It’s been 2 years in the making and it’s now done! I just received my final grade in my Capstone class for my MBA in Marketing from Regis University!

It was 12 classes and I took the Marketing concentration and I’m very happy to announce that I received 11 A’s and 1 B….the B was in Financial Decision Making which was the most boring and difficult class I could imagine because it was all financial spreadsheets and how to interpret them!

But at the age of 41 to pull off a 3.8 GPA is awesome considering a full-time job and Wife and 4 kiddos!

So now I am taking one last class as an Independent Study in Internet Marketing so that I have 18 hours in Marketing at the Graduate level. This is because many Universities require their Adjunct Professors to have this to be able to teach Marketing at the College level. My goal is to teach online at a few Universities in Business and Marketing as I thoroughly enjoyed the online learning environment and see this is the most reliable way for a College to grow in the future.

If there’s any Marketing Related issues or questions that I can ever help you with I’ll be happy to help!

Tweet This Post

Whew! This one is done and boy was it a lot of work….but really fun!

The entire class was a Simulation where our Team set up a computer company
and made dozens of executive decisions each week regarding expanding
Internationally, hiring, Advertising, Sales and Marketing etc

My Team took 1st place!!

Now it’s off to my last class in my Marketing MBA!

Tweet This Post

OK I realize it’s been a few months since I update my journey through my MBA in Marketing but here’s why…after the Consumer Behavior class I went right into Financial Decision Making and Market Research….not fun! In fact I am the guy who has the 30,000 foot vision for success. I can put together a marketing plan, I can strategize joint venture relationships to increase sales. I can create back-end marketing systems to increase revenues….but show me a Balance Sheet or Income Statement and I throw up a little in my mouth (sorry). So the last 2 classes were a bit dry, but I got an “A”  and a “B” in them (the only “B” in the entire MBA so far….oh well)

So now I have started “Product Management” and it really is looking like a lot of fun….a lot of work, but fun!

Here’s the overview from week 1:

This class is a bit different than the classes you have had so far in the program. The activities you will participate in will revolve primarily around playing a computer simulation of business – so most of the course content will involve the simulation in some way.

The main emphasis of this course is Product Management. Product Management is a function that requires a great deal of interaction between the different functional areas of the business. It is important that each functional area understand the impact their decisions have on the rest of the organization. The business simulation that you will participate in during this course does a good job of doing just that

So this entire class is a game simulation of starting a computer company and EVERY SINGLE decision needs to be made to start and run the company over 6 quarters. Finance,Advertising,Branding,Manufacturing,Sales etc….and we compete against other teams to see who has the best results. It actually allows us to draw on all the learning we have done up to this point and put into a real simulation of business application. Pretty cool. Looks like a lot of work because we have to spend 3-5 hours a week in the simulation program and hold a team conference call and also an Executive Board meeting with the Prof and turn in a 10 slide PowerPoint each week…

I’ll post updates throughout the rest of this course and then I begin the last class at the end of August and should complete my MBA in Marketing by November….Whew!!

Until next time

Tweet This Post

In a recent assignment for my MBA in Marketing, we covered an interesting topic of Vicarious Learning Process which is:

The process where consumers learn from observing the consequences of what happens to other consumers is called vicarious learning. It is also called modeling. Viewers can empathize with certain characters in advertisements that experience positive results from using a product or service. In vicarious learning, when consumers observe other people engaging in a particular behavior (testing a new brand of soft drink at the supermarket) or set of behaviors (shopping for groceries), they also closely observe the consequences of those behaviors (brands purchased, amount of money spent, affective states produced, exposure to these environmental factors). Also, vicarious learning can have a positive effect on changing overt behavior, in terms of the cognitive processes of attention, comprehension, and integration.

So in the spirit of “Vicarious Learning” I thought you may liek to read the results of my survey to small business owners regarding marketing….I think you’ll see some of the very eye-opening information that I researched!

CLICK HERE

Tweet This Post

This week in my MBA in Marketing through Regis University online, we continued to focus on the consumer’s decision making process.

The premise for both of these models is that variables such as: awareness, comprehension, interest, evaluation, conviction, etc  are a very important concern for marketers and the major indicators of behavior.

Marketing’s responsibility is to change these variables and move consumers thru the consumer problem solving and decision making stages until they make a purchase. Of course there are a thousand and one ways that we see marketing efforts to accomplish this, but one very easy thing to keep in mind is…be genuine and helpful without being pushy! When you approach a prospect with helpful and educational material that in-and-of-itself will benefit them, you are perceived as someone adding value to their life and business!

Notice in the graphic above that the 1st block is “Attention”. This is critical because there’s so much marketing “noise” out there for our prospects to see that we must find ways to stand out above the crowd. This can involve being creative, this can involve doing the opposite of what your competition is doing….or it can be using such specific knowledge that you have learned from your target audience that your message really “hits home” with them!

Until next week!

Tweet This Post