Fast-Paced Entrepreneurship
It is hard to believe that I have been given the opportunity to continue my internship at Fulton & Roark and that we are quickly approaching the halfway point of the semester. Resuming classes has changed my approach to this internship in not being in the office every day and having to perform with the marching band at football games and other events. With this, a key part of my success has been planning. I plan when to pay members of our affiliate program, preschedule Instagram posts, and am working on writing blogs ahead of time. All of this has tested and allowed me the opportunity to improve my time management skills. As a senior, it certainly feels like every semester goes by quicker than the last which has certainly helped me realize how fast-paced entrepreneurship or startup life can be.
As Fulton & Roark looks to continue to scale, I have noticed how fast things can move and how fast things can change. Looking into autumn, we are working with a new advertising firm, moving offices, and looking into hiring a new wholesale growth manager. While a lot of these things are just natural transitions in the life of every company, it has taught me a valuable lesson and that is to move fast before the competition catches up. Men’s grooming is a fast-growing market and while solid cologne was relatively unknown, the concept is starting to catch on with other companies. It is our job to give consumers a brand awareness of Fulton & Roark so when people think of a solid cologne or fragrance, we come to mind. One of the top ways that I have been doing that is obviously through content and naturally filling up our blog with SEO terms that work for our company but also working to get our products featured by the media or social media influencers.
In continuing with a fast pace, part of Fulton & Roark’s goals is to increase and diversify product offerings beyond just the basic solid cologne and shave cream. While we do have a great line of grooming products, we are looking to add more. In seeing potential products to develop, I have had the opportunity to conduct timely market research with data from Mintel. When doing this, we are looking for the opportunity to develop customer loyalty so that men have a ritual that uses all Fulton & Roark products and not one product of each grooming aspect. While content will still be my primary focus, doing this research is something that I find very interesting and want to continue to improve. During both advertising and researching, it is important to understand who your customer base is. This is something I want to continue to better understand but also look at ways to expand this base.
Business moves fast. When analyzing the competition and seeing the impact you can make, it is clear that if you aren’t moving, someone will overtake you. This does not mean that as an entrepreneur you need an obsessive mentality, but it definitely proves you need to be a dedicated worker that should be prepared for just about anything.
Written by Erik Schultz, #WakeEntrepreneur