Mid-State Technical College and UW-Madison Wood County Extension

Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this Thursday, August 8th, 2024.

Have your host, James here, and we're joined right now by a couple of great friends of ours.

First, we have Kayla Rumbalski with us, Community Development Educator with Wood County, UW Extension.

Kayla, good to see you.

Good to see you, James.

Thanks so much.

Thank you for having us.

Yeah, thank you for the time, and you brought in a friend.

We have Morgan Van der Hai with us, with, um, from mid-state technical college.

Morgan, good to see you.

Good to see you too.

Thanks so much for the time.

I appreciate both of you, and what you individually and your organizations do for our community greatly appreciate.

And appreciate the topic today, is we're going to discuss a brand new scholarship fund for Wood County residents.

This is pretty cool, which one of you wants to lead, though, which one of you wants to start this off?

Okay, Kayla, what do you got?

Yeah, so we're super excited about this.

It was just approved yesterday by the Wood County Seed Committee, which is a committee of the Wood County Board.

And this is a scholarship opportunity for Wood County residents to take an entrepreneurial foundations class at mid-state.

So we're really looking at both students and adults, folks that have maybe that napkin idea.

And James, you and I have had conversations about entrepreneurship on this show in the past.

But those who are thinking about, like, wouldn't it be great if I could get this business off the ground?

This is a great way for them to take that starting point.

So we know that as a young person or as someone who has a business idea, sometimes you need a little more to go along with that.

And so this entrepreneurial foundations course, which Mo teaches will be a great opportunity for residents to go ahead and take that first step and figure out just what it takes to get their business going.

And so this is, again, free of charge for Wood County residents through this scholarship program.

We're super excited about it.

This is a really impactful thing and an opportunity to really make some real moves in this community when it comes to this subject.

It's a very unique and very cool idea.

But Morgan, this is something that you're familiar with. You teach this.

Yes, I'm an instructor in the Business Management Program and this is one of the courses I teach.

And the exciting thing about entrepreneurial foundations is Kayla kind of alluded to whether it be a student that maybe has that entrepreneurial mindset and they're looking for that foundational business knowledge or someone that's already in the field working professionally

and they want to level up or expand their knowledge.

This course is really going to help them do that.

And the scholarship opportunity sometimes a student needs that support to just know they can take that first step.

And this course is the first step in a lot of other credentials that we offer at the college.

I imagine, too, not only in the course, but in this topic, it can be, well, I have this idea.

And oh, I think this is really good.

And that can mean a lot of different things.

It could mean actually, no, no, I don't know if that's going to really hit a huge market and you might need to tinker with that a little bit.

Or, oh, yeah, you got something here.

All you need is a little fine tuning.

All you need is to tinker with this or to move with this.

And that's how we get great things in this community and other communities is by these ideas.

And that's pretty unique in itself and very embolding, if you will.

But I can't help, and especially studying this last night and get ready for the prepping for this and everything.

I kept coming back to supporting young minds and supporting young people's ideas.

We are getting much better about that in society.

We're doing much more of that in society.

Hey, young people have something to say we should listen.

We're doing a lot more of that.

This program and your course really enabled that to really support that quite a bit.

And it's that alone before we even get too far down the rabbit hole here and everything is quite empowered, quite cool to see.

Yeah, with students in our program, whether it be our entrepreneur or business management program,

it's really about providing them the foundational framework to move forward with whatever they're passionate about.

Because as you talk about, when you're an entrepreneur, you have that mindset that there's this idea,

but there's a lot of stuff that comes before it.

And this class focuses on like, what is entrepreneurial behavior?

What is the difference between buying a business or starting a business?

What are the forms of ownership?

What is that framework of a business plan?

So those four key things in this foundation's course really help students.

And I watched it in some of our other courses once they understand that.

They're like, oh, yeah, my ideas still really great.

But I never thought of XYZ that I actually need to bring it to fruition.

So this is just that first step to give them that framework to really map out their success plan to make their idea happen.

When it comes to people out there listening to this and having ideas like that,

we certainly don't want it's not just for students, it's certainly something that's open to the community.

So we want to make sure to note that and make sure the people understand that we are looking for all comers on this.

Absolutely.

Yeah, so it's available to anyone.

When we talk about entrepreneurship, we talk a lot about youth and really stimulating that creative mindset in youth.

But it's also about retirees.

Maybe there's someone out there who's had a business idea that they've been sitting on their entire career.

They've just retired.

Now they find that they have all this extra time on their hands wondering what to do with it.

This would be a perfect opportunity to kind of take that next step and to really focus that dream, if you will,

or that thing that you've been mulling over into a practical business idea.

It's something that hit me the other day when talking about this with a listener, actually.

Because you mentioned the person maybe near retirement or on that cusp or whatever.

We saw this during the pandemic, the great migration they called it,

wanting to leave jobs for careers or wanting to leave jobs to do something.

Now I'll make a couple bucks less, but I'm going to do something I love to do and they open an Etsy store or something similar to that.

This feels like an extension in some ways of that.

And the support of that too is quite unique.

And really something that can only benefit our community.

I see no downside to this.

I see no side affected this.

It's something that is only going to enhance our community and possibly other communities around us,

the surrounding central Wisconsin area here.

Absolutely. And the skills that are taught in this entrepreneurial foundations course

and the skills that you need really to be an entrepreneur are so transferrable.

So we talk a lot in extension about the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

This is the new buzzword, right?

And supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in our community.

And oftentimes when we talk to businesses, there's this thought in the back of people's heads

that if someone goes into business for themselves, that is an employee that's lost to a business.

So why would a corporate business want to support entrepreneurship?

Because they're essentially encouraging their employees to go into business for themselves.

And yes, that argument is true.

But also by giving your employees this entrepreneurial mindset, it supports your business as well.

Because those skills transfer to whatever that employee is doing.

So whether the employee is going into business for themselves or whether they're just using that opportunity

for professional development, that all boats rise, right?

So by supporting entrepreneurship and business in our community, we're affecting all levels and supporting all employees.

A rising tide truly does raise all boats.

That's one of my favorite phrases. And it's so true, especially when it comes to this topic.

And this is one of those things that not only enhances that in the community, but the economic impact of the communities is that much stronger.

It hits a lot of different layers.

When it comes to the course, Mo, I was wondering, would you mind kind of taking us through the course a little bit, the outline of this?

And maybe we can get just some more students or something.

And I want to say when I say students, everyone can be lifelong learners.

So I think of like the community support with the extension that allows just others who, you know, maybe aren't students.

I just think of everyone could be my students.

A blanket term.

But the course is an exciting course.

It has four major key points.

It's actually going to be offered starting our fall semester starts August 19th.

So there is still time to get started.

And this course is offered in an asynchronous online option, which means you do it at your own pace, own speed throughout eight weeks.

And there is also an in-person option that will be on all of our campus, including an online live.

So you can still have an opportunity to engage one of our part-time instructors.

And Gabriel Falky will be teaching that.

So two different options depending.

Some people would rather just do it completely online.

Some people want that once a week, touch point with an instructor.

But you're going to look at understanding entrepreneurship behavior.

And you talked a little bit about the entrepreneurial mindset, kind of interchangeable terms there.

But looking for what does it mean to have that creativity, that resilience, that wanting to take a risk and try something new and solve a problem.

And making sure the students really understand that mindset.

Then you dive in a little bit more to the different types of getting into business.

So starting something from scratch, maybe buying into something, franchising.

Just so they understand the background way of kind of how you get started.

We really dive into ownership forms.

So they can kind of look at what's best for their idea, what where it sits.

And then analyzing the components of a business plan is a big part.

This is a one credit course.

So we dive in kind of more high level.

If a student wanted more background, if they like really, really love this course, instead I learned a lot, but I want more.

It flows right into our entrepreneur technical diploma, which is only 16 credits, which would give them a little additional background.

Then that technical diploma flows into our business management program, which would round out with a two year associates degree.

So it is kind of that first step for anyone to take, to kind of get that idea moving forward.

And then there's all these opportunities for growth for them.

When you get a good idea, you want to hit the ground running.

You want to jump on that right away and just go and go and go and go.

And it's important, especially if you have the world's greatest idea, you've got, I'm going to sell sliced bread.

That's what I'm going to do.

And like, whoa, nobody's doing that.

That sounds amazing.

And you've got a baker and that's great.

You open up a store and now what?

Right.

There's so many other layers to running a business or taking a good idea and running with it.

Not only does this scholarship help with that, but your course really helps with that.

You can do some outline, a little bit of direction, a blueprint, if you will, of how to really do this and be successful at it.

Because you can have the world's greatest idea.

But if you can't get it through, it's not going to die in the vine.

Any good idea that we've seen this happen before in business and everything.

So it's a really cool course and really unique.

Yeah, it's a fun course.

And we really want students to feel the walk away understanding the value proposition, their market opportunity, and their growth potential.

So those three things are kind of the underlining components of this course that when they walk away, they can actually be able to pitch and speak about their idea, which is something we'll talk about a little bit here.

But wanting to feel more confident in their idea and what is going to lie ahead for that business idea.

Like, is there a market opportunity?

Is there growth potential?

Sometimes we can have a really great idea like, you know, slice bread.

And maybe once we start diving into it a little bit more, you realize, oh, this isn't going to kind of work.

We have to change it, go into for direction, or maybe that idea has to be kind of put in a box and we have to come up with something new.

Kayla and Mo were very helpful for me before we got going here because I've been trying to push my idea of every day at seven o'clock doing the Princess Bride where I do all the voices of the Princess Bride in a show and everything.

Apparently, there's not a big market for that.

So we're going to go ahead and put that to the side and work on that a little bit, see what I can do with ideas.

But maybe take your course, Mo.

Maybe you have a little bit better of a strategy and maybe a better idea.

But this is the kind of stuff that you guys do.

You're able to take, well, whether it's a silly idea like that or slice bread and help you kind of not only get the funding that you could use for this possibly, but really put a plan in place so that you can be successful.

And students can sometimes you talked about, you know, businesses being worried about losing jobs or different things.

Entrepreneurs also create jobs because they're usually trying to find a solution to a problem.

And when students go through these courses, I've taught a few entrepreneurship courses already.

They also sometimes identify what area of business they're strong in, which means it's going to open up opportunities for others because if they have a business, they can't necessarily do everything at the business well.

And there are some people that handle like all things for their business, but normally maybe like, I'm not a numbers person.

I would have to bring in an accountant or maybe you have to have someone else to man something for you.

So sometimes it creates an opportunity for someone to really identify their strengths and weaknesses by going through this process and say, okay, if I want my business to grow and really find their niche in the market and be successful, I need to bring in other people that are, you know, masters in their certain areas to help elevate my idea and my business.

I think it's a really cool thing for someone to be able to identify their own capacity and where they're strongest and then where they can bring others in to kind of make themselves grow their weaknesses by leaning on those who have strengths in other areas than themselves.

Moving you the resources and the abilities not only to be successful, but to understand business a little bit better to understand entrepreneurship a little bit better going forward, which again, can only enhance the community, only make it stronger, making the economics in this community stronger.

And I'm so glad that Mo, you mentioned jobs, because that is something that always, if you hadn't been paying attention to some of the conversation today, you heard jobs.

You heard that right away, and that's something that kind of gets lost in the shuffle sometimes when we talk about this, but it's a key part of the conversation.

We're speaking with Kayla from the Mid, Wood County Extension, and we have Morgan with us from Mid State Technical College.

Where did you want to go next with this one, because he mentioned pitches and the idea of putting proposing these ideas. That's another part of this, another angle on this, don't want to get too.

Yeah, so we have a really excellent opportunity coming up both for students that may be interested in this class, but also for community members.

We are partnering, again, the county is partnering with Mid State to offer an event called the First Pitch, and this is something that was done last fall in Steven's point.

We're bringing it to Wisconsin Rapids, so it'll be held at the Mid State campus here in Rapids.

Thursday, October 3rd, from 5 to 7 p.m., and Moe was there in person last year, so I'll give the professment I'll let her talk about the results.

But essentially, it's a quick pitch competition, so you have one minute to pitch your idea, and five entrepreneurs will walk away with $100 each to further their business.

So it's low stakes, often times we see pitch competitions that have $1,000 or $10,000 as the winning prize. That's pretty high intensity.

A lot of excitement, of course, but there's a lot more fear involving a pitch competition like this.

This is low stakes and just an opportunity, again, for entrepreneurs to get in front of other people.

So we're excited about this from a community standpoint as well, wanting to get as many community members in the room as possible to hear these business ideas to support the entrepreneurs that are sharing their business ideas and really to generate that entrepreneurial ecosystem again.

How does our community support people in the first stages of opening a new business?

This event was so much fun last year, and you mentioned kind of the low stakes. The nice part about ours is there's no criteria of having to actually have your business up and running.

So this really is an idea contest.

And one minute, one idea, one slide is what the students or participants have depending on who registers.

And they get to get up there and share there. And if we randomize the order, they go back to back.

They have a small portion where people can ask a few questions.

We actually engaged our audience in choosing our winners.

So at the first competition last year, everyone was awarded kind of a stack of chips.

And then they could go in and talk to the pitchers afterwards, ask some questions.

We had this kind of networking opportunity because entrepreneurship and business is all about networking and community and giving those people an opportunity to practice those skills.

And then they could vote with their chips. So they could give them last year, they gave them directly to the pitchers.

This year, we'll probably have it differently because it was kind of hard for the pitchers to hold on all of these different chips from different people.

But then we allowed everyone who was there to vote and engage.

So it wasn't just a committee or a panel or one person choosing.

It was their pitching to everyone in the audience. And if their idea compelled someone to be interested in one to learn more, that person awarded them that chip.

So it became a really engaging experience.

And I think it was really comfortable. I noticed for all of those.

I mean, obviously speaking in front of people isn't everyone's favorite thing.

But you really got to see some of those that maybe seemed a little more shy when they gave their pitch.

Come out of their shell a little bit having those one-on-one conversations where maybe they were a little bit more comfortable and could expand on their idea or take some feedback from some other community leaders that maybe could give them that one piece of advice that helped them move forward.

So I enjoyed the event last year. I'm really excited that we're bringing it back and that we're moving it over to the Wisconsin Rapids campus.

You know, we are one college with multiple campuses. So being able to kind of serve our different populations and give opportunities in different areas is always great.

But you're going to have to come because it's a lot of fun.

It's really good to hear everyone's ideas. You just can't steal anyone's ideas.

No, I won't.

I'll be able to, like, unlike last year and stuff, I misunderstood and I was working out my pitching arm the whole time.

Oh, yeah.

It's not a baseball man.

It's a completely different thing, which I'm more prepared for this year and everything.

They only really have to identify four things. So they're going to have to identify like what problem and what solution they have.

Who is their target market? What is their value proposition? And then their ideas moving forward.

They kind of go through the very key things I talked about that they learn in the class.

So if you're excited about this pitch event and you're like, well, I don't feel confident, we actually help prep doing a pitch in the class as part of an assignment.

So you could take the class, have your pitch already participated in the event. It's kind of a win-win-win.

And any opportunity to continue your education or get back into the game of education, we encourage you to do a mid-state has so many different courses including this one right here that we encourage you to look into.

And attend and reach out to them about.

I did want to touch on that a little bit.

This great opportunity in this first pitch that's coming up because you mentioned a couple of, both of you mentioned a couple of really key and great things about this.

You have this idea, you bring it to the first pitch. And with that, you're not only going to get a chance to talk to other minds and get other feedback that you might not get otherwise.

Maybe even that tinkering that I was talking about before, being able to fine-tune this idea and that.

But Mo, you mentioned the public speaking part. And this one hits home to me.

In my previous job, I used to teach at Second City a lot.

We had a lot of actors and a lot of people that want to be on the center of life on there.

But the thing that always stood out to me were the kids that came in that were getting into the health field or that were looking at being attorneys.

And they love this field and they have a passion for it.

But God, they can't talk in front of one person, let alone a whole group of people or 12 people or something.

And the more I talk to these people, the more I found that when they were younger, they didn't have a lot of opportunities for public speaking.

And it's such a thing that where I can't stress enough, everybody can do this.

And everybody is afraid of this. You're not alone in this.

I have never turned this microphone on and not been nervous.

There's not been one. I've done 101 characters, 1,000 some shows, not once if I walked on stage and not been a little nervous.

It's okay. It means you're engaged. It means you care.

And it's a great first step to getting to the place of proposing your ideas, of pitching your ideas, especially at this first pitch.

It's a nice little added kind of bonus, I think, to along with not only getting your idea out there, but getting some more reps in when it comes to public speaking.

And being more and more comfortable with that, which you're going to use, whether you go through with your business idea or not,

public speaking is something we're all going to be doing more and more of going forward.

It's a great note about that. I appreciate that being a part of this.

And practice makes perfect, right? So it's about repetition. It's about getting out there more and more.

So there could be an instance where someone comes to this first pitch event and feels like, oh, man, I didn't do nearly as well as I could have.

Or they're not satisfied with their results, but that's why it's low stakes, right?

It's the first opportunity. So maybe from there you go on and have an opportunity to refine your business plan and your pitch and pitch again.

And then one day you end up, I don't know if you're a grocery business, you end up on the shelves at the major retailer.

You never know what's going to happen.

Communication is really key, no matter what you're doing in your life.

And I think all of us coming off of the pandemic, too, were so used to being behind screens, whether that be a computer screen or a phone, things like that.

We don't have as many opportunities to actually have those face-to-face conversations.

And then some of those soft skills, it's talked about over and over again in all areas of employment.

But I think we focus on it a lot in entrepreneurship and business because you really want to have strong soft skills.

So verbals and non-verbals and be able to communicate your point in a way that's really going to capture people and help make things move forward.

So opportunities like this, I know throughout the program we try really hard to give students opportunities to look at things where they can engage with business networks, professional networks, business communities, because it's practice.

The first time you go to some of those events and I agree with you, I like to speak and talk, but I still get nervous.

Every time I speak, every class I teach, I still get nervous about the students that.

And that's human and it is means that you care, but there are opportunities for those of you out there listening that want to enhance those skills.

There is support out there because not everyone's perfect at it and you're not always going to be, but practice does make you feel a little bit more confident.

And there's actually an opportunity coming up next week, so that was a great segue Mo.

We have a group that has been meeting actually across Portage Wood and Marathon counties called the Founders Network.

And it's a group of entrepreneurs that meet with other entrepreneurs to chat about their business ideas and really, again, just a network and have that communication.

There is a meeting of the Founders Network next Thursday, August 15th, from 530 to 7 at the Blue Heron Brew Pub in Marshfield.

And the featured speaker for that event will, so it's networking, it's just a chance to grab a refreshment and socialize.

But there's also a featured entrepreneurial speaker and that is Gabrielle Falky of Stone Press Food Truck.

So she'll be kind of sharing her story, talking about how she got that business started and giving.

It's also one of our awesome part time instructors.

So for those who are thinking you want to take the in-person class, you could have an opportunity to meet your instructor prior to even getting started with class.

There we go. See it all comes full circle.

Wonderful conversation, you too. Thank you so much for the time and what you put into our community.

Kayla, if people want to find out more about this, it's opportunity, this funding. How can they do that?

Great question. So it's just getting off the ground. There's not a website up yet.

But they can contact me directly and you'll find my information on extensions Wood County page or certainly reach out to Midstate.

And they'll get you connected.

And Mo, if people want to get in touch with you, just send them to the website.

Yes, they can get in touch with me for the Midstate website or if they want to explore the different programs and dive into what other courses kind of round out.

The technical diploma with this entrepreneurial foundations course or how it flows into other programs.

We have some great advisors that work with specific areas of the college too.

So if someone wants to ask more questions, we can always pair them up with someone from our academic advising department to help them with those next steps.

Find out more at mstc.edu mstc.edu. Appreciate both of you so much. Thank you for the time. We'll talk again real soon.

Thank you so much.

Will it more midday magazine coming up for you right here at 97 5 FM 13 20 AM WF HR locally grown radio.