The Twenty Percent

For this assignment I interviewed Eduardo Cortez. Who I interviewed was Eduardo Cortez, he is a tested business entrepreneur and a clergyman. He first came to this country from Ecuador at the age of 30 with his family, with only one goal, to establish a Hispanic church. Eventually he found a work opportunity with the United Methodist Church. He started with a congregation of 5 members and is now the biggest and growing Hispanic Methodist congregation in Central Florida. Before that, Eduardo was very much involved in the business world. In Ecuador, Eduardo learned at an early age the tactics and strategies it would take to become a successful entrepreneur. By the age of 25 he was managing several male boutiques in 3 central malls in Ecuador’s capital. Finally here in the United States, he decided to dedicate his time to his ministry. A few years later, he would make a bad business decision and invest a large amount of his savings into a business called “The Natural Home” which would eventually go under. But business is trial and error. With this failing business venture came lessons, tactics, and strategies, which he put into practice with his church and his current successful day care business. The questions in this assignment are mainly directed to business that provide products. But like I mention Mr. Cortez runs a service business, the day care, where everyone who attends has to pay. So technically, when I asked what percentage of his customers are providing a 100%n of his revenue, he just smiled and said “All my customers are my business, all my customers have to pay”. But of course I knew this was the case so I changed the questions slightly and hope this will suffice.

Me: “You operated the church long before you opened a day care along with it correct?” *nods “what percentage of your customers do you attribute to your church?”

Eduardo: “Now that’s a more interesting questions. Not everyone that goes to the daycare has to go to my church. But all of my employees are frequent or permanent church members. I would say a good 15% of the kids here go to the church or found out about our daycare through someone that does go to my church. But again I operate my church and the business completely independent of one another. Yes they are in the same building, but my wife takes care of the daycare mostly and I do the church. And yes all the students that go here are also studying the bible, but we do that because that is what we believe in, God is the foundation of this business, and we don’t do that to get these family to come to our church or nothing of that sort, all though they are more than welcomed.”

Me: “Out of everyone that goes to church with children, how many have used your services? Have they discovered the church before the day care, or vice versa?”

Eduardo: “I think everyone that has a child that goes to my church, they all have used our daycare service or are using it. When we first started the day care mostly everyone knew about the church before the day care. Now it’s, I would say, somewhere along the middle. We don’t advertise much, other than the couple of signs we have out on the road, most of our customers are either from the area or have heard of us from word of mouth. Most of the time we are full. We have expanded this building twice already just so we would have more room and to increase out capacity. We have 6 class rooms all with at least 20 kids in each and when you do the math that’s quite a few families, more than the families that show up on Sundays. So maybe I would say that at this point more people hear about our church through the day care, but a part of me doesn’t think that either.”

Me: “Do you ask for feedback about your business from your customers?”

Eduardo: “Most of the time our feedback come in the form of complaints. Especially when we first started the business every complaint was just another way for us to better our business. Over time I think we have gotten the hang of it. But everyone here knows I have an open door policy, if they have any questions or concern they know is ok to either come straight to me or my wife. I am also all ways here, I walk around and make sure everything is running smoothly in all of our classrooms and I’m frequently talking to the family members and the kids too. I know every single kid that goes here one way or another, this is a lot more than a job it my life. As a pastor I’m always here for the community for my people.”

Me: "Describe to me your target customers? What is their unmet needs their demographic?"

Eduardo: “Well that’s simple, everyone is someone with a child that needs care. Almost everyone is a family with kids that are too young to start school, and they need someone to look after the kids while they are at work. Or the parent’s get out of work after the kids get out of school. So our daycare, which provide transportation, will pick up the students at school and take them back here, until their parents can come and pick them up.”

When it came to the customers, none of them wanted to be filmed. So I went ahead and just recorded the videos with the camera facing down. Two if the interviews are recorded in Spanish. So I will translate by typing them out. I asked the customers how they though the business was going, how many of the people that go to the church also go to the daycare, vice versa, and who are the target customer?

Customer 1:

“I think the business is going well, Mr. and Ms. Cortez know what they are doing they have been doing for a long time. I personally go to their church and work here and both my kids go here. The bigger one goes to school and comes here after school. My little one is too little for school just yet so he is here all day. I think a lot of the kids and family that go here are somehow associated with the church. You don’t necessarily have to go to the church to go to the daycare though. But a lot of families find out about the daycare through someone that does go to the church. And I would say all the employees go to the church. Like I said I think about half the kids that go here are from the church or have found out about us through the church. I haven’t heard anything bad I think the business is going well.”

Customer 2: