We're at it again!

The time has come! We are diving into the detailed planning of this year's phase, phase two of the three total phases, of the microfranchise research in Guatemala. David (Dave) Richards and myself (Bryan C. Bennett) will be heading for Guatemala on April 25th in search of last year's interviewees for the purpose of followup interviews. We want to see what has brought the successful businesses to more success. We also want to see which ones haven't made it through this year and find out why (mostly by obtaining and analyzing numbers). The research targeted at quantitative results more than qualitative results.

Planning the details of the trip has been exciting. Yesterday, we did a fly-by review of the cities we will be visiting and set tentative dates for seeking the clients in each of those cities. It is exciting to have year number one behind us because we are taking so many lessons learned with us as we form this year's operational plan. We will be traveling in a rented vehicle for the entire trip. We are also allocating a chunk of our stipend to pay interviewees to come find us in central city hubs rather than going out to every village we visited last year. This will benefit both us and them. We will save considerable time and money. The interviewees will be delighted because they will have their periodic trip to the city paid for by us. They can do their monthy or semi monthly compras (purchases--both food and other), and perhaps use it as a chance to connect with others in the city as well. Usually, they are in a crunch for money moreso than for time. So it will be a symbiotic relationship! I love symbioticicismnesshoodship!

Anyway, Dave and I are excited. We have planned to listen to some great audio books on our travels between cities. We are excited to visit the congregations of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints whom we met last year. We will also surely be swinging by the orphanage to visit little Moses and the other adorable children there in Panajachel.

We are determined to be more effective and efficient in this year's research. We will be photographing more of the locations we visit as well as each individual interviewee (and this to facilitate third year research, in case we can't be present).

The hunt for economic self-reliance in Guate continues! Three cheers for the MicroFranchise Development Initiative (headed by Jason Fairbourne of the Economic Self-Reliance Center at Brigham Young University [BYU] in Provo, Utah)! Also, special thanks to Jorge and Gregorio (the two men in the middle of the picture above) for allowing us to network in and work through the connections of Community Enterprise Solutions (Soluciones Comunitarias)! We'll see you in less than four weeks!