I actually had fun with this one. For my hypothetical company, I decided to create an IT consulting company. I already have a consulting LLC on the side so it was a logical conclusion. For the writing, I basically just wrote one section each day. It was a ton of writing but overall not too bad once I got into it.
I went ahead and wrote the executive summary first even though the rubric suggested doing it last. I wanted the summary to set the foundation for everything else that followed. For consulting, the main goal is to help companies solve problems and remain satisfied so that provided the base for the company mission, business goals, and keys to success.
For the next section, the company summary, I did a bit of googling to get the history of consulting in general then fine tuned it to IT consulting toward the end. Since I already have an LLC, the legal ownership piece was easy enough to get through and I basically mirrored on paper how my actual LLC was formed. For location and facilities, I did some research around the local area and found some shared office suites location and used the info from that to complete that portion.
As a single manager LLC, the management structure section went pretty quickly. Basically, I do everything. The learning material mentioned that there were specific functions that needed to be addressed, including finance, legal, marketing, management, and human resources so I wrote three sentence paragraphs showing how I would handle all those functions individually.
For products and services, I simply listed the services my own LLC provides and wrote a few sentences about what each service entails. I limited the list to five in order to keep the writing to a manageable level.
For the market analysis section, I just googled for information and provided cited references about the growth of the industry in my local area. The SWOT analysis went pretty quickly as I simply paralleled my own experiences then wrote a bit about them.
The 4P’s section again was fairly simple as I just used information from my own LLC to complete each P. I listed my products (services) and which industry sectors they applied to. For pricing, I listed some retail products plus the project consulting fees that I employ in my own LLC. Most of my communication to clients is through the company website so that provided the best place information. Finally, for promotion, I relied heavily on writing about creating brand recognition and the different methods I used for that (ie: social media, direct selling, etc).
For the price list section, I simply plucked out several of the products/services I already offer and listed those. I listed about 20 ranging from VoIP hardware to hourly consulting rates.
The promotional strategy took a bit of time to create. I decided I wanted to include some graphical components so I downloaded a timeline excel spreadsheet that pre-populated a horizontal chart. It made things super simple. Once I had all the appropriate pre-launch milestones, I imported the chart into my capstone document as a picture. Then I took all the milestones I had created in the spreadsheet and stuck them in a Word table so it matched the graphic.
For the sales forecast, I downloaded a forecasting spreadsheet template and just created some plausible numbers. I didn’t want to have numbers in the hundreds of thousands or millions, so I kept it to around $10k in revenue for each month (give or take). The forecasting template also created some really nice revenue charts based on the numbers I input so I included a couple of those as well.
For this section, I just created a Word table that included significant dates and responsibilities (ie: incorporate as LLC, file articles of organization with secretary of states office, etc). I mainly used the steps I followed when launching my own company and I just massaged the dates a bit so it all flowed together in a good implementation timeline.
For monitoring, I took a look at the learning material (the videos) to figure out what they were looking for. After that, it was pretty simple to come up with stuff. Things like “analyze sales forecasts and closure rates to compare revenue target achievements and product movement. Analyzed bi-weekly.” That sort of stuff. I broke mine down into separate groups: marketing, sales, financials, and client feedback then wrote a few sentences on each how it would be monitored.
This was fun. Two financial statements templates are provided, a P&L and a balance sheet. I just copied in my revenue numbers from the previous section (a rubric requirement) and then created a bunch of operating expenses (ie: rent, utilities, travel expenses, etc, with random values for each).
I made good use of formulas to do cell calculations so I didn’t have to do a lot of math. This came in real handy later as I would find out. I referred back to my Spreadsheets course to remember how to do a few formulas which worked out nicely.
For the balance sheet, I carried over net profit from my p&l as retained earnings and built off of that. The biggest thing to consider here is that assets must equal liabilities + owner equity (remember the accounting equation from principles of accounting?). Another caveat is to remember that for current liabilities only the last month is listed and, if wages are paid every two weeks, only list one pay period.
To determine assets, work backwards after calculating liabilities and equity. Subtract long term assets (I made up a value for equipment and office furniture) from the values of liability and equity, then subtract the last month’s revenue from the P&L statement and whatever is left is cash on hand. That will ensure the accounting equation is true.
This section is easy to write. Basically, it’s a narrative of what is happening on the profit and loss statement and the balance sheet. I just quoted the numbers I used in the spreadsheets and what was happening with net profit and loss.
For financial position, I did basically the same thing. Just narrated what was happening in the spreadsheets with statements about monitoring expenses and recovery of initial net losses.
For capital/investment needs, I decided that since my hypothetical company was running a net profit and had a large infusion of capital from owner investment and a loan, I didn’t need to take on any additional debt load. Was pretty easy.
When I submitted the tasks, the similarity report for my spreadsheets ended up in the yellow at 36%. When I viewed the report, most of the similar stuff were from the values I had used in the operating expenses. Seems a lot of other people used the same rounded numbers that I did (ie: $100/mon for insurance, $250 for utilities, etc). So I cancelled the submission, went back to my spreadsheets, and used really random values for expenses (ie: $78 for insurance, $237.50 for utilities). The formulas I used really worked here as they automatically adjusted the other related cells.
After updating the values, I really only needed to go back to my balance sheet and update the cash on hand to make sure it equaled liabilities + equity and then update my word document with the updated dollar amounts.
After re-submitting with the updates, the spreadsheet was well in the green at about 16%, mainly because it is a WGU supplied template.
This course seems daunting from the outset but the trick is to just work through each section at a time and not get overwhelmed. For me, it was simply writing one section a day. When I finished, I just stopped until the next day. It helped keep my mind clear and focused when I started up on the next section.
Another recommendation would be to not use rounded numbers for expenses since it seems most everyone else does that, resulting in higher similiar report percentages.
For the spreadsheets, use formulas. It makes the calculations go much, much easier, particularly if you have to make changes after the fact.
The evaluators graded my project in about 24 hours. Which is great because otherwise, it would have made for a very long weekend. Good luck!