My advice to IMS students

June 24, 2014

Filed under: IMS Summer 2013 — carlosgieseken @ 3:03 am

The weirdest thing about this summer, so far, has been thinking about how one year ago, a whole bunch of us were in the IMS program, which is designed for non-business undergrads to get up to speed before the Fall semester and the real MBA program starts.

It seems like 33,000 years ago that about 20 of us first went into 410 Cashion for accounting. A combination of regular MBA and healthcare MBA students, everything seemed so far off. We’d been told that we would be with the health care students for a year, then they’d go off on their residency for 7 months, we’d finish in the fall semester without them, and they’d come back in January after we’d graduated. It felt like that year would never happen. Well it did and it’s hard to believe that I’m not going to be having classes with those guys anymore. Sure, we’ll probably stay in touch, since we’ve all become pretty close, but it won’t be the same.

Football season when we used to sneak in with the freshman and run the Baylor Line.

There are so many times during the school year that you want to wish time to speed by, since the stress of classes and presentations and group meetings can get tough sometimes, but my advice to those in IMS is to savor every moment. Because a year and a half flies by. Your classmates quickly become friends and then quickly into something close to family. Make sure you say yes rather than no when friends ask you to do stuff out of class. And don’t take that time together for granted.

 

On persuasion…

Filed under: Internship — carlosgieseken @ 2:44 am

One of the major things I’ve learned during the internship so far is the importance of persuasion. One of our coaches recommended we read “To Sell is Human,” by Daniel H. Pink. The book talks about how everyone is in some capacity a salesperson because he or she has to constantly convince others to part with resources, whether it be time, money, or energy, in order to get something they are trying to sell.

During a recent pricing discussion with one of our clients, we had to convince them to consider alternative pricing strategies since we thought they were pricing their product way too low. I never really thought about how important the persuasion skill is, but it was gratifying that by the end of the meeting, we had convinced them to be open to revising their pricing model.

Pink

In arriving at their desired price, for example, they compared their application with other applications that I didn’t think were comparable services. I was able to convince them to look at direct competitors, as people have different elasticity to pricing depending on the product or service.

I made sure to frame my recommendations as a discussion and as an informational service rather than trying to be pushy, which I think was the best tactic to take.

 

Casey’s rules of business

June 13, 2014

Filed under: Internship — carlosgieseken @ 3:49 am

We gathered around the conference table, peppering Casey Leaman with questions. We’d all been working on our respective projects for a little over two weeks. Our clients would be coming in at noon and we wanted to throw a few things at Casey, one of our coaches, before the weekly face-to-face meetings began.

During that hour long conversation, he shared with us some of the basic rules of business that he likes to follow. My fellow interns and I, all tasked with helping clients who range from Baylor professors to sophomore business majors, listened intently:

Rule #1: Do something! Don’t waste time waiting. Take what you have and follow your instincts.

On May 21, I started my internship at the LAUNCH Innovative Business Accelerator, housed in the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative. The other interns and I are basically startup consultants working with inventors and early stage businesses to help them get their ideas off the ground. Each of our clients are in completely different stages along the business life cycle. Some have working products and just need to figure out how to get them in the right hands and at the right price. Others have been planning their ventures for almost a year but need some help getting them to the next level.

And so we aren’t always able to get in touch with our clients to get answers to questions we might have. So Casey’s advice is always, “Do something!” We’re all smart people, he likes to tell us, we just need to stop thinking like students and start thinking like consultants. Go ahead and follow our best judgment, he likes to tell us. Chances are, the competitor analysis, website wireframe, or strategic partnerships research will be exactly what is needed. This brings us to Casey’s next rule:

Rule #2: Present things for people to react to.

It’s always better to be proactive and just go ahead and do something so you have something to show the client. It probably won’t be exactly what they want, he warns us, but it will help the process move forward and will lead to things that the client wants and needs to progress with the business. Even if it’s in an area where they will eventually need to speak to a professional, like a patent attorney, it’s good to give the client some frame of reference to start from.

There are more of Casey’s rules that I’ll share as the summer progresses. They are just the tip of the iceberg of what I’m learning at my internship. Everyday feels like a crash course in entrepreneurship. I’ve used things I’ve learned in many of the MBA classes I’ve taken and it’s fun having that base of knowledge to draw on to help real live businesses. It’s one thing to take a position on a case study in class, it’s another when you’re staring at someone who is pouring their heart and soul into a dream and looking to you for recommendations that will hopefully help that dream come true.

BRIC-Lobby

The lobby of the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative building.