career panel – Introduction to Digital Publishing

Career Services: Entrepreneurship

After attending the careers entrepreneurship panel, I was able to gain a lot of knowledge about what it’s like running your own business. The panel was made up of a select few business owners and entrepreneurs that had a range of different background. From young to older, from college drop outs to college grads. They all were genuinely unique, which was great to see. Their uniqueness offered great insight on entrepreneurship. The panel was hosted by Stevenson’s own Jeannine Morber who is a lecturer within the school of business. She founded the Morber Marketing group in 2010 with the goal of helping businesses integrate new marketing technologies into their current marketing processes. The panel included Garret Pfiefer who now works for his family business at Maryland Brand Management which produces all kinds of merchandise that are tailored for specific companies. Another panelist includes Andy Brown the founder and CEO of Eat Pizza. Eat Pizza is a frozen pizza manufacturing company that covers more than half the nation. Andy also owns a music entertainment company and a local pizzeria. There is also Elizabeth Trimm who is the hunt valley branch manager for Rent-A-Car. This specific branch is the largest in the Baltimore area. Another panelist was Andrew Murphy who is the partner and owner of Flying Frog Publishing, which specializes in the publishing of children’s books. Chris Daley who is the founder and principal of Whirlaway, LLC. Chris’s company specializes in public relations, specifically media relations, social media strategy, content creation, brand building and sales. Last, but not least, John Dinkel is the principal at Dinkel Business Development, LLC. This company is a business development strategic advisory based in Baltimore City.

This careers’ panel connected to my personal career goals more than I thought it would. As someone who is in the technology industry, I didn’t think a lot of this advice would be relevant to me. I thought this panel would be mainly how to run a business. Instead is was more about how to properly run your life, and that make include running a business. This was good for me because a lot of their general advice wasn’t all about running the best business or making the most money, but rather how to have the most enjoyable life. This connects to our class because they preached that advertising is a huge piece to a successful business, and in order to advertise correctly in 2019, you need to be able to utilize the internet.

Life is too Short to Wait

Last Wednesday I attending the Entrepreneurship panel with the hope that I would be able to gain a better understanding of entrepreneurship and if it were something I might want to consider. I was a bit disappointed as I felt like I didn’t gain very much by attending the event. I will say that the members of the panel were passionate about their business. Specifically Andrew Murphy from Flying Frog Publishing and Andy Brown from Eat Pizza. They spoke about how they got into entrepreneurship and how it started back when they were in high school. One of the biggest things I felt the panel was trying to express to us was that it is hard work and you will face a lot of people saying no, or it is not going to work. I felt like everyone really lingered on these things and that it was really nothing knew for me.

While I feel a bit disappointed about the event I feel like there were two things that really stuck out to me. The first being the passion and excitement that Andy had. And I felt like he presented it in such a way that I was curious to hear more about his story. Even if I felt like I didn’t take much away, I like to hear him talk. Another thing that really stuck out to me was when John Dinkel talked about how his sister-in-law passed away which caused him and his wife to realize that life it too short to wait and that if they wanted to start this business, then they should do it now. It gave me a little bit of a perspective on taking the leap into business.

As a film major I have always thought about starting a video production business. I am in the process of trying to formulate the business and the brand. I feel like digital publishing is a topic that would be really good for me and helpful. While I felt like the panel discussion did not touch on digital publishing very much, I do feel like this coarse has some potential to be very helpful to me.

Entrepreneurship is Key to Career

The entrepreneurship career panel was an amazing opportunity to learn about the working world and what it takes to make your name in the world of business and sales. The panel included six speakers: John Dinkel, the principal of Dinkel Business Development, LLC, Chris Daley, Founder and Principal of Whirlaway, LLC, Elizabeth Trimm, Branch Manager of the largest Enterprise Rent-A-Car in the Baltimore Division, Andrew Murphy, Partner and Owner of Flying Frog Publishing, Andy Brown, Founder and CEO of “Eat Pizza”, and Garrett Pfeifer of Maryland Brand Management. Each of these entrepreneurs had interesting stories and great experience, but for me, the ones that stuck out the most were Elizabeth Trimm, Andrew Murphy, and Andy Brown. I liked listening to Ms. Trimm speak because of her take-charge attitude; she was not ashamed of her talents in sales and I really respected that she could tell stories like one she did about making more than her bosses and managers when she worked as a sales person. Mr. Murphy had a very captivating way of speaking that could easily keep my attention; he mentioned at one point that to run a business connecting all the pieces and people that you need to work with as one is key to success. He also mentioned the importance of finding people you want to do business with to make your business work. Lastly, Mr. Brown was an interesting panelist as he, similar to Trimm, talked about how he just kept outdoing his bosses or coming up with better business plans than them. Brown also spoke on re-crafting your plan as you go; your plan can’t always stay the same and your approach has to change as your business does.

This event speaks well to the focus of our class: making a statement with your product. Of course, for digital publishing, you are working your hardest to make your work stand out and achieve its purpose by making it call out to your audience through proper visuals, text, and layout. In a business you are trying to achieve the similar goal of reaching an audience, but the considerations are more comprehensive as a whole company is being pushed to sell a product. Digital publishing can actually be an enormous part of running and advertising a business, especially with the rise of solely online businesses. As for my career path, which is nursing, there’s not too much I can do to apply entrepreneurship to my work. Yet, outside of my career path, I work for my family’s bar, creating flyers, advertisements, and social media pages. So I do have some involvement in the work of digital creations and this panel helped me to focus my attention better on outreach to the consumer and progressing business plans.

Entrepreneurship: Where to Begin?

I learned a lot at the career panel. John Dinkel, owner of Dinkel Business Development, LLC. Has over 25 years of experience in business development. John started his business after his sister-in-law died of cancer and decided life was too short. Some key tips on how to start a business Dinkel offered are start working your network now and talk to as many entrepreneurs as you can, get as much advice as you can and work as hard as you can, but be humble. Chris Daley, owner of Whirlaway, launched his communication agency in November 2018. Daley’s key advice on how to start a business are build relationships, connect with people on LinkedIn, focus on your strengths, but know what your weaknesses are, and it is all about the quality of what you know not the quantity. Andrew Murphy, owner of Flying Frog Publishing, has a highly successful 16-book series of fun fact titles. Murphy’s tips for starting a business are you need to hustle and put your name out there. Elizabeth Trimm, branch manager for the largest home city Enterprise Rent-A-Car branch in the Baltimore Division, decided to start her own branch since she is a single mom and was making more money than her bosses at her first branch. Trimm’s top three tips on starting a business include knowing what your “why” is, set short-term goals that are achievable, and don’t let anyone get in your way. Andy Brown, owner of a frozen pizza manufacturing company, Eat Pizza, graduated from Stevenson in 2012 and also owns Capitol Music and Andy’s Pizza in Tyson’s Corner, VA. Brown’s advice is that no matter what you are going to need to be able to sell your product or business and that you are going to need to work harder than before. Last on the panel was Garrett Pfeifer. Pfeifer, owner of Maryland Brand Management, stepped into the family business of clothing manufacturing. His advice was never be worried about what people think about you, making the first sale is tough and takes a lot of work, and you just have to go out there and promote your business.

The event was connected to our course in a couple of ways. First, students in the course may have a career goal of digital publishing, so this helps introduce them to the world they eventually want a career in. Secondly, in the course we are going to be helping AWE with their website or something related to digital publishing. By attending the event we were able to learn the ins and outs of what a good business is so that way we can incorporate those tips and advice into our project for AWE. My career goal is to be a labor and delivery nurse; however, I may continue my education to becoming a Nurse Practitioner or Physician’s Assistant and open my own practice. If I open my own practice, I would need to know how to start my business and how to get my name out there, which was addressed in depth at the career panel. I also currently have started two side businesses with my fiancé, so hearing their advice on how to develop or businesses more has definitely helped on where to go next.