RUNNING HEAD: Junior’s Supermarket 1
Juniors Supermarket
Veronica Lopez
South Texas College
Junior’s Supermarket 2
Junior’s Supermarket
Being the owner’s daughter of a family owned and operated supermarket in the valley has
had its challenges throughout the years. Junior’s Supermarket originally started with one store in
South Pharr, Texas. Now we currently have over ten stores all around the Rio Grande Valley.
Every day the market keeps changing and demands for specific products. My dad’s projected
plan has always been to bring prices that are affordable but that have the best quality to the
community. Through out the years my dad has developed several plans some have worked, and
some have failed.
However, being the owner, he has always made the decisions believing what is best for
the business. I am currently the general manager of one of the busiest stores we own that is in
San Juan, Tx. According to the Lumen website “principles of management” “General managers
take direction from their top executives. They must first understand the executives overall plan
for the company (Lumen Learning , 2012)” Overall, I make decisions based on what would my
father do. I must set the best example ahead of me. However, there are times that I make
decisions based on my knowledge and what I believe is best for the company. Going to school
has made me aware of different things that need to be addressed as an owner. First, I need all my
employees to understand what the company stands for. They need to understand and exceed their
customer service with all our customers. However, there will be occasions were the customer
will not always be right. However, they should always handle situations professionally.
As a future business owner, I want to give empowerment to all my employees and staff.
“Empowerment is the process of enabling or authorizing an induvial to think, behave, take
action, and control work and decision making in autonomous ways.” (Lumen Learning , 2012) I
highly believe that if I empower my staff we will succeed as a business. They will be making the
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best decisions for the company. Another new rule I would like to input to my leaders and
managers is to have a high self-esteem at work. “Leaders with high self-esteem support their
subordinates more, and when punishment needs to be administered, they punish more effectively.
It is possible that those with high self-esteem have greater levels of self- confidence and this
affect their image in the eyes of their followers.” (Lumen Learning , 2012) When leaders have a
high self-esteem, they will act more accordingly. I also believe when employees make mistakes
my leaders will know how to handle properly instead of screaming at them, letting them know
what they did wrong and what they can do to fix it. They will make decisions that are best for the
company therefore less percentage of failure. They will be role models to other employees and
moreover it will increase the respect towards them.
As a business owner, organization should be on the top of my priorities. According to an
article by Newtek “Keeping your meetings, deadlines, and business plan on a highly organized
schedule, and sticking to it will be what sets you apart from other small business that fumble in
disorganization” (Newtek, 2013) I strongly believe that organization can set the difference in the
business. With organization we can tell what is on stock, what item needs to be ordered and what
item needs to be pulled out of the shelf. We can also know how close we are to meeting our sales
goal. Most importantly we can know how our business plan is going and if it is functioning
properly or changes need to be made.
Customer Service skill are essential in any business. I as a customer have visited several
places to either buy personal items or to restaurants to eat. Customer service will be the reason I
will either go back or leave and never return. Even if the food is the best I ever tasted if I get bad
customer service or server I will not go back. Employees need to understand how important
customer service. As a general manager when I hire employee, I always ask them what customer
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service is and where did they receive it. A lot of employees will say in my store, and others will
say Chic-fil-A. My employees enjoy the restaurant customer service because they will take care
of you as soon as you walk through the door until you walk out the door. I always tell my
employees that is the customer service I expect when working in the business. I want all my
customers well taken care of.
Since I am next in line to become CEO of my father’s business. I have been going to
school to gain knowledge and become a better leader for our business. I plan to make several
changes in this business that I believe will make the business grow. According to an article made
by Grace College Online “Know where you want your company to go and assemble a team that
wants to get there as badly as you do. Take chances and be a pioneer, because sometimes you
must go beyond proven strategies and make your own.” (Grace College Online, 2016) I plan to
open more locations around the valley and in a few years make our way to San Antonio Houston
and Dallas Texas. Ever since I got the promotion of being general manager, I implemented to
organize everything in my store by storing all data and using graphs to demonstrate how the store
in functioning and its progress since I got in charge.
Figure 1.2 The Progress in Sales from three years 2016-2019
This information was gathered from three years span of collecting data from different departments
Produce, Meats, Drinks, Dairy.
Sales 2016 - 2019
150,000
T
100,000
50,000
0
2,016 2,017 2,018 2,019
Produce Meats Drinks Dairy
Figure 1.2
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Figure 2.1 Meat Sales from three years span 2016-2019
This information solemnly focuses on meat since it is the department with the highest sales in the
store. The information gathered is from a three-year spam 2016-2019
Meats 2016 - 2019
140,000
120,000
100,000
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
0
2,016 2017 2018 2019
Figure 2.1
Being a leader means making decisions. As a store manager I always make the decisions
that are best for my store. I personally believe store managers should follow protocol and rules
and make decisions based off what the CEO wants in this case my dad. However, there will be
situations where one needs to decentralize and make decisions on the spot that is what I
recommend that they use their ethics and make the best decision and what sounds like the best
decision.
As a store manager I would like for all my employees to follow our ethics. It is important
for employees to know and understand what we as a business stand for. My business has respects
for everyone. No one will be treated differently; my business is open for anyone and everyone.
Color does not make a difference in treatment to our customer service. We will treat everyone
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the same. It does not matter that a homeless person came to buy a bottle of water or a business
owner came to buy meat. Everyone will get the same respect no matter their background or
choices. I also want my employees to respect our customers beliefs. Everyone has the right to
believe whatever sounds rational to them.
In my business over ninety five percent of our employees are Hispanics since our store is
Hispanic. They can learn that not all Latinos are bad. They can even learn some Spanish which
will only benefit them. Hiring other ethnicities gives them the opportunity to learn about the
Latino culture. I will hire anyone that has the drive to learn and become a better employee. Many
people make mistakes therefore they will not get hired. However, I have a strong belief for
second opportunities. Everyone has the right to fix their mistakes and become a better human
being.
I also believe that now everything does evolve on technology. I would like for our store
to have its own social media accounts. I would like to open an account on Facebook, Instagram,
and snapchat and post our specials that we have throughout our store. Social media works I know
I have gone to several place because of social media. People say we eat with our eyes. For
example, on social media several restaurants or even people will post their food and that will
make you want to buy it, which will make people go to the restaurant and order that plate.
Posting our specials will help people since they are always trying to save money. I would like to
have monthly meetings and be checking on everything. Goals needs to be on track and if they are
behind that is when the plan will change. Being a leader, I cannot be afraid of change, I need to
adjust depending on what goal needs to be achieved.
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References
Grace College Online. (2016, January 11). Grace College Onile. Retrieved from
https://online.grace.edu/news/business/how-to-be-a-better-business-owner/
Lumen Learning . (2012). Retrieved from Lumen Principles of Management :
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/principlesmanagement/chapter/1-2-who-are-managers/
Newtek. (2013). Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/thesba/2013/02/26/7-
habits-of-great-small-business-owners/#76772a7d34b3
