Notes of an Interview with an Entrepreneur

A1a: The Sole Proprietorship is the most common business form in the U.S. It offers the advantages of no-cost, easy startup, and full owner/operator autonomy with regard to business decisions.

1. Describe the basic features that distinguish the four basic forms of business ownership: sole proprietorships, general partnerships, C corporations, and limited liability companies.

The analysis was made on the annual report for the year ended 30 June 2009, of the company “JB Hi-Fi Limited” which is one of the largest retailer chain groups for home consumer products such as consumer electronics, electrical goods, software including music, games and movies. The company is operating with 123 stores (106 Branded JB Hi-Fi) spread across Australia and New Zealand, who’s head office is in Chadstone VIC 3148, Australia.

You pay a franchise fee and you get a format or system developed by the company (franchisor), the right to use the franchisor’s name for a limited time, and assistance. For example, the franchisor may provide you with help in finding a location for your outlet; initial training and an operating manual; and advice on management, marketing, or personnel. The franchisor may provide support through periodic newsletters, a toll-free telephone number, a website, or scheduled workshops or seminars.

In this assignment, I will explore different types of businesses. Some of these will include: Sole Traders, Private Limited Companies (Ltd), Public Limited Companies (Plc), Partnerships, Non-Profit Businesses, Franchises, Co-operatives. In this instant, I will be exploring a Public Limited Company. Tesco.

What is the business model? What industry are they in? How big are they (numbers of employees, number of locations, sales, market share, industry rankings, number and size of direct competitors)? How long have they been in business: is this a “traditional” or “new” organization? Are they publicly traded or privately owned? Who owns them? Describe the vision and mission statements, and organizational goals. Do these define the business? Are they appropriate, inappropriate? In the appendix, include information like recent financial results, ownership structures, board of directors’ names and backgrounds, market share information, etc.

The entrepreneur that I interviewed was Lydia Patterson. In 1989, Lydia and her husband, Lou, decided to start planning to open up a new Italian restaurant in Virginia. The restaurant industry, especially in the Washington DC area is very competitive. It is highly competitive with respect to price, value and promotions, service, location, and food quality.  There are a substantial number of restaurant operations that compete for customer traffic, some of which have significantly greater resources to aggressively market to consumers, which could result in losing market share.  Consumers are highly focused on value and if other restaurants are able to promote and deliver a higher degree of value, guest traffic levels

My chosen businesses are KFC and NHS. These are the businesses I will be discussing the purpose and ownership. I will also mention the internal and external stakeholders of these two businesses.

"What are the three basic forms of business ownership? What are the advantages and disadvantages to each?

The entrepreneur I interviewed was, Dehra Battle. She is the owner and stylist at Hair Savvy Hair and Nail Salon. The salon opened up on the Spring of 2010. I have known Dehra for the past 10 years. She has been my personal hair stylist for the last 10 years. Being a close family friend, I have witnessed her trials and tribulations with being an entrepreneur. I choose Dehra, because she is a wonderful and hard working woman; she has a passion for helping others with self esteem by creating signature styles that will give any woman the confidence. Dehra was not satisfied with working under a salon owner who was not concerned about the workers safety and customer satisfaction. She wanted to be in control and create an environment that customers would love to attend regularly.

“An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.” (Roy Ash)

Is the most common business type, where the business is operated and owned by a single individual. In this type of business, the sole proprietor provides capital, does not share profit or loss and runs the business alone. As such, the business and the owner are indistinguishable for tax and legal purposes (Dlabay, 2011). To differentiate this business from other business types, a sole proprietorship is discussed under the following characteristics.

The retail chains offer footwear, sporting goods, clothing, sportswear, home ware and accessories. The group operates in three segments namely Apparel, Home and Central Services.

Taking this entrepreneur course has been the best thing I could do for myself. Not only did it grow my mindset, but it taught me how to focus and concentrate on meeting my goals. At the beginning of this semester I could not let go the negative self-image I had of myself. Since I have been able to reflect on who I am I am slowly able to let go of that past image. I now know that I am more than able to reach my goals with the proper mindset and skills. I have come a long way since the beginning of this course. At the beginning of this course we were asked what is most important in life, and when I chose myself I knew after that reflections that I was off to a great start. Putting myself first these last few months has been the best thing I

After the creation of a business plan, the next step to operating a business is the selection of an appropriate business structure. Different legal forms of business ownerships affect different managerial and financial factors from the business names to the tax obligations (Gregory, n.d.). The most common forms are sole proprietorship, partnership, cooperatives, and corporations. There are different types of corporations in the business world, but the two most general corporation types are S Corporation and Limited Liability Company (LLC) (Ferrell et al., 2013). The sole proprietorship is the easiest and most basic form of business ownership. It is owned and run by one individual, which is the proprietor. The individual is entitled to all profits and is responsible for all the business’s