involved with the business after they hear about the positive and hard-working work environment they are coming into.

(8a) Find what you're not looking for - Abstraction

The abstraction of recruitment is emotional intelligence (the psychological aspect of people understanding and convincing other people)

Solution: Emotional intelligence is the idea of completing understanding the other person so instead of directly going out to find new people, we could spend money on research on what people look for in a work environment. Spending money on research could give us a competitive advantage and the company could do better recruiting in the future. 

(9a) Awakening the Collaborative Spirit - Brain-writing (My roommate and I each had a piece of paper and passed it back and forth for 5 minutes to reflect off each others ideas. The picture below shows the results)

Solution: We found each other riding off more and more rewards to give the new independent contractors. This will drive competition within the company to generate more sales and revenue. Some of the rewards are: higher commissions, tickets to Florida amusement parks, paid-internships to college students and extensive training programs within the company.