“You don’t build a business – you build people – and then people build the business.” – Zig Ziglar

As society continues to progress in terms of technology and competitiveness, improving business education in schools has never been more important. Despite its numerous benefits in providing students with crucial life skills, such as leadership and time management, many schools have failed to dedicate sufficient time and resources to business education amidst a continuously changing industry.

Realizing this phenomena, three seniors at Sayreville War Memorial High School – Ananya Kondur, Rhena Johnson, and Wade Guerra – sought to take initiative through a project called UEG & Me. Collaborating with local businesses, the project leaders aspire to enhance business education among the Sayreville student body while also providing these business partners with a new target audience and marketing opportunity in the Northeast region.

In order to fulfill these vast array of goals, the students decided on a three-pronged approach.

Understand

The first phase of the project is Understand, which involves a detailed assessment of the student body’s existing knowledge on a variety of business topics, one being marketing.

One aspect of this phase was sending out a Google Form to the Sayreville FBLA chapter – consisting of over 200 students – to assess their current knowledge on the different types of marketing (influencer, lifestyle, and sports marketing). On top of this, another study was conducted with the chapter’s executive board: 10 executive members were tasked to look into targeted marketing by experimenting with media tracking done by several social media platforms.

The data collected from both studies were analyzed and later presented at speaker events with business professionals, who related the relevance of these different areas of marketing to the everyday processes involved with being in a business career. With this, the project leaders and Sayreville school community gained a better understanding of both business concepts and their respective applications in the real world.

Execute

Using and retaining the information gathered from the Understand phase, Sayreville students were then able to move on to the second phase: Execute.

In this phase, FBLA members acquire hands-on experience through interactive events with business professionals. These include social media initiatives (on TikTok, Instagram, etc.), and numerous boot camps and workshops on practical applications of business concepts. These efforts, in turn, enhanced business education at Sayreville War Memorial High School as a whole because this project provided students with the opportunity to market themselves with the guidance of experienced professionals.

Growth (Future Plans)

The third and final phase of the project is Growth. After experiencing success in their goals within their high school, Kondur, Johnson, and Guerra hope to expand their efforts beyond the Sayreville community.

For instance, they hope to organize a trip to visit several business headquarters, host a career fair to introduce different positions and jobs offered in the business world to students, and eventually implement an outreach program to expand this project to neighboring chapters in New Jersey and even chapters around the nation.

With these progressing efforts, the project leaders strongly believe that they are taking the necessary steps towards ensuring the development of our nation’s future leaders in the realm of business.