For the winter market, I worked with my partner Janine to create Joy Jars and cute little Christmas ornaments. Joy Jars are jars filled with different objects according to a specific theme. For instance, we had the Spa, Fun, and Treat jar available for sale as well as our second product, the ornaments. We had many ideas for our ornaments but decided to go with the ones that looked best which were the penguin and Epsom salt-covered ornaments. The Joy Jars were the main product and the ornaments were mostly a side product. We decided to make Joy Jars because we wanted to make convenient gifts for people to give one another during the holidays. Also, we had heard many people wanting products regarding a specific theme, which contributed greatly to making our products. However, it took us a while to get everything right because we had two other possible ideas as products. My original idea was to create homemade hand sanitizers along with a clay jewelry holder. Sadly enough, the original product couldn’t be brought to life for financial reasons. Even though our products weren’t the most creative, we still got a lot of sales and used our marketing skills for good.
Math was an academic concept that was required for this project because we needed to create a financial plan and handle the money that we gained from the consumers by ourselves. Speech isn’t an academic concept however it can theoretically be conjoined with English. We needed to use our voice (marketing) to attract consumers to our table to buy our products. Marketing is key to success in business because you need to make everyone think your product is the best and a once in a lifetime opportunity. We most certainly changed our ways a lot throughout this project because we bounced from two good product ideas to completely different ones. One can say that my partner and I were very adaptable once it came to this project and rolled with the punches. As for our financial plan, we exceeded our budget and needed to adapt by lowering the cost of each jar to sell it for a cheaper price. My expectations for this project were certainly different than what took place for several reasons. Firstly, blowing up through our budget made me extremely nervous and the sale itself didn’t go as smoothly as I had thought. As for our products, I thought we weren’t going to be ready for the day due to lack of communication.
Throughout the duration of this project, I learned that procrastination and laziness, in general, doesn’t take you a long way. You have to be on top of things and make scheduled deadlines for yourself, keeping in mind that you need to meet them. To be completely frank, my partner and I struggled a little when it came to certain deadlines such as the creation of the products itself. This project was a learning opportunity for us both because it is indeed a life lesson that procrastination will not take you a long way in the future. In the future, if I were to redo this project, I would make solidified deadlines and ensure that I meet them.
In my group, I feel like communication was lacking because my partner and I would only communicate during class. We both had a lot of commitments outside of school which made communication extremely poor, and that cost us a lot. The reason I am reflecting on this core competency is because communication is extremely important in a group setting and therefore needed, in order to be successful.
