Interview I: Joy Mu

Joy is my current employer, at first it was kind of frightening to start out the interview with her, but it turned out really great and I loved whatever she taught me about her perspectives of business.





I will post some of the questions I asked and her response to them.

What were the obstacles you faced when you started the first Big Orange franchise in Seattle?

There were many of them, which were expected. Me and my family took a year to investigate the potential of having the store in Seattle; we used to come to Seattle every week to check the population of every mall to kind of ensure the volume of the sales. The most challenging thing for me is to read the agreement book with Big Orange and with Southcenter mall; they were two big stacks of paper and I not only had to go through every sentence but also to understand it well.

What do you think of your previous working experiences? Do you regret about it?

No, I actually felt happy that I made those choices on my career path. Although my previous experiences were not related to the the field of business at all, but I learned many hands-on experiences and techniques of managing a store. Not only so, my diverse working experiences also gave me a variety of perspectives looking at business as a whole and taught me a way to run the store smoothly and manage the employees.

Do you have any advices to me?

Well, since you are still very young, I really hope you can get yourself out there and try things out. Even though you are planning to major in business, don't afraid to try jobs in different industry. It will really open your eyes and possibly changes the way you think you want to be; I mean at least that is why I determined to be a business owner. However, try to stay in one job for a longer perior, for instance, up to the manager level, you will learn a lot more.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

During the interview, she really opens my eyes to things I have never thought of in terms of business, things I did not learn in schools. She taught me many details that I have to pay attention to when I start to go into the field of business, especially connections and networking. She said to be successful in business, a good network is important; therefore participating in different business-related activities is necessary when I am in college.