Assignment 11: Professional Development Plan

Selene De León

National American University

CS2086 - Career Path Planning

Professor Catherine Passananti

January 20th 2023

 My first SMART goal is to finish my B.S. in Business Administration no later
than March with a 3.5 GPA. I have achieved it, we are a few days away from
finishing the courses and me finally graduating, I am about to get my degree and
before the established deadline, and with a higher GPA I got a 4.5 GPA.

My second goal was to register as an exporter before February, in order to

grow my business internationally through the Amazon platform, in this Quarter
specifically I took a course called Business Review Lab and I realized that I still need
to strengthen my knowledge in some specific areas, since it made me rethink how to
sell my products in a European and American market, that more and more buyers do
not take into account only the price, if not that it really is a product that meets social
and corporate responsibility, I felt that I still need to strengthen this a little because
the products offered by my brand are made in China, and as we know in China are
paid unfair wages to workers, I know that there will be buyers who ask us these
questions and queries to my company and thanks to this information I know it is
important to strengthen and be better prepared, I could be almost sure that I have
convinced my business partner to return to resume and take into account what I have
just exposed, since in the beginning of our company the products offered by Secreto
Intimates were made entirely in Paraguay. I believe we will combine some of the
business strategies learned in this course with the help of Paraguayan craftswomen
and seamstresses.

My third objective is not to stop preparing and taking courses in the area of
customer service orientation, especially after-sales service, to be able to transmit this
knowledge to all those who are part of the company, I had said I was going to take
these courses once I finished college, but due to many complaints and suggestions
that our customers made to us as feedback we decided with my business partner on
January 6th to hire a counselor and specialist to come and talk to our employees
about the importance of after-sales service, this is where I realize how important it is
at the beginning of the year to draw specific and measurable objectives, because
before the deadlines that I had set to my goals I am achieving them.

A SMART goal that has to do with this particular course is to continue building
my contact business through networking, I want Secreto Intimates to be a globally
recognized brand, we are about to close negotiations with a business partner in
Argentina, we want to expand to more and more markets I hope by the end of this 2023
that our brand has presence in at least three more countries: USA, Canada and some
European country, not through Amazon, but as physical stores as is already the presence
of our physical store in Mexico.

During the next 12 months I need to develop some skills, as I want my brand and
business to be known worldwide, I have decided to reinforce my business English with
more technical knowledge, I will enroll at the end of March in a program to study
business technicalities in Paraguayan American Language Center, I need to reinforce
my knowledge if I want my business to be global, and build business partners when I go
to business meetings, congresses and exhibitions.

The techniques and habits I will employ to reinforce my knowledge of business English
will be as follows:

⦁ Read books and learn every day a little bit about how business is conducted in other
cultures.

⦁ Study and research about the laws of international markets in order to position my
products.

⦁ Maintain my optimism, instinct and vision, look at the future with good eyes and
know when and how much to risk.

And financial success comes hand in hand, since by building business

relationships we have built a franchise business model, this year as a company we have
decided to increase regional sales by 20% and international sales we have not set the
percentage since we are about to close with a business partner in Argentina, but all this
would benefit the company financially and obviously my personal finances, maybe I
can afford to increase the salaries of my business partner and our staff.

After graduating I intend to enroll in a specialized course in business plan

development taught by Coursera offered by the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios
Superiores de Monterrey ITESM totally online. I personally consider myself a super
entrepreneurial woman and I intend to continue my training in this area, since I do not
intend to present the same model and business plan to work with all my business
partners, now I was finding out the dates and one started precisely today and I will be
forced to take it at the same time I am finishing the last week of college, I will wait if it
reopens in a period not exceeding six months.
 Since my business is lingerie, I plan to attend one of the most important events
that are made in the fashion industry in Paraguay, having brand presence, with the aim
of showing our latest collection of swimwear, as in South America the seasons are
different from North America, this collection will be presented in the third week of
February. Our SMART objective would be to close some business or collaboration with
a Latin American commercial partner, since there is usually presence of Brazilian,
Uruguayan and Argentinean brands during the most known fair of Asuncion in the
fashion field: AFW.