Week 3: Identity Theft

Who would ever want someone going into their own personal account and stealing money from you? Not I.  In my opinion, its a little eary that individuals in the world today find it so easy to steal a person's identity from them. Identity left seems to be more and more common to us as the years go on.  Did you know that 18-29 year olds account for almost 30% of all identity theft complaints?  I am 21 so I should be in high alert at all times.  The last thing that I want is someone increasing their accounts through the means of stealing from me.

I am going to take you through the ways of how you should try to avoid identity theft.  I know that this doesn't completely relate to my business, but if you do happen to get your identity taken from your while at my truck, it becomes my business.  Do not use debit cards, never disclose your SSN unless you absolutely need to on a form, do not provide bank account or credit card info unless you made the call, check all of your monthly statements carefully to look for weird stuff, minimize what's in your wallet at all times, and memorize your pin as well.  The last two are very important.  Try to never keep a lot of cards, money, and information on you at all times. It is better to be safe than sorry in the end.  Also, memorize your pin and cover it up when you are standing at an atm.  In my case, if you are standing outside my truck, make sure to take caution and cover up your pin with your hand when you are typing it.  Trust me, stuff happens and you do not want it to happen to you!

Take caution and be careful.  You want to keep your identity to yourself!

Week 2: Excel

Welcome to the wonderful world of excel!

We are going to switch gears a little and look into a program that could not and will not hurt my business.  If anything, it will help it excel in ways I could only hope for.  When looking into the program excel, I can use graphs, data, charts, and various tools to keep track of my truck's success.  Dealing with food costs and trying to control those food costs, using excel is most likely a necessity.  To help my business succeed, I will start off by making spreadsheets off all my food, costs, and revenue.  I want to make sure that everything is recorded and I can make sure that my revenue is matching up with all my purchases and utilities.  Since I will be selling from a food truck though, everything will be cheaper considering I am not serving people in an actual restaurant.

First off, I will use graphs to show my success over every month, then over an entire year.  I will plug in my data which I will already have recorded on a spreadsheet in the program.  As well, after every day's sale , I will test out if I reached my goal or if I did not.  An important aspect within the restaurant industry, it to know if you beat your sales of the year before.  Considering I am hoping that this business will blossom, I am banking on keeping track if I "passed" or "failed" for that day.  This will be an easy way to see if I sold as much of food all together and to see if the total cost passed or failed to beat last years sales.  Doing this connects with the program in excel called "conditional formatting."  Excel will allow me to manage my own rule when keeping track of my balances within my business.

A side note: I took a class on cost control and if you ever want to work in the restaurant industry, excel will become your best friend.  You may be thinking that you don't believe me, but just wait and see for yourself.

Because I will be using excel to make A Taste of Sweets thrive, my business has no reason not to succeed.  Organization is a key factor and I will have that through the use of this program.  The only thing I need now are some guests who are hungry and some food/beverages. 

You just wait...

Week 1: Social Media

     There is one essential aspect in every person's life which they just cannot live without.  Any guesses? Well, food is the word.  No matter who you are, you need to consume something in your human body to maintain a healthy and stable life.  When coming up with an entrepreneurship idea, I wanted to relate it to my life and my interests.  Being a senior at Syracuse University with a major in Hospitality Management, I have come to the conclusion that if I could pick, I would be around food for the rest of my life.  What better way to do this than to open up my own Food Truck business?

     Food Trucks are thriving.  Whether you realize it or not, you cannot go to any major city and not bump into them at every other street corner.  Some of you may have seen The Next Food Truck Race on tv, or are one of those individuals who jump with joy at the sight of a food truck.  For me, I want to create a unique truck which is solely to please a person's sweet tooth.  I want to sell savory, sweet, sour, and salty sweets from homemade breads to chocolate cannolis.  To try and make this as successful as possible, I plan to use social media as the first step to accomplishing my aspiration.  When I refer to social media, I am going to be focusing more on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and GooglePlus.

     This social media revolution which we are consumed by almost every minute of everyday is the number one way right now to publish my business.  How many of you use social media at least five times a day?  I can say that I most certainly do, and most of the times more.  Some individuals choose to use certain social media websites over others.  When it comes to looking at what I use and most of my fellow peers, we tend to be mostly involved in Twitter and Facebook.  For my business, I will try and get as many followers on Facebook as possible.  I want to make sure that pictures and my truck finds people who are interested in it.  Looking into twitter, I will use this link to find people who have common interests as well, and even for people looking for jobs.  Making sure I am open to people's ideas and suggestions will be very important to me.  If you have a good idea to help my business, I want to hear it! Do not be shy! Taking everything into consideration is something I want to make sure I will do.  Who knows where it will get me?

     My primary goal through the use of social media is to make sure that my followers and fans are following me for a reason.  Why wouldn't I enjoy having the 200 million users on twitter to be following me and my Taste of Sweets food truck?  Although this would be absolutely lovely, I want these followers to read what I have to say for a reason.  To have people interested and intrigued to see my business thrive as much as possible, just like me will be a very rewarding experience.

Until the next time...Taste of Sweets is on the go!