In the College of Business for Butler University, the mantra for the program is, “Real life. Real business.” This mantra has provided an outline for the College of Business to grow prominently into a nationally ranked business school. An example of following this mantra would be the Real Business Experience or RBE for short. RBE involves running an actual business with a small group of students through the help and support of both the professors and mentors. For my business called Chos’ Me Bro, this business involved being a food stand that sold Qdoba style nachos during the late night on the weekends. For Chos’ Me Bro, I had the task of being the Chief Compliance Officer. As Chief Compliance Officer, I was responsible for legal research to make sure that the business was in compliance with Butler University and the Marian County Health Department. Working as the Chief Compliance Officer provided invaluable learning experiences. I was able to determine that a certified food handler was not necessary for the business which helped keep the costs low while in addition I received approval from the exclusive distributor of food at Butler University in Aramark to run the business on campus so that the business would be in compliance with Butler University policies. Overall, not only was I able to successfully contribute towards a profitable business but more importantly I was also able to learn about how to run a small business. While most other schools just have their business students read books on small businesses and entrepreneurship, I was actually able to run a real business through RBE. RBE is just one example of how the College of Business truly follows the mantra of “Real life. Real business” and is doing an excellent job preparing its students for the real world of business.
Real Business Experience was a great opportunity to learn a lot about myself and experience firsthand how to effectively launch and run a business. Through this experience I learned a lot about myself and my determination to make our business successful. By creating a real business I came to realize that I really have a strong quality of determination to be successful. This determination definitely paid off by the end of this class because myself and my team successfully launched our business, made profit, and received our loan from the funding committee which was our ultimate goal and test. I also learned a lot about starting a business and all of the different aspects that go into the whole process. We read a book call “Reality Check” by Guy Kawasaki and even though it provide great advise and input about how to run a business and be an entrepreneur, it could not compare to what we learned by actually running our business. One aspect of this great learning experience was teamwork. With teamwork we learned a lot about how to effectively run a business together, with each person having different strengths and weaknesses. Overall I think it was a great experience and I learned many things that could never be taught with a book. One key take away I got from the experience is that launching a business is a lot of long and hard work but it is also very fun and rewarding in the end.
-Anthony Olivero
Knowledge is food for the mind. Where would one be without the benefits of knowledge? Throughout my RBE experience, I have learned many things in a myriad of subjects. Some things I learned included things not just about the business and others, but I learned things about myself as well. I learned how well I can communicate with the customer and cooperate with my teammates. I also learned how well I can actually plan ahead when the situation calls for it, and my ability to step up as a leader when necessary.
As I learned things about myself, I also learned things about starting a business. I learned that if you are going to start a business, all the team members must be passionate about the business, the more passionate they are, the more likely things will be done faster and more efficiently to get the business going faster. I learned to expect “forks” in the road and how to properly plan for anything that goes awry. Finally, I also learned that no matter what kind of business you are running, starting up a business requires money, and almost all of the time it will require a lot of it. Another important subject that I learned things in were teamwork. Three things that I learned about teamwork during RBE is getting mad at someone won’t solve anything, listen to the ideas that everyone has, not just your own, and make sure everyone is included in the discussions about the business. If these three things are done, a very successful experience can be had in working with a team.
In conclusion, RBE has taught me many things. It taught about myself, how to start and run a business, and how to work on a team. This was an amazing class and I will keep what I have learned from this experience and apply it towards my career as a businessman.
Submitted by: Kyle Werner