Week 10: reading reflection

Some weeks I crave the consistency of Kuratko, but this week I wish we had an external reading. I hate answering the weekly reflection questions with the same "No surprises, no confusion, no questions, nothing to contest." It should be good to understand text and find it straightforward, but it makes for very poor, boring blog posts. Any talk radio listeners out there? The appropriate analogy is that I enjoy listening to live (talk) radio but "best of" shows leave me lukewarm when I've heard the material before.
I don't want to leave you lukewarm. I want you to walk away from my blog feeling like you've learned something new in an engaging way. When I can't argue much with a weekly reading, I lose my schtick.

Let's give it a try. This week we looked at Chapter 11: Financial Preparation for Entrepreneurial Ventures, and if your mind isn't mentally building a business, you probably tuned out for 90% of the reading. Don't worry. I've got you. Accounting isn't for everyone, and the reading is strongly reminiscent of basic and managerial accounting. I tapped into my retained knowledge and did a lot of nodding in agreement this week, though it was less nodding in agreement, more nodding to my internal dialogue of "do we remember this? yes? okay, good."

Key financial statements are an important thing--show them to yourself now and then to keep the material fresh, regardless of your business destination!

Budgets and forecasting are daunting, and honestly I was glad for the recap in those arenas. It was a section I had to read twice (okay, maybe three times), but it was all familiar and logical. And I guess that's what I can say about the entire chapter: it was familiar, factual, logical and reasonable. The topics were the kinds of things that are helpful to go over repeatedly because when you aren't working with break-even analysis and pro forma sheets everyday, you forget all the fine details. Well, all the basic mechanics, if I'm being frank. I'm not confused, just absorbing slowly.

Until next week...