Major Case: Kathryn Kennedy - Business Diploma Marketing graduate

About Kathryn Kennedy

Major CaseCASE STUDYKathryn Kennedy is a proud Conestoga graduate. She completed her Business Diploma in Marketing. Kathryn was hired after college by her co-op placement, JG Jones Marketing Inc. (“JG Jones”) in Cambridge. Kathryn has worked for JG Jones for nearly 5 years. Kathryn does has an employment contract with JG Jones which outlines her hours, her position, her salary and the required notice for leaving, which is two weeks. At the time she was hired, Kathryn was told that there was opportunities to advance and to do freelance work. During the last five years, Kathryn has learned that since JG Jones is a family owned company and Kathryn isn’t family opportunities for management positions are limited. Lately Kathryn has been dissatisfied with her job. Kathryn has, on her own time, developed marketing strategies for some of the clients of JG Jones. Kathryn presented these strategies to the Senior Marketing Development Manager, Susan Jones. Susan abruptly rejected them without giving them any sincere consideration.While Kathryn has been paid relatively well, she wants to advance and be able to set her own schedule and establish a client base of smaller businesses.Kathryn has spoken with Susan on several occasions about updating JG Jones’ computers and the software. Kathryn has tried to introduce smaller clients to JG Jones, but Susan advised Kathryn she couldn’t work for them. Susan does not listen to Kathryn’s suggestions and has never taken Kathryn’s ideas to senior management. Kathryn questionswhether Susan has any education in marketing or any training on the software used by JG Jones.After a few long months of frustration, Kathryn decided that JG Jones has become stagnant and unimaginative. Her dream is to start her own marketing business. Kathryn wantsto approach the clients of JG Jones with her plans. Kathryn also has some great ideas for developing a marketing business serving small businesses that can’t afford a full-time marketing person. After talking with friends and family, Kathryn has decided to quit her job when hercontract expires in six (6) months. Since Kathryn has been considering this move for some time, she has been saving money to pay the expenses to start up the business.Before Kathryn gave notice she decided to get some things started to open her own business. Her first step was education. She decided to attend a seminar at Conestoga College for new business owners. At the seminar, Kathryn learned valuable information about registering her business name, finding a location, financing and ensuring there are no restrictions to starting a business regarding her current employment agreement. After the

Kathryn's background and employment

Major CaseCASE STUDYKathryn Kennedy is a proud Conestoga graduate. She completed her Business Diploma in Marketing. Kathryn was hired after college by her co-op placement, JG Jones Marketing Inc. (“JG Jones”) in Cambridge. Kathryn has worked for JG Jones for nearly 5 years. Kathryn does has an employment contract with JG Jones which outlines her hours, her position, her salary and the required notice for leaving, which is two weeks. At the time she was hired, Kathryn was told that there was opportunities to advance and to do freelance work. During the last five years, Kathryn has learned that since JG Jones is a family owned company and Kathryn isn’t family opportunities for management positions are limited. Lately Kathryn has been dissatisfied with her job. Kathryn has, on her own time, developed marketing strategies for some of the clients of JG Jones. Kathryn presented these strategies to the Senior Marketing Development Manager, Susan Jones. Susan abruptly rejected them without giving them any sincere consideration.While Kathryn has been paid relatively well, she wants to advance and be able to set her own schedule and establish a client base of smaller businesses.Kathryn has spoken with Susan on several occasions about updating JG Jones’ computers and the software. Kathryn has tried to introduce smaller clients to JG Jones, but Susan advised Kathryn she couldn’t work for them. Susan does not listen to Kathryn’s suggestions and has never taken Kathryn’s ideas to senior management. Kathryn questionswhether Susan has any education in marketing or any training on the software used by JG Jones.After a few long months of frustration, Kathryn decided that JG Jones has become stagnant and unimaginative. Her dream is to start her own marketing business. Kathryn wantsto approach the clients of JG Jones with her plans. Kathryn also has some great ideas for developing a marketing business serving small businesses that can’t afford a full-time marketing person. After talking with friends and family, Kathryn has decided to quit her job when hercontract expires in six (6) months. Since Kathryn has been considering this move for some time, she has been saving money to pay the expenses to start up the business.Before Kathryn gave notice she decided to get some things started to open her own business. Her first step was education. She decided to attend a seminar at Conestoga College for new business owners. At the seminar, Kathryn learned valuable information about registering her business name, finding a location, financing and ensuring there are no restrictions to starting a business regarding her current employment agreement. After the

Dissatisfaction with job and limited advancement

2 | Pageseminar, Kathryn reviewed her employment contract and discovered that it did not contain non-competition or non-solicitation clauses.Kathryn owns a small bungalow that she bought about 2 years ago that has a huge unfinished basement. Kathryn has a significant amount of equity as she inherited money from her grandmother about 3 years ago and used it to buy the home. Kathryn planned on getting the basement professionally finished to ensure it was done properly. She decided the basement would be an excellent location to start her business, at least at until it grows and requires more space. There are two issues that needed to be dealt with about the basement choice. First, can Kathryn needs to find out if she can carry on business out of her home; and second, the basement needed major work to make it a usable space. Kathryn doesn’t fully understand zoning issues so she decided to find a professional renovation company who could prepare the plans for the basement as well as obtain all the necessary permits. Kathryn contacted a friend of her parents who recently had significant renovations done on his home and he provided Kathryn with the name of three businesses, which provided quotes to do the work.After consulting with the three businesses and receiving their plans for her basement renovation, Kathryn decided to use RENOS R Us Ltd. (“RENOS”). The owner, Tom Thompson,provided a thorough list of references, including her parents’ friends. RENOS provided the plan that best suited the needs of her business. Tom assured Kathryn RENOS would get the building permit quite easily as he had done it numerous times for other jobs. In fact, Tom said that the price quoted included obtaining all the necessary permits for the work because he was so confident it was a very simple process. Kathryn negotiated back and forth about the deadline and the cost and they came to an agreement on all those issues. Kathryn signed a contract prepared by RENOS that outlined the work to be done, the plans for the work, the timeline for completion (which was to be shortly before Kathryn stopped working at JG Jones) and the total cost of the project. A couple of days after Kathryn signed the contract, she realized there was no mention of the building permit. When Kathryn called Tom, he assured her that he would cover any costs associated with obtaining the permit. Also, the contract did not provide for any late penalties if RENOS did not complete the work on time. When Kathryn asked about this issue Tom assured her that RENOS had never been late so there was no need for a penalty clause.RENOS was to start the 15th of the month. The 15th passed and Kathryn hadn’t heard from Tom or RENOS so Kathryn called him. Tom advised that there has been an issue with herbuilding permit. The age of her home required the renovations to include Building Code modifications as well as a rezoning of the property to allow for commercial business to be run out of the home. Kathryn was distressed by this news, but Tom reassured Kathryn that he would take care of it at no extra cost to Kathryn. Tom advised Kathryn that it would be a few 3 | Pageweeks. As expected, Tom called Kathryn at work to advise Kathryn that the rezoning had been approved and the modifications to the home required for the building permit had been made and RENOS R Us was now ready to get started on the renovations in the basement. Kathrynbreathed a sigh of relief and authorized them to proceed with the renovations. They werealready behind schedule but Tom reassured Kathryn that RENOS would complete the work on time.Kathryn got very excited about her new business. Kathryn didn’t talk about it at work as she didn’t want to cause any hard feelings. She also wanted to make sure JG Jones didn’t think she wasn’t doing her work. Kathryn spent her lunch hours searching the internet and contacting places about furniture and computers. Kathryn also spent a lot of her free time working on herown business name as well as materials to advertise her new business to distribute to potential clients. The marketing materials Kathryn prepared needed to be perfect to impress potential clients with the quality of her work.Kathryn wanted a catchy name, so she searched the internet to get some inspiration.Many marketing companies use the name of the person who started the business, but Kathrynwanted something different that will distinguish her business out in the marketing industry.After many long hours of searching and brainstorming, she decided on “Plant for your future” with a tag line “Help us help you grow”. She was very excited and her friends and familythought it was perfect. Kathryn started working on her marketing materials using the “growing” theme throughout as she thought it would be very inspiring for smaller businesses.As the renovations progressed, Kathryn became more excited. The seminar materials recommended searching for the office materials that would be needed and offered some websites as resources. Despite searching the recommended sites, Kathryn couldn’t find the style of furniture she wanted for her office. Kathryn kept in touch with many of her Conestoga classmates and heard through one of them about a busine