Business Planning : Avoiding Archilles' Heel

I've mentioned this before, but those who are familiar with Jurong Junior College would know that the school strongly supports the entrepreurial endeavours of its students.


This can be seen by the 4 student-operated businesses in the school, jointly run by the Enterprise Club.


The E³ Programme that Youth Enterprise Academy conducted for the students was to help them bolster their business planning skills to help them to grow these 4 enterprises, as well as to enable them to perform better for business plan competitions.


The students were quick learners, no doubt accelerated by their experiences in business operations. The marketing strategies and campaigns that they were able to come up with were great.


The Archilles' heel of any business plan is often the finance portion of the business plan. Students often make the mistakes of overprojecting initial sales, or tweaking the figures just so that the business would break-even in a year.


Investors and VCs however, can sniff out any financial loopholes faster than you can say 'oops.' And I was glad that none of the students committed those fundamental flaws.


Here's a quick look of what transpired over the 2-day workshop.

BU2: The Seven Flowers

Planning can be fun too!

A quick look at successful marketing campaigns by companies

And the final presentation after 2 days of hard work!

Easy Target

As I often share with my students in sales modules, I'm the kind of soft-hearted customer that is most susceptible to great salesmanship.


An exercise in bartering and negotiation during the Fundamentals of Selling workshop in ITE Clementi saw me facing off with a student who really knows how to work the situation to her advantage. Needless to say, I was sold into bartering my sassy handphone with her MP3 player.


A student outdoing her master? It's not something that's straight out of a Star Wars script.


Of course, I asked her where she picked up her skills from, and I wasn't surprised to hear her recite a long list of retail outlets, including, she proudly proclaim, Fox; of which she's one of the top performers. Her sales in the ladies section was good, but it was exceptional when she was moved to the gents.


I'm wasn't the least surprised. She has an easy and charming demeanor and a sincere way of reaching out to customers.


Another great example of a talented teen was the student workshop co-ordinator. He was exceptionally polite (and dare I say professional?) in receiving us and in attending to my and my facilitator's needs. He also showed great people skills in handling his peers and was clearly cut out to be a leader (or a business leader, seeing that he's a leader in the ETP Club).


It's these amazing gems that I meet in my work that truly inspires me. The next generation of youth will be amazing. Just wait and see.

Making An Impact On Your Immediate Environment

Our recent Creative Problem Solving workshops at ITE Balestier proves that sparks for creative ideas can be found anywhere and everywhere.

Or in this case, students were able to come up with creative solutions to everyday problems that they face in schools. Problems like the losing of tools during automotive lessons, or the inability to open doors when you're carrying bulky items (because your hands are full), or even how to improve the ways you move heavy objects like tires were put through their creative mills. The end results were, as always, remarkably exciting.

I look forward to see these ideas developed for the Tan Kah Kee Young Inventor's Award.

In the meantime, here's some snaps from the workshops at ITE Balestier.

I don't need no flipchart to present my idea!

Brainstorming for great ideas.

I've actually learnt a thing or two about automotive from these automotive students :)