19A – Idea Napkin No. 2

My name is Cory Cannon. I'm an economics major at the end of my senior year. I have worked extensively in sales in every role starting as a salesperson myself and eventually as an owner. Along the way I hired, trained and supported new hires and worked in customer service where I worked to salvage employees' bad deals. I manage that company as general manager for a couple years before leaving to work as a consultant to other sales offices in the Tampa area. I eventually started my own business where I opened a call center on the outskirts of Ybor city where I employed over 40 people. I eventually sold that business and attempted an international model where I traveled to the Dominican Republic and Panama where I recruited existing call centers to sell my companies services and trained their employees. I experienced moderate success before deciding that I would rather return home to finish my degree and pursue grad school. At one time I could sell ice to Eskimos although I will admit I'm a little rusty these days. I'd like to eventually earn my JD where I'd like to utilize my prior experience and combine those principles with the typical law model. I've fleshed out two concepts during my time in this course-one that I'm currently working on and one I'd like to get going in the future.

Currently, I'm offering high end Dobermans, from the world's top working and show lines, to families that have a desire and can afford to have the nicest dog in their social circle. I hope to build a real estate portfolio that will enable me to extent to families and individuals the ability to earn returns in a sector that would otherwise be unavailable to people with capital but lack expertise.

I currently service customers of all age groups in higher income demographics but do tend to have more customers that are more established due to the costs commanded in my space.

With Florida Dobermans, most of my customers do business with me because they have gone cheaper routes in the past and have grown to regret it. I have spoken to 3 customers this week who have had pets which they loved dearly and lost prematurely to a preventable health problem-one I met and sold a puppy to last weekend and one I have plans to meet Saturday.

My most valuable core competency is my willingness to do what no one else or few people are willing to do. I feel like too many people try to get rich from one deal rather than focusing on providing value. I worked hard for years making little to no money but always positioning myself to make more later. I have placed myself on an exponential growth curve. While my earnings were so low the first few years that few people would have put in the work that I did for the earnings that I received, I made as much last year as any people make working a part time job and have already surpassed those figures the first quarter of this year. Something I have that few others have is my combination of work ethic and willingness to make little now to make more later.

I think all these elements fit together nicely. The combination of them has been good to me and I hope they continue to be. I will concede that I have failed as much as I have succeeded. Many of my ideas and concepts I put in place prove to weak or out of joint with others and result in losses in the short run but enable me to hone what works.

The feedback I received on the first idea napkin was supported and positive as is much of the feedback we give to each other in this class. My most critical feedback has been outside of this class and from the market. I try not to let the criticism of naysayers mess with my head but I do pay attention to it to help me avoid failure where possible. Criticism from the market I feel acutely in my pocket and always listen to.