Thursday, May 29, 2014

Month of May blog post

            Well just got my senior presentation over and done with. The question now though is what do I do? I mean all my life I have been waiting for the moment to graduate and now that it's over what is in store for me. Well even though my senior project is over and done with I still decided to show up to mentorship to speak with my mentor about actually getting a job in the office. To my surprise he had already known what I was going to ask of him. So the agreement we made was to get licensed asap and as soon as I get my P&C, life & health, along with the CISR if I'm still interested in doing insurance, my career will soon begin as I enter college at the same time. This project has been a long and tedious one but in the end has proven itself very useful in applying myself to the real world. Thanks goes out to the senior team, the school, and everybody who has helped me be where I am at now. Hopefully in a few years from now I can look back at these monthly blog posts and say my success has finally been met. Well goodbye to my last and final month of whatever post and good luck to everyone going their separate ways.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Block Presentation and/or your senior project? Why?
- What I feel like I was able to accomplish throughout my presentation was that I was able to engage my audience throughout the presentation, and I was surprised to see how many people really took my activity seriously even the people that usually don't take me seriously seemed really engaged about what I was talking about. This is my opinion made me feel pretty good especially when a few people were able to walk out of my presentation saying "I actually learned something from you".

(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Block Presentation (self-assessment)?

AE       P          AP       CR       NC

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

AE       P          AP       CR       NC

(3) What worked for you in your senior project? 
     - what worked for me is the topic I was dealt with because even it wasn't the most entertaining topic I did feel like a learned quite a bit and the fact that was able to somehow make it appeal to my audience seemed to make it natural due to all the information I was given on how to be an effective leader.

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would have you done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time? -
     - What I feel didn't work for me is that I felt like I left out a lot of information out. The reason being that I knew I had already met time but I wanted to make sure that I was able to give my class enough time to do their activity so I ended up rushing myself. I wish I could somehow seen the time to calculate how much more I should speak.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

    -It has been helpful to me in applying myself to my future goals and visions because eventually in my lifetime I would like to be seen as a huge role model to be looked up to, and because of this topic and the mentor I had I was able to understand that the only way that could be done is by educating yourself and really applying yourself to the real world whether it being about insurance or about the business world in general. 

Monday, May 12, 2014

Mentorship

LIA response to blog
    Literal
 Log of specific hours with a total and a description of your duties updated on the right hand side of your blog
·     Contact Name and Mentorship Place: Alexander Wienberger: 8608 Utica Ave, Suits 210-211, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730
 Interpretive
    - What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why? The most important thing I had gained throughout my entire mentorship at golden compass was the knowledge I had gained on insurance and the sacrifices you had to endure in order to make yourself a good role model for your employees to follow. This was important to me because I have always wanted to start my own business since I was relatively young and after having first hand experience with my mentor and attending a few seminars myself I feel as if I'm more confident now to start learning a few things on the business world.
 Applied
     How has what you’ve done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.
- What I have done has helped me answer my EQ because the best way to motivate an insurance team to a profitable end is to really become one with your employees and within your business it pretty much is a family you have to treat each and every one of your employees with respect and reward them when reward is do. Chances are if you do affirm them they will return the favor.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Month of April Blog Post

So the month of April is now slowly but surely becoming the climactic point to my senior project. Some highlight of what happened this month however was that I am no longer as behind as I was earlier in the month of March, mostly because of the fact I have finally changed my hours with work and no longer have to worry about my licensing process until I graduate. However on another note I was able to help out another classmate with some hours since he was relatively behind. Fortunately for me however I had a few folders to take care of and it was nice to have the help at the time. The only thing I'm worried about now for the time being is finally getting this entire senior presentation up and running as soon as possible.

Exit Interview

Content:

               (1) - EQ: What is the best way to motivate an insurance team to a profitable end?
              Answer 1:Ensure employees are adhering to their time management schedules.
              Answer 2:To have employees work toward individual goals and a company vision.
              Answer 3:Affirmation is the best way to motivate an insurance team to profit towards their visions and goals.
                 - My best answer is "to have employees work toward individual goals and a company vision", and the reason why this is my best answer is because typically as human beings we see growth and within growth there is typically much more going on. If we keep on doing the same thing over and over we're not challenging your employees or making them work harder for the success of the business. To really challenge your employee is to unlock their full potential.
              (2) - The process I took to arrive at this answer was a few interviews with Alex outside of the mandatory ones and research I had picked up out of the office.
              (3) - The main problem I had with any of my answers really was the wording of them because for some reason they always seemed somewhat off one way or another. So the way I had this problem fixed was by talking to my advisory house teach about the issue and he was able to help.
              (4) - My two main sources that were used to answer my essential question were both mentor-ship and a book I have been reading called "the Ultimate Sales Machine". The reason why I used these two sources the most was because mentor-ship served as a personal experience that seemed relatively profitable, and as for the book the author was already a billionaire to begin with so if was able to truly make his corporations rise up it would be wise to learn from a billionaires mistakes.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Independent Component #2

Literal
(A) "I Marco Gonzalez affirm that I completed my Independent component which represents 30 hours of work."

(B) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component
 Glendenning, G. William., and Robert B. Holtom. Personal Lines Underwriting. 1st ed. Malvern, PA: Insurance Institute of America, 1982. Print.

(C) Provide a digital spreadsheet (aka log of the 30 hours).   Post it next to your mentorship log.
INTERPRETIVE 
Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  
APPLIED
How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped. 


 

    This was around my halfway point for my P&C courses.



During the lessons I had to watch a few videos just to get a better understanding on what the differences between commercial lines and personal lines were and how they interact with one another.



This was actually really interesting to me because it showed the different licenses that are out there and could be achieved. Of course the higher ranking licenses take much more time and effort to achieve however.



The happiest day of my life when I had finally finished my 52 hours of online courses.




This was the place I took my two day crash course unfortunately the instructor didn't allow me to take pictures of her while she was teaching.




However she didn't say anything about the classroom.



When taking the actual test they didn't allow me to take in a cell phone or even a jacket for cheating purposes but I was finally able to take the test however I did end up failing with a 50%. 10% away from passing so close.

APPLIED
How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped. 

         - This component helped me answer my EQ because "the best way to motivate an insurance team to a profitable end", is education and in order to properly educate an employee there has to be a vision for success because without a vision your employee is just going to assume the business really isn't going anywhere and may eventually quite. Education also plays a huge role in my answer #1 time management schedule because no matter how open you may think you are if you scramble all of your to do's together your just going to over stress yourself and eventually your employees will catch this. Affirmation also plays a huge role because if your employees are never rewarded for their hard work chances are they're going to assume their just there to make them money and not for the actually group effort of trying to make the company really strive for success.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Month of March blog post

          So the month of March was the final conclusion of my two month long study for my P & C licensing test. Although I did fail my first time around on that test I was able to gladly walk out of the testing center knowing that I bombed the test with a 50%. The reason why I was able to do this was because I managed to do 52 hours of online study for the test while juggling school and a job! Of course I'm extremely exhausted and honestly I need a chance to recover because these 6 hour late night sleeps are really starting to affect me. On top of that I'm starting to fall heavily behind research checks so for now I'm going to put a pause to getting licensed for Property and casualty and I'm hoping to focus a bit more on research checks and the senior presentation as a whole now. Then maybe once May or if I'm lucky April comes around I'll be able to take the test once again but this time passing with flying colors.

                                           
 The place I took my two day crash course.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Blog 18 Third Answer

Content:

EQ
-What is the best way to motivate an insurance team to a profitable end?

Answer #3
- Giving each and every employee affirmation and the satisfaction of knowing that they did a good job.

Examples
- If an employee knows that they are doing good with the business they will keep on trying harder than what is expected of them.
-When an employee is doing something above and beyond for example taking tests like P & C licensing courses on their own time try giving bonuses when bonuses are deserved.
- Always try understanding where the employee is coming from and never try overwhelming the employee, as long as they know you are doing a good job they will continue to benefit the business.

Thesis Statement
- The best way to motivate an insurance team to a profitable end is by distributing affirmation amongst your employees because if your employees know that you approve of their work they will only try harder to make sure success is being brought to the business.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Fourth Interview Questions

Content:

Post 20 open-ended questions for approval you want to ask an expert in the field of your senior project.  The focus of your questions should be on your many answers.

1. What is the best way to motivate an insurance team to a profitable end?

2. Do you feel as if the monthly scheduling helped you reach your goals?

3. What approach do you usually take in ensuring that your employees finish the job that needs to get done?

4. How do you reward your employees on a job well done?

5. If an employee is behind multiple tasks how do you get them to work harder to catch up to those tasks?

6. How do you organize the way you run things in the office?

7. What have you found helps you make your company move forward into success?

8. What do you feel helps you stay focused when working?

9. How can having a vision in mind help drive ones focus to ensuring the company becomes better than what it already is?

10. What long term/ short term goals have you set for your business?

11. What do you consider exceeding expectations?

12. As a leader how do handle a situation where an employee makes a minor/major mistake?

13. How do you usually help your employees when there is a problem involved?

14. How do you get your employees to see the same vision you have in mind?

15. How do you usually communicate with your employees on what needs to get done?

16. When you walk into the office each day how do you usually plan what needs to get done throughout the day>

17. How important is it for you to understand the differences of your employees?

18. As of today what do you feel you need to work on with your employees to keep the business moving forward?

19. What hardships did you endure to get to where you are now?

20. Do you consider yourself an effective leader why or why not?

Friday, February 28, 2014

Month of February blog update

So the month of February was extremely long and difficult for me me to get through but here I am continuing with this post. So what have I achieved this month? well I started my Insurance classes and now I am currently only 3 hours from finishing! a good feeling it is that's for sure. Unfortunately though, the crash course lessons were all booked for the next two weekends and the next open sessions were the 15th, and 16th. Then the following Monday I plan on taking the test but this is all for the month of March soon to come at least. Anyways the only thing I really did accomplish this month was the starting and finishing of my Insurance classes. so until the start of March begins I won't have much more to say.



The excitement in my eyes says it all.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Advisory Meeting #2

Content:

What is the best way to motivate an insurance team to a profitable end?

Answer #2
- By giving your employees set mind set of visions and goals that can be accomplished in the long run.

3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example)
- If your employees have a set mind on what they seek to accomplish they will strive much harder to obtain that goal.
- Everybody likes to be awarded and if you give them the vision to success and even reward with bonuses or even something small like a free meal then they will respect you much more and only benefit your business in the long run.
- Not every task will have the same amount of difficulty so for the harder tasks that are accomplished by your employees the bigger the reward should be.

The research source (s) to support your details and answer                                                                            
Northouse, Peter Guy. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004. Print.

Concluding thesis statement:
In order to motivate an insurance team to a profitable end you must give your employees a set of visions and goals to strive for but those employees will only be as motivated as the insurance leader providing the vision in mind.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Independent Comp. 2 Approval

Content:

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

For the next 30 hours I plan to continue doing work on mike russes financial training so I can get certified for property and casualty. In doing so I hope to finding a second answer to my EQ that has to do with goals and keeping a vision in mind.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

This time I will be taking more pictures of me taking the courses online and maintain an electronic blog.

3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

For this component I will be going more into depth of what insurance really is and how it can be used effectively when dealing with a sort of loss. Insurance plays a huge role in how we live and what can and cannot be covered so by doing so I will at least have the basic understanding of what insurance really is.  

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Independent Component 1

Literal: 
A) I, Marco Gonzalez affirm that I completed my Independent Component which represents 30 hours of work. 

B) The person who helped me complete my 30 hours was my mentor Alex Wienberger.

D) I Did Pipeline for the past 30 Hours. for my Independent Component 1 then did the rest for mentorship hours.

Interpretive:
This was significant to my component because although doing call sheets seemed extremely repetitive it connected to my first answer witch was to pretty much adhere to the monthly schedule. And in order for the job to be done effectively at the same time consuming as little time as possible a monthly schedule would have to be formed around my one and single goal, which was the completion of organizing my call sheets.
     
Log of hours 11/13/2013 - 12/16/2013 go towards Ind. Comp.


google was the greatest search engine to find addresses and fax numbers.

 
This is me at the start of a new month trying to finish up my goal.



I don't know if it could be seen but this is what pipeline looks like.



Crossing off my first goal.

Applied:
I think this helped me learn a bit more about the foundation of my topic because regardless of how much knowledge you have in dealing with the business of Insurance if you cannot organize your files effectively there is a possibility that everything could just get lost and eventually lead into law suites  The reason why I think this helps me understand the foundation a bit more is because regardless of what type of business your into you always have to take a moment of your time to always keep yourself organized.

Lesson 2 Reflection

1. Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?

I am probably really proud of myself for being able to manage my presentation alongside my power point and how I was able to make my entire presentation relevant as possible with my first answer.


2. Questions to Consider

       a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation (self-assessment)?

       AE       P          AP       CR       NC
  b.     Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.


 2AB. I would give myself a P- or AP+ just because I feel like no matter how much a tried I kept straying from my Answer #1, But other than that looking from the contract I feel like I was an effective communicator and I felt as if I was able to engage my audience to a certain degree, which is why I think I feel like I at least deserve a decent grade for my effort.


3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?


What worked for me is the fact that I was able to use my props effectively throughout my presentation and there were no issues with my power point. 


4.  (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?


If I had a time machine I would have probably changed my answer just because I felt like it was so hard for me to even stay on topic.


5. Finding Value

What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?

I would really like to touch the subject on affirmation and having a vision in mind.

Friday, January 31, 2014

The New Year At Golden Compass

So with the first month almost over and done with what exactly has changed? Well Fortunately for me I had just finished my pipeline call sheets which did take some of the pressure off my shoulders and got me to finally cross off the goal for the monthly scheduling. A really good feeling by the way, but unfortunately for me as I had mentioned in the previous blog about my online courses I was not able to pay for my online courses which is now being prolonged. I actually plan be starting them towards the beginning of February but I can only hope at this point. Anyways as for my 30 min. presentation I didn't get to present on the original date I had intended on (today) and was prolonged to Thursday. All in all this was a really good month and I'm really hoping for my presentation to go good.

    Photo Interview with Alex
PhotoAlex's Gift from him to me.

The day I had completed my first goal was 01/22/2014

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Third Interview Questions

1. What is the best way to having everyone work together as one in order to achieve a similar goal when dealing with the business of insurance?
2. How do you usually go about when tackling down goals? 
3. How effective do you think the month of January schedule was in getting you to finish your work?
4. If you could would you have changed the schedule? Why?
5. Has there ever been a time when the company wouldn't schedule their goals? If their was what has changed from then to now?
6.Did you ever feel like your goals were so impossible that you just felt like you were just over stressing yourself?
7. On top of the monthly schedule is their a weekly schedule you keep check of to ensure progress is being made? why?
8. What do you feel motivates you in accomplishing your daily tasks?
9. Was their ever a time when you had a specific task to accomplish at a certain time but didn't realize until the week or even day of? If so how did you fix this problem of yours?
10. Aside from the monthly scheduling what else do you feel benefits you when accomplishing goals and daily tasks?

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Blog 11 Mentorship 10 hours check


1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?
  • I am currently doing my mentorship at the golden compass Insurance Company.
2.   Who is your contact?
  •  My contact is Alexander Weinberger the main boss at Golden Compass.
3.   How many total hours have you done (total hours should be reflected in your mentorship log located on the right hand side of your blog like your WB)?
  •  I have done a total of 111 hours of mentorship I am pretty much done at this point.
4.   Summarize the 10 hours of service you did.
  • Throughout the 10 hours of service there have been many experiences I had witnessed for example Associating with actually clients to even being kicked out of their business because they didn't want to have to deal with a bunch Insurance guys. There were even times I had to go onto pipeline and organize contact information for later uses. that is basically what I did.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Senior Project, The Holiday

1.  It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you over the break with your senior project?
  • For my Senior project I did a total of 28 hrs. over the break and currently I am working on taking classes to get my very own license to insurance. So in order to get Alex's help to passing that test we both made an agreement that as long as I keep coming in and helping out he'd be more than willing to help out with my senior project.
2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did and why?  What was the source of what you learned?
  •  The importance of organization. Solely because now that Chris is gone and left unfinished pipeline contact info I'm the one that is stuck inputting everything.
3.  If you were going to do a 10 question interview on questions related to answers of your EQ, who would you talk to and why?
  • I would most likely talk to my mentor solely because of the fact that he has had multiple experiences where people helped him out with his business or had just wasted his time and made the company lose money along along with them.