Independent Component 1

LITERAL

(a) I, Yuritzi Mora, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
 (b) James, Geoffrey. Business without the Bullsh*t: 49 Secrets and Shortcuts You Need to Know. N.p.: Grand Central, 2014. Print.
(c) Refer to Senior Project Hours
(d) For my Independent Component 1 I completed an extra 30 hours with my mentor.

INTERPRETIVE 
    
    The reason I decided to do an extra 30 hours is because my mentor has so much experience and knowledge with business, that I figured the more time spent mentoring with her, the more information I could gather. Amy is the owner and manager of Maple Boutique, which of course, correlates to my topic; Business Management. The fact that I have perspective from a business owner/ business manager allows me to gain more insight from both sides. When I go into her store to mentor, she teaches me about how to work in college to prepare for beginning of my business career once I graduate, and what it takes to get there. 90% of the time when I go into her store, my job is to open any delivered packages and stock inventory with what we received. At times it can be mundane, but during those times she explains to me how to order the clothes, where to order them, how often to order them, and why she orders the things she does.
    Another thing I do at mentorship is run a lot of trips to the UPS store, or post office. Since Amy also runs a website for her boutique, items are constantly needed to be shipped out and delivered to the customers. The first time I went was super embarrassing. Amy gave me a bag of clothes and asked me to put them in the package the post office provides. Well the thing is, the post office has like 10 different packaging options, and I didn't want to call her again since I had already gotten lost on the way there and had to ring her. I ended up going with a cardboard package that didn't seem to have enough room for all the clothes she handed me, but I was going to make it fit one way or another. When I finally finished shoving everything in the package it looked like a 2 year old tried wrapping a present, and didn't succeed so they just put tape everywhere to cover it up. I handed the post lady the package and she just looked at me and said, "You know they have these plastic packaging that is much roomier and easier to to fit what you need to fit in there right?". Yeah, of course I knew. That's why I spent 10 minutes sweating, trying to make everything fit in the package without ripping, and attempting to keeping it semi-presentable. 
     One of the things I really enjoyed was when she taught me how to read and input invoices. I had previously heard what they were, but I never knew exactly, so it was a true learning experience for me. To be honest, everything during mentorship is a learning experience. At times its nerve-wrecking because I don't quite understand what she wants me to do, and I don't want to ask again or else I'll feel dumb. Then again, that's a part of learning, and once I finally master the task it becomes easier for me to do it the next time.
     I also attended a few in-store events which she hosts every couple weeks to interact with customers and get the business more known from any visitors who happen to come by. She offers goody bags, or some snacks and always has cute and crafty ideas for her and her customers to bond over. I can tell she puts a lot of effort into these events, and not only does she enjoy them, but so do the customers; which I have learned is the most important thing in maintaining a business. Below are a few pictures of my mentoring experience. Most of the pictures are of clothes and the store, because like I said before, my job is mostly to  
take inventory, dress mannequins, and set the store up.

 
       

(I apologize for the weird picture display. I took pictures with a square, vertical, and landscape format, so they're spaced out really awkwardly)

APPLIED

    I touched on this in the Interpretive section, but during my 30 extra hours, I realized that aside from all the managing part of the business, customers are what MAKES your business. Everything Amy does is to please her customers. She changes her window displays every so often to make her store visually appealing to customers, and keep them interested. She orders new merchandise 3 to 4 times a week to keep her store constantly changing and keep the variety for her customers. In-store events are to mingle with customers and keep them updated with anything new and upcoming. Without the customers, you merely have a store with clothes and price tags on them. Keeping your customers happy and satisfied is what helps your business grow and reach its full potential. That's not to say there aren't plenty other factors in having your business succeed, but customers are your consumers and if your consumers don't like what you offer then there will be no business. 
    When the time came around to start planning my answer for my 30 minute presentation I had no idea what to do. After mentoring so much with Amy, I realized every time I went into her store she was always updating something to Instagram for the business. That's when the answer the my essential question hit me. Amy was kind enough to further help me develop my answer, and explain what examples I could use for my presentation. She gave me several examples about how social media helps businesses expand to become bigger than they already are, and why is it easier then anything else she does to promote her boutique.
     I can genuinely say one of the reasons I presented so well was because over the last weeks Amy has granted me so much information about managing a business, that I had no knowledge of prior to mentoring with her. These extra 30 hours I completed with her allowed me to develop a better relationship with Amy and I am now a lot more comfortable asking questions about the business, or calling in when she's not expecting me, to ask if she needs any extra help around the store. I'm glad she has agreed to have me interview her for my 3rd interview, especially since I highly value her wisdom of the business industry.