When I was a little girl, my parents moved our family to the United States of America. Who would have thought we would be involved with small busineses? For five years, they worked tirelessly to ensure our safety, education, and stability. My mother worked in a sewing factory, and my father was a truck driver. Through their hard work, they managed to reach a level of financial security that enabled them to open their own business, a truck driving company. My father was born an entrepreneur, and he had previous experience of running a small business. The principle was the same, but the location, language, clients, everything was anatomically different. Nonetheless, MIA Express Inc. opened officially in 2006 with one driver—my father—and one dispatcher—my mother.
Working at a small business can teach you many valuable lessons.
Needless to say, I grew up depending on a small business for my education and well-being. My sisters and I helped whenever we could, even if we just cleaned the office from time to time. I worked for MIA Express Inc. on and off during high school, but I always somehow took it for granted. I didn’t want to work for my parents, and I didn’t think working for a truck driving company could help me with my writing interests and goals. Boy, was I wrong!
I didn’t realize just how wrong I was until I began my copywriting internship with Buckeye Interactive. First of all, software developing, coding, and design are completely out of my element—so was truck driving!—but I managed to fit in and contribute. My experience with MIA Express Inc. had prepared me entirely for my internship. No, I didn’t necessarily learn about writing directly, and I really wasn’t sure what my new internship would entail, but I realized I already knew some of the values small businesses possess. These values are now ingrained in me, and I couldn’t be more thankful. Here’s my top 3:
Patience
No entrepreneur, no startup, no small business can succeed without patience. It is the essential key to maintaining a company because every company will have long periods of drought. How one acts during those droughts, how one perceives those times, is entirely crucial to the success of the business. In my family’s business, patience is needed when looking for drivers or loads or waiting for payments. Buckeye Interactive exhibits patience with every project they work on because the projects often take months. Without patience, both companies wouldn’t be able to produce high quality work or maintain a positive outlook and workplace, driving the success of their respectful businesses down. Yes, indeed, patience remains at the top of my list.
Creativity
Creativity is a close second, and while it may not necessarily be considered a “value,” it is definitely a skill that takes practice and will. If patience is what keeps small businesses afloat, creativity helps them swim. Buckeye Interactive embraces and calls for creativity as the developers need to decide what kind of website or function to build, and the designers must know what looks appealing. Every small business needs to be creative in order to solve problems, take risks, and move forward. Without creativity, the new would never replace the old, and the old would just become the same, and when something is constantly the same, it becomes the extinct. Small businesses, obviously, do not want to go extinct; therefore, creativity remains imperative to the success of a business.
Respect
Last, but not in any way least, is respect. It works in multi-dimensional ways because small businesses and their workers must have respect for their establishment, but they also need to have respect for their competition and their clients. Small businesses must truly love and value what they do in order to provide quality services for their clients. Only then can the businesses exhibit the proper respect for their competition and their clients. Buckeye Interactive illustrates this quality every day, and I’ve learned through watching my coworkers just how crucial respect is in the business world, as it creates connections, quality products, great reviews, and extreme benefits for all sides.
My internship has allowed me to look through a glass I didn’t realize my eyes had already experienced. I’ve learned so much about how small businesses operate and what values they need to possess if they truly want to help the world one client, one truckload at a time. But, more importantly, I’ve realized through working with MIA Express Inc. and Buckeye Interactive that nothing matters more than being a good person, one who has patience, one who thinks thoughtfully, one who respects. Small businesses may fail or succeed, but what remains is character, and a good heart makes all the difference.
Written by Milica Mijatovic
