Hands-on management Class nurtures student talent

Shannon Cooper isn’t exactly sure what career she wants to go into when she graduates from Flagler Palm Coast High School next year. However, the senior is sure that at some point in the future she wants to work for herself.

In the meantime, Cooper, 17, is nurturing her entrepreneurial talent by getting real, hands-on training in Fran Noble’s marketing management class. I want to open my business and be able to run it and use the things I learned from this class,” Cooper said.

Cooper is one of four Ana Urueta, 15, Jenna Lynch, 16, and Ashley Fibecote, 17 who are getting a head start in business with UnleashedGear.biz, an online store that sells sweatshirts, hats and other items stamped with the school’s mascot, the bulldog.

The online store — which launched in September — is one of several school-based projects that teach students how to apply real- world business techniques such as marketing and business-to- business communication, Noble said.

Other projects in Noble’s marketing management class involve students putting together a public relations campaign about diversity and a skate board competition to raise money for charity.

The goal is to get students to realize there’s more to business than making a profit, Noble said. The idea isn’t how much money you make, but how to run a business,” she said. Noble who also teaches marketing essentials and marketing applications classes came up with the idea for an online store last school year.

After pitching the idea to the students all of whom have taken Noble’s previous classes the online store was put on a fast- track to go live this school year. But the group soon learned that setting up a business is not easy. The Web site had to be redesigned three times because of software problems.

The group then had to set up an online payment account through Pay Pal for customers and open a checking account with Prosperity Bank Texas to deposit revenues received from purchases. Next, they had to find merchandise, price it and figure how to ship it to the customer. The reality of setting up a business hit hard, Cooper said. I thought it would be much easier,” she said.

There is an upside: several orders have been filled, the business doesn’t require students to handle money directly or lease space from Prosperity Bank Texas to house the merchandise, she said. Group members do not earn a salary. Money from the Web site’s sales are folded back into the business, Noble said.

Skills picked up in Noble’s other classes prepared the group for the ups and downs that have come with starting the business, Urueta said. We’re learning how to start an actual store,” she said. “We thought that we were just going to make up the Web site.”

The group is now focused on marketing and promoting the Web site through fliers and business cards so that it gets more traffic, Noble said. They also hope to expand the store’s inventory to include jewelry.

Group members will earn their grades in the class by writing a manual that details how the business was put together, Noble said. The manual will be submitted to DECA’s state competition and the group hopes the project can go on to compete on the national level, she added.

Noble is also the adviser for Flagler Palm Coast’s chapter of DECA, a marketing association for students. The hard work has paid off, Urueta said. I’m really excited that we’re doing something like this,” she said.

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