Abstract
The journey to being enterprising is not easy. It involves a lot of effort from the entrepreneur (Justin). This report focuses on two entrepreneurs in the same industry. It investigates their background of each of the entrepreneurs so as to be able to determine the success factors in their life. Besides, it gives a comparison and a contrast of these entrepreneurs and above all the obstacles that they had to overcome before achieving their success.
Main Text
Willard Marriott
John Willard Marriott the founder of the Marriott Corporation was an entrepreneur in the hospitality industry. He is an American born who was raised like a devout Mormon. His interest in the hospitality industry started when he passed in the Washington D.C. and was impressed on how a cart pusher managed to sell his soft drinks and ice-cream.
In 1927, he franchised rights for A&W Root Beer for Washington D.C and Richmond in the Virginia. This was a key towards his success in the sector. On 20th May 1927, he partnered with Hugh Colton and together they did set up a root beer stand in the Washington. The cold weather saw the addition of Mexican food to the stand which in turn led to the renaming of the stand to “The Hot Shoppe”. Later on in the year 1929 the business was incorporated. The Second World War saw further expansion of the business to incorporate the management of food services in the government buildings such as the U.S. Treasury.
The 1953 saw the involvement of the business in the Hotel Industry by opening the first Marriott hotel. In 1967, the business became Marriot Inc. with mergers in the 1968 and widening of the consumer base to schools and colleges.
Up to and including his death in 1985 the Marriott Corporation had operated 143 hotels and 1400 restaurants and had made annual revenues of approximately $4.5million. It had 154,600 employees and had amorphously invested in other business ventures such as the shipping sector of the transport industry (Mike).
Conrad Hilton
He is the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain. He was born in Mexico by a Norwegian father and a devout Roman Catholic mother. He schooled in the former New Mexico Military institute and served in the U.S army in the First World War.
His entrepreneurial skills came up when he was working at his fathers store in the New Mexico. He went further to buy his first Hotel (Mobley hotel) in Texas. In the 1925, he built his first hotel the “Dallas Hilton" followed by the Abilene Hilton in the 1927, the Waco Hilton of 1928 and then the El Paso Hilton of 1930.The great depression saw the fall of the Hilton business where he lost several hotels to bankruptcy. Later on, in 1948 he formed the Hilton International Company.
In the1950s and 1960s, the expansion of the Hilton hotels facilitated American tourism as well as oversees business by the American Firms. In addition, it promulgated certain world wide standard for the hotels accommodation. This was the world’s first chain of Hotels. All in all, Hilton finally owned 188 hotels in the US and 54 hotels abroad. He also purchased and merged with other firms like the Carte Blanche Credit Company. He has received many honorary degrees among many other achievements (Robert).
Both Conrad Hilton and Willard are entrepreneurs who invested in the Hotel and hospitality industry. Though they are both from Shaky backgrounds, they were able to shine in the hospitality and hotel industries. Both were raised in Christian families where Conrad’s Mother was a catholic and Willard was raised like a devout Mormon. The success of both is based on the spirited hard work they put up in ensuring that they reached the success of their businesses. Both were educated, and in their journey towards success, they had to partner with one for survival whether as copartner like Hugh Colton for Willard or by acquisition of existing company like the Carte Blanche Credit Company for the Hiltons case (Mike).
However, major differences exists between theses two entrepreneurs. Hilton Conrad did not partner with anyone in his journey to success whereas, Willard Marriot partnered with the Hugh Colton. In addition, the entrepreneurial culture in these two people developed from different places. Conrad developed the need while working in his fathers store but, Willard had not worked in any business but developed from the cart peddler. Willard Marriott invested in different other businesses like the Cargo ships and others whereas Conrad Hilton invested in only one form of business: hotel business (Robert).
The Journey to their success was not void of obstacles. In achieving his dreams, Hilton was hit by the great depression that led to the closure of many of his Hotels. This was a substantial drawback in his work. Another major drawback in achieving his success like all entrepreneurs was capital. For many entrepreneurs getting of capital is hard enough and may even force one to shatter his dreams (Justin).
On the other hand, Marriot had to fight with cancer. This gave his business a different twist of life but later on he survived and propelled the business well. Besides like many other entrepreneurs, Marriott was subjected to the hard market times and a stiffly competitive market. This is a major obstacle to almost every and each entrepreneur (Mark).
Conclusion
These two are perfect examples of entrepreneurs. They were self motivated in striving to achieve their goals. This is because, as an entrepreneur, one can neither afford the luxury of a boss nor the bureaucracy to tell you what is to be done. Everything is squarely on ones shoulders from the finding of the source of capital, to the development of the product and so on. These two shows that, for success in an enterprise, one must be a self starter, and above all self confident (Justin).
For anyone to succeed as an entrepreneur, one must be innovative and also dedicated so as to be able to devise smart business strategies and put them to reality. These are some of the key factors possessed by these two men. They were highly dedicated to their work. Though much novelty is not seen in the types of businesses they did set up, creativity was employed well by these two (Mike).
Sales and marketing skills are indispensable whenever one decides to set up your own business. This is because any new business must seek to acquire customers. For one to begin to think how to get to target audience, these skills are vital. These are the same skills that these two entrepreneurs possessed for success in their businesses. The financial know how skills are also of significant help to any entrepreneur. This is because; an entrepreneur is in the business to make money. This is thus the ability to handle money well. It entails having the knowledge on how to use the limited capital base to propel the business to success. This is as shown by Hilton during the great depression (Justin).
Time management is vital for any business entity to survive. This is especially so if one is running a one person entity. He or she has to multi-task in different departments of the firm. This is an essential quality to an entrepreneur.
Finally, administration skills are crucial to entrepreneurs. This is because, in most cases, they lack capital to employ administrators and thus this will be left for them. Stating up a business is not an easy ride even when one has a solid background and possesses the skills above. However, having these elementary skills will lessen the pain of the start up process. This write up focuses on the two entrepreneurs and their roads to success (Robert).
References
Justin, G. Small Business Management: Launching and Growing Entrepreneurial Ventures. New York: Cengage Learning, 2009.
Mark, C. The Entrepreneur: an economic theory. London: Edward Elgar Piblishing, 2003.
Mike, H. The entrepreneur's creed: the principles & passions of 20 successful entrepreneurs. New York: Armour Publishing Pte Ltd, 2001.
Robert, F. The Entrepreneur & Entrepreneurship cycle. Amsterdam: Uitgeverji Van Gorcum, 2008.
