Joe Garcia ’21 Lavender and Hops Style Lounge – Over the course of the month of June, I have had the unique opportunity to intern for Ms. Ashley Newton, owner of Lavender and Hops style lounge. Although one might assume someone interested in business could not learn a lot about the concept at a hair salon, I saw the opportunity as a way to immerse myself within a realm unknown, and to also learn the many aspects that come with running a small business. As expected, I learned a great deal over the course of this internship. I learned how to create a website and also how to update it frequently in order to display fresh content out to clients. Ms. Newton let me tweak the website she had already created but also taught me how to create my own from scratch. I also gained knowledge on search engine optimization, the way in which search engines rank websites on Google. I was able to apply what I had learned about SEO onto the Lavender and Hops website. Furthermore, I had the opportunity to manage inventory, place shipments of products in an inventory management system, and evaluate data in order to track which products sell the most and which products sell the least. With this knowledge, I created a system for Ms. Newton on how often she should order certain products, the quantity she should order, and which products to stop purchasing due to their lack of popularity. Additionally, I was able to work on price configuration for her hair salon services. This process in particular was very complicated due to the amount of variables that you encounter as a business owner. You have to keep in mind the amount of time it takes for the service, how much product you may need for the service, what kind of market you are trying to attract, and the price of competitors. As Ms. Newton and I researched and evaluated all these variables, we were able to come up with new pricing for many of her services. Although those were many of the larger projects I worked on as an intern, there were many little things I learned in the process as well. For instance, learning how payroll works for both an owner and employees, learning how to establish a culture and style of a business, learning how to manage everything and keep a schedule to be as efficient as possible, and much more. Throughout the entirety of the internship, Ms. Newton constantly gave me insight on why she does certain things and how it helps the business. This internship was definitely a great experience and I am glad I had such an opportunity.