FBLA（Business Plan topic）

an unforgettable experience for me

Backgrounds-What is FBLA

The Future Business Leader of America, with the initial FBLA, is an international contest of business and economics. It is the biggest charity organization of students all around the world, with over 100 years history. Each year, FBLA had its own contest, it would include different parts, such as Business Plan, Entrepreneurship and Economics.

What I did in FBLA

Exam at school

Students who wanted to take part in FBLA needed to do an exam. The questions in this exam were depends on the topic you chosen. I chose the topic Business Plan. The top three students at school would get the opportunity to access national FBLA exam.

I prepared a lot (I would mention it after this section) and got great scores. (Not only I could access national contest, but also the top 2% in the eastern China competition area.)

National exam

In national exam, each team would get question in advance to prepare for a presentation. It is worth mentioning that each team needed to use a powerpoint to support their presentation.

According to the official guide, the contents of powerpoint must contain business plans of setting up three different companies. Our team had three members, so we decided to split the powerpoint into three and each one made one business plan of his own company.

Mistakes during our presentation.

Truth to be told, because of Covid-19, our national FBLA contest was held online. When we did the presentation, because of the problem of the Internet, our powerpoint didn’t slide smoothly.

At that time, we were nervous. Then we calmed down and still performed well!

Final score

We achieved top 18th in China.

This is the certificate.

This is the medal. (Students from top 11th to top 20th all got this medal.)

What our team did to prepare for national exam

We were classmates and thus we could do the face-to-face communication every day. At first, we discussed with each other to make sure our companies were different types. Then we asked for our economic teachers’ help. (We had a FBLA club at school.) She advised our companies could have relationship between each other.

After a long-time discussion, we chose to write business plan of these three types companies: A company to produce clothes, a company to hold events and a company to combine sole traders/retailors and producers. The process of discussion was tough since we had different ideas. But generally speaking, we showed respect with each other.

When we finished our powerpoint, we also send it to our teacher and she helped us to change, delete or add contents. For example, one of our team members, Judy, she deleted a lot of contents as we had only totally seven minutes to do the presentation.

Last but not the least, we repeated reading our powerpoint together for many times to make sure we got high marks for coherence.

What I did to prepare for FBLA

To get high marks to access national contest

Each student got an official guide at that time. There were many past paper questions and I did the majority of them. I also review our economic books to master the concepts of economics.

To perform better in presentation

Tell you the truth, I was poor in speaking English, (By the way, my partners did well in it.) so I didn’t want to fall behind. I practiced a lot in my spare time. For example, I couldn’t speak complex years or percentages fluently at that time, so I repeated such numbers and even made hints on the powerpoint to avoid saying wrong words.

My feelings to take part in FBLA

I loved FBLA, mainly because I have learned a lot from FBLA. As I mentioned before, I strengthen my knowledge of economics/business and English speaking ability.

During the process of preparation, I also learned how to do efficient self-study. For example, I made to-do list or forced me to read at least 10 pages official guide. I used to play with my phone when I do self-study. Obviously, mobile phone distracted my attention. Thanks to my experience of attending FBLA, my productivity had increased a lot.

In addition, I learned to manage my time properly at that time. I guess I developed this habit because I was really busy at that time. The hectic pressure forced me to manage my time wisely.