Blog 20: Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question and answers?  What is your best answer and why?

EQ: What is the best way an independent contractor can maximize profit from selling foam?
Answer 1: Provide a good quality and competitive price list and present it with good service.
Answer 2: Make the focus of your work day maintaining  client relations.
Answer 3: Provide the highest quality foam the industry can manufacture.

My best answer is making the focus of your work day maintaining client relations because that is the first step to take when approaching a client with a product.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

 

Mentorship helped me understand the importance of having a good business relationship with clientele. I saw my mentor prove this answer to me when I went on rides with him to visit his clientele.

 

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

 

 I had trouble finding the second answer to my EQ. It took a lot of rides with my mentor to fully understand how a to keep and maintain a long term business relationship.

 

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

 

My mentor has to be the most significant source for my answer to my EQ because as I did my mentorship I witnessed him put my answers to use. Another source is the book How to Turn On the Pressure Without Turning Your Customer Off written by Robert L. Shook. The book gave me a lot of insight on how to approach a customer and how to maintain positive outlooks by providing outstanding customer service. It also talks about meeting clients for the first time and how first impressions can definitely be the last in this business.

Foam Cuts!

 

My mentor, Manuel Martin represents a company that produces cut foam for companies who manufacture sofas and chairs. This company takes orders from clients who want very specific detailed cut foam. This makes it a lot easier for clients because they can easily put the foam inside the material and the product is pretty much ready to go. Although this process might be a bit more expensive to purchase it is still beneficial for clients because it takes away the money being spent on employees. Putting a price is very difficult because sometimes the measurements that are sent are very difficult to calculate how much foam exactly was being used. In most cases clients are charged for pieces that are cut off as well because it makes it easier to charge that way.

 

 

 

 

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

LITERAL
(a)  “I, Yesenia Martin, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”

(b) Manuel Martin, my mentor a sales representative for about 14 years.

(c) It is linked at the right side of my blog titled "Independent Component 2 log'

(d) I did my 30 hours for my independent component with my mentor. I spent most of that time going with my mentor to see clients about future purchases. I also had the chance to introduce a price list to a potential client who said was interested in doing business. I familiarized myself with the QuickBooks program as well as  different sets of price lists for different products. I got the chance to attend a business meeting with my mentor and his boss which led to a stop at the factory where they get their product (foam).

INTERPRETIVE 

This is where my mentor and the company he represents get there foam from.

A price list I helped my mentor create for a company he works for.

 

This is Ricardo, my mentors boss.

APPLIED
Independent component 2 helped me get a better understanding of customer service and foam itself. I saw the way my mentor treated and served his clients and it gave me a better understanding of how a sales representative should treat every client. I learned more about the kind of foams that are used in mattresses.My mentor taught me how to figure out how to price a certain foam depending on the thickness of it. The most popular foam used in mattresses in these time is usually memory foam due to it's softness that attracts most customers. It also helped me with my first answer as well regarding price lists.