Reflection of Master’s Degree
Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership
No longer did I need to question who I was, what was truth, and where I belonged! When I began at Full Sail University, I was certain about one thing. I wanted to self-determine my path towards a better tomorrow. The first class, Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership was an affirmation towards that end. The acclamations of authenticity had personified its face through the readings of author, Robert Greene.
I only needed to read, reflect, and resolve what I had already known; the seed of purpose and identity stemmed from the experiential connections of my childhood. For me, here was the answer of truth. Here was my root.
Executive Leadership
Leadership is a personal journey of awareness; it is the voice of a mindful warrior.
No longer could I stand with questions only. Now began the new task of developing discernment.
Discernment develops by your emotional cues; it manifests answers by understanding yourself in emotion in the unsaid. Emotional intelligence requires mastery; if not, emotion will get in the way of your common sense.
One remaining certainty in this life is the important fact: you will experience being misunderstood and you will misunderstand.
How you deal with this misunderstanding is within your power. Executive Leadership taught just that; life is full of misunderstandings and when misunderstood, take action with discernment. Seek deeply within while observing outside yourself. Your intuition becomes the mechanism that provides insight and discernment.
Project and Team Management
What good am I if I succumb to the status quo? What good am I if I succumb to prejudice?
The beauty that exists within a team’s diversity is the poetic expression of individual responsibility, necessary to move forward a team objective. Not only do we have to find harmony, but also discover the art of acceptance. Everyone has an individual vision. Everyone has their personal objectives and goals. How we, as a team, harmonize the individual visions, goals, and objectives becomes the cornerstone of success or failure.
I learned to listen, accept the individual, and embrace the art of the human experience.
Business Storytelling & Brand Development
What must I do to present the very best of who I am?
When a product is developed, there is much planning and thought put into it. Most entrepreneurs have an emotional investment in the product for they are the creators of the backstory.
Brand development is about consistency. What values the brand projects consistently is in correlation to the story itself. The story may change, but the values do not. Apple, Inc. is a great example of this.
The backstory of the product is vital in producing image. Consumers identify with the consistent follow-through a product launch provides, especially if there is emotional investment established between the product and the customer.
Through Business Storytelling and Brand Development, I have learned image is all about authenticity and expectation. Consistency is vital for a brand to survive.
Entertainment Business Finance
What good is it to have a vision if you do not have the financial forecast to see the future? Entertainment Business Finance was an important class for me. First, it helped me research the market for comparable pricing data. It is important to understand your competitor in order to discover a happy price medium in an oversaturated market.
It was vital for me to understand the profit margin of my product and to have a blueprint of my product’s 3 year financial forecast.
Obviously, it is not a perfected science and things can drastically change in any given circumstance however, it is better than a blank page especially when you are dealing with dollars and cents.
Negotiation and Deal-Making
The art of negotiation requires a focal point of interest for everyone involved.
If one party is not looking for a win-win situation within the deal-making process, this can lead to disaster. This type of negotiation, where one is forced into unfair agreements, damages relationships.
In negotiations, it is better to find common ground and to practice democracy with dignity and respect for all parties involved, rather than control and tyranny.
One way to identify control and tyranny within a negotiation is through the rapidity of demands the opposing party may be exuding. When the opposing party is pushing you to sign, without discussion and contribution of your thoughts and needs, or is diminishing your points as irrational or non-negotiable, there is a bad contractual relationship simmering.
Through this class, Negotiation and Deal-Making, I have learned it is extremely important to take time and read the contract! Do not sign the agreement without understanding what you are agreeing to. If you discover the opposing party is diminishing your needs, it is important for you to reconsider. If you decide to give the opposing party a chance, it is better you re-write the contract rather than rely on oral communications to suffice this need. Even then, it may be time to just walk away from the opposing party’s offer, rather than trying to build a healthy contractual relationship with them.
Product and Artist Management
Trust builds upon mutual respect!
An artist needs to know you are on their side! They need to know that you, as the manager, understand the artist; art is the life-force of their existence. It is a great disservice to manage someone and not understand the business of art as well as the emotional investment of the artist.
A manager needs to wear many hats and needs to have a thick skin. A successful manager sees the human value of the artist!! An unsuccessful manager should not be attaching value of artist based solely upon money!!! This type of relationship will cause a disconnect in trust and everyone will suffer the consequences of its demise.
You must create an authentic relationship from the beginning with all actions uplifting, empowering, and pushing forward the artist vision, or you fail as a manager.
Advanced Entertainment Law
Shall you pay me $9000 for your online business name or loose the rights to owning it through the world-wide-web?
Advanced Entertainment Law was very important in exposing and teaching about cases in trademark law.
Squatters are a real issue in the world of business. They go about finding new businesses through state databases and create URL’s using those same names to claim ownership. What these squatters are really doing is purchasing (at very cheap prices) the registration name through the world-wide-web with intentions to black mail business owners to pay large sums of money or loose their rights to the name online.
One such case is “Panavision v. Dennis Toeppen (9th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1998).”
What I have learned is to not give in to the squatter’s demands and to seek legal counsel if it ever does arise.
Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution
What good is it to publish a book with a large publishing house if I have not first done my homework?
How do I approach a publisher? What are the advantages and disadvantages of independent online publishing?
Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution taught me through real life scenarios in proper mechanics of writing a Query Letter, a Book Outline, and an online self-publishing strategy.
What I have learned through this process is the business of book publishing. As an unpublished author, I have learned how important it is to respect the industry by adhering to the standards of publishing houses. It is vital to contact them through a query letter and make sure you have prepared a book proposal in advance if the agent or editor you sent the query letter to is interested in seeing more. The industry is much more than a loan to an author. A good publishing house will invest in your vision, your writing, and your success.
Digital Marketing
An entrepreneur is the mechanic of online marketing while the digital tools are the supplies for building your brand’s online presence.
A very important step in business is creating a marketing campaign online using such tools as a blog, social media, an affiliate program, and direct emails. A business savvy entrepreneur will advance their goals of ROI by planning, implementing and executing an online marketing campaign that includes campaign pre-planning. Such things as creating a marketing budget, developing an objective statement, developing your marketing goal, identifying Key Performance Indicators, and narrowing down your target are vital to the success of your campaign.
Google Analytics is one of the leaders in online E-marketing. Google offers training and certification for business’s looking to advance their knowledge in developing a marketing plan for a product’s online presence. One such website is www.conversionuniversity.com. You can also do some very basic things for your blog and website by installing Google Analytics and uploading Google Maps.
Business Plan Development
The vision you create as an entrepreneur will be set in motion through a well-developed business plan!
Developing a business plan requires writing an outline. Once the outline has been completed then you can begin to supply the logistics. These logistics include such things as your elevator pitch, your financial plan, and marketing plan. The first couple of paragraphs typically determine if an investor is interested. You can say the Elevator Pitch and Executive Statement is the “lyrical” hook of the business plan.
By developing each component of the plan, I was able to easily put it together without feeling overwhelmed. This prepared me for my final class and project.
Final Project: Business Plan
The vision is complete and now you must present with passion.
The final class, Business Plan, provided the pertinent pieces necessary to present my plan to investors; it is the oral presentation digitally-mastered and prepared. I am now ready to sell my vision and hook vital prospective partners.
My Final Thoughts:
“We move to a beat uniquely crafted. What becomes of this interaction flows like the rivers, while today, today presents a unique rebirth.
We live and breathe courage, as we stand in strength with our dreams. We do not know the exact destination; we just know to walk in the presence of an opportunity.
Where this journey leads is not easily understood. What is understood is our resolve, we are self-determined. We cannot worry of what others may say or do. We can only be concerned with our actions of today and our visions for the future.” ~ 2015 Madeline A. Gouin
(Full Sail University Graduate: Master’s of Science: Entertainment Business Management)
