Writing a self-reflection essay has become one of the main post AI assignments in colleges and universities. Academicians believe that self-reflection essays are among the few AI resistant assignment options available.
For this reason, as a student, you are likely to come across such an essay in your studies.
Whether it is a nursing reflection essay, psychology reflection essay, or a critical reflection essay in any other academic field, instructors intend to make it difficult to use AI.
What is a Self-Reflection Essay?
It should be clear what is expected of you before you start writing your self-reflection essay.
So what do self-reflection essays entail?
Simply put, they are:
Essays that require the writer to examine their life experiences.
You are expected to express your opinion on a topic. To do so, you have to analyze and reflect upon how such an experience influenced your opinions and thoughts on a subject.
Since self-reflection essays are some of the few AI resistant assignments out there, instructors are exploring different ways to use them as assessment tools.
You are therefore likely to find these types of essays in different fields and requirements.
Based on the subject and field, a self-reflection essay will assume a different approach.
For instance, a self-reflection essay in psychology may be different from one in business or nursing.
As illustrated in our reflection paper outline, reflection usually takes two forms:
- Experiential reflection and
- Reading reflection
Below is a self-reflection essay example for a business student:
Self-Reflection Essay Example
Introduction
Marketing is a key component of an enterprise in the competitive market. It entails the channel through which revenue is generated within an organization. Therefore, it is important to adopt strategic planning in marketing to ensure that products are connected with respective markets quite effectively. This entails developing game plans and programs that meet the needs of the target customers. Decisions should be made and plans developed with the consultation of the people at the ground since they are the ones directly involved in actual marketing. The plans should go beyond the four marketing mix elements, encompassing more innovative approaches in marketing an enterprise’s products (McLoughlin & Aaker, 2010). With this in mind, various lessons were learned by participating in a sales venture, selling bracelets for a local charity project.
Lessons Learned
Importance of an Effective Organizational Design
One major lesson learned is the importance of an effective organizational design in marketing. As noted by Burton, DeSanctis, and Obel (2006), different enterprises adopt distinctive designs in their approaches, where such designs may include functional structures, simple structures, divisional structures, matrix structures, and the team structure. In my case, the team structure was the characteristic approach adopted in the group’s marketing efforts. For the team structure, teamwork is essential in ensuring that a specific group or team realizes the enterprise’s common objective at the team’s level. This requires a common goal, where the team members must work collaboratively in order to realize such goals as specific sales targets. To ensure efficiency, team members must be assigned specific duties in the teamwork process.
Successful teamwork in marketing is founded on effective information sharing. This is with the understanding that the team members require the right information on how to conduct such responsibilities as coordinated customer handling and recording of revenue in an efficient and effective manner. Accurate information is important in decision making within a work situation, where relevant information plays a critical role in ensuring that work is self-managed at all levels. When well utilized, information sharing is an effective competitive tool in business. This requires open communication between team members involved in a marketing exercise, where such communication is essential in building trust and developing essential relationships in a work situation.
Importance of the Right Product
Another important lesson learned was the significance of the right product in effective marketing. The right product is important in enhancing the sales of an enterprise or a marketing exercise. In the competitive market, products must ensure that consumers derive optimum utility for them to purchase the product. As such, product uniqueness is a key differentiation approach and an effective means of attracting more customers. This uniqueness entails better value proposition and should integrate product quality to make the products more competitive than those offered by rival enterprises. The more customized the products are, the more they reflect the preferences of specific individuals. This was evident in the effect branding of the bracelets had on customer decisions to make a purchase (McAfee, 2009).
As such, product development is critical in enhancing the marketing efforts for an enterprise. Before a product is introduced into the market, it should undergo various phases to enhance its acceptability by potential consumers. These phases are generating, idea screening, concept testing, business analytics, marketability tests, and product development. Generating the idea entails conducting a SWOT analysis on the product’s market, while idea screening focuses on evaluating the viability of the product. Concept testing involves finding out whether the product is needed by the consumers. On the other hand, business analytics look at progress in product development, whereas marketability tests entail examining the most effective marketing approaches. Lastly, product development encompasses manufacturing the product to facilitate its distribution.
Importance of the Right Customer Service Approach
The importance of the right approach towards customer service was an important lesson learned in participating in the sales venture. As advanced by Hoffman and Bateson (2009), customer service during sales required patience on the side of the salesperson, which entailed giving the customer the chance to evaluate the products, bracelets in this case, before deciding to make a purchase. In this, salesmanship requires attentive listening, that is essential in providing desirable customer service and realizing quality customer service. The customer should be made to feel appreciated through such approaches as addressing them by their names and giving sincere compliments. The relationship between the customer and the salesperson is important in convincing the customer to make a sale.
Effective customer service is founded on proper communication. Therefore, it is important to avoid miscommunication, where the customer should be provided with accurate information at all times. The salesperson should possess adequate information about the product being sold. Time management is key in effective marketing, where one should utilize the limited time available to realize optimum customer satisfaction. The customer should be helped within the least time spent together, where all interactions should be focused on the goal of realizing a sale and customer satisfaction. Persuasive skills play an essential role in realizing a sale, where the salesperson requires convincing a potential customer that the product will satisfy their needs.
Essential Factors in Entrepreneurship
Importantly, from the bracelet sales venture, it was clear that there is a multiplicity of factors essential in entrepreneurship. One of such factors includes execution, which entails the initiative to carry out a business task like production and marketing. Execution should be flawless and according to the enterprise’s set objectives. For instance, marketing should seek to realize the revenue projections provided for a specific financial period. As well, knowledge is a critical entrepreneurship factor, where it is important in the understanding of market dynamics like tastes and preferences of a particular target clientele. Knowledge should encompass various business management skills essential in entrepreneurship like leadership, planning, and organizing skills (McKelvey & Lassen, 2013).
Flexibility is another important factor in entrepreneurship. Although persistence is essential in the success of a business venture, it is equally important for an entrepreneur to adopt relevant changes in the business processes, products, and service delivery. This entails evaluating diverse ways of realizing an enterprise’s mission and adopting the most effective and efficient in such areas as marketing or product design. Flexibility should be founded on research and relevant knowledge to ensure that the new processes are more competitive. Teamwork, as earlier noted, is an important factor in entrepreneurship. This involves identifying the strengths of team members and capitalizing on them. Diverse ideas and talents are likely to enhance the success of an entrepreneurial venture.
Conclusion
Marketing is without doubt a fundamental function within a business enterprise since it determines the revenue generation capabilities of the enterprise. Therefore, various lessons can be acquired from a marketing venture. Such lessons include the importance of an effective organizational design in marketing, the significance of the right product in effective marketing, importance of the right approach towards customer service, and the multiplicity of various factors that are essential in entrepreneurship. In this, such factors as effective information sharing, product development, proper communication, task execution, and business flexibility play an important role in the success of a business venture.
Reference list:
Burton, R. M., DeSanctis, G., & Obel, B. (2006). Organizational design: A step-by-step approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hoffman, K. D., & Bateson, J. E. G. (2009). Services marketing: Concepts, strategies & cases. s.l.: Cengage Learning Services.
McAfee, R. P. (2009). Competitive Solutions: The Strategist’s Toolkit. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
McLoughlin, D., & Aaker, D. A. (2010). Strategic market management: Global perspectives. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.
McKelvey, M. D., & Lassen, A. H. (2013). Managing knowledge intensive entrepreneurship. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
