Joyous--March 2, 2016

Wednesday afternoon is when we meet with Joy. She is super sweet. I feel bad because when I wrote her a note with her assignments for next week I wrote at the bottom "text us if you need anything else or have any questions :)" Mam Baby said she came to her and told her about that and asked if she could ask us to help her buy a computer. Oops. I talked to her about creating a brand and told her a story out of interweave about a guy who sells bananas in Ecuador (shoutout!!). I read her an example of how he stated his business in 30 seconds. I told her next week to write down a statement of how she would describe her business in 30 seconds. We then talked about the problems she is having and what is going well. As far as the branding thing goes... Problem is she can't really use her registered business name on anything because of the whole problems with the government. She owes them so much money. I wish I understood more of the legalities of it all. We found her on Facebook though. I think a good next step is working on separating her personal and business expenses. She said she used to be good at it but with the typhoon, college, and a grandkids things got a little mixed up. We are still pressing to figure out how to sell more taurplin (vinyl posters) and t-shirts. We also need to look at her financials and see where we can cut costs. Her son is studying accounting and working on putting together some reports. She has good intentions, potential, and is on the right track but we still have a long way to go. We are encouraging to hire a sales person that is based entirely on commission. Can you tell this idea is coming from summer sales boys? Haha That way he doesn't deal with any money so it doesn't have to be someone she knows and it can increase business. We will see. I think her current employees should just start making a lot of phone calls. I learned she also sells shampoo and conditioner to her friends on the side too. I wish there was one answer we could give her. This work is harder than it sounds. She is a really hard worker though and each week we teach her something new or learn something new about her. Hopefully we can see some improvement in her business in the next month. And if not, hopefully we set a good foundation.