Each quarter, students in Mike Hernandez’s MBA marketing management (GSB 614) class put their skills to work with a real-world company.  

This winter quarter, their work resulted in a segment on NBC.

The segment was produced by Jorge de Santiago, a reporter and anchor for NBC/Telemundo and a DePaul MBA student in Hernandez’s class. In it, de Santiago introduces viewers to Julia Beal: a solo entrepreneur in the process of launching her asphalt repair business, JCB Construction Services.  

Over the course of 11 weeks, students worked with Beal to create a comprehensive marketing and publicity plan. They created a website. They developed assets: business cards, signage she can use on job sites.  

Hernandez’s class has done similar work for established companies in the past. But this winter was the first time his students worked with a solo entrepreneur. In the process, they didn’t just put their marketing skills to work. They got an up-close look at what it takes to be an entrepreneur: to build something from scratch over the course of years.  

It all started with helping Beal tell her story.

An entrepreneurial origin story 

In her interview with de Santiago, here’s how Beal tells her entrepreneurial origin story.  

“I am a truck driver. I was driving, and everywhere I went, I saw cracks. You’ve got to [have someone] to fix that problem. And I’m a problem-solver.”  

It’s a near-perfect definition of the entrepreneurial mindset: identify a need in the market, then decide that you’ll be the one to address it.  

Beal is the epitome of a doer. When she realized she’d need to offset the seasonal ebb of asphalt work, she decided to train to install epoxy flooring. She’s traveled to Georgia for training and to Pennsylvania to learn the often-finicky craft of asphalt repair.  

There’s been plenty of other work as well: investing in equipment, registering her LLC, and obtaining her business license. Beal, who has an associate’s degree in construction management, has also taken numerous classes on the business side of her trade.  

That’s all happened alongside her full-time work as a CDL driver.  

Launching a business by yourself can be exhausting — and lonely. For Beal, the hardest part wasn’t the training or even the investment. It was knowing where to turn next.  

A partnership grounded in community connections 

Beal got connected with DePaul through the college’s ongoing partnership with the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). Beal is part of the agency’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program, which aims to create an equal playing field as business owners from socially or economically disadvantaged backgrounds compete for valuable government contracts.  

For the MBA students in Hernandez’s class, working with Beal was an opportunity to get an up-close look at what goes into launching a business.  

“It wasn’t just about developing marketing strategies for this local business,” said MBA student Amanda Mirczuk. “It was about putting ourselves in Julia’s shoes. What goes on behind the scenes? You’re working day in and day out to help serve your community. Do you have time to put together flyers or network with other business owners?”  

“My dad’s a small business owner, and it consumes your life,” added MBA student Katelynn Oxley.  “Nobody realizes how much time it takes, because you’re manning all these different arms of the business: the marketing, the financials, the hiring. And it takes a lot of time to do these things.”  

Students often brought their professional backgrounds to bear. One student offered Beal some pointers from his MBA specialization, finance. Another leveraged his expertise with government procurement to help Beal hone her bids.

De Santiago, for his part, relied on his journalistic instincts to help Beal pitch herself not just as a business, but as a person.  

“I immediately knew that Julia had a powerful story. This is a woman who owns a business in a male-dominated field,” he said. “She’s a grandmother who’s trying to make it. She has two jobs to try to continue her dream of owning a small business, and she wants to pass that on to her kids.”  

Together, de Santiago and Beal worked closely to make that story the centerpiece of Beal’s publicity push.  

“I now know I need to prepare myself for people getting to know JCB construction services,” Beal said, “and for getting to know Julia.” 

For entrepreneurs, stories inspire action

For Beal, the collaboration didn’t just result in a website or some print-ready business cards. It’s given her a place to go next.  

“The team implemented a whole lot of things that I just didn’t pick up when I was attending different programs,” she said. “And they gave me more certifications I can apply to — even different types of financial institutions where I can apply for loans.”  

For the students involved, the project was a lesson in what happens when a group truly comes together.  

“As a group, everyone came together,” Oxley said. “Everybody came with all our pieces — and we had such different pieces. The hardest part was putting it all together in a digestible way.”  

The work is not over. Oxley, de Santiago, and the rest of the team who worked with Beal on her publicity plan are still working hard to help her story reach new audiences.  

Perhaps more than anything, it’s Beal’s story that sticks with the MBA students. The project wasn’t just a lesson in the hard work involved in launching a business. It was a lesson in the way entrepreneurs’ stories can move others, helping power their business’ growth.  

“We’re not just taking another class because we need to graduate; we’re making a real difference in peoples’ lives,” said de Santiago. “I think we all poured our hearts into this project because we wanted to make a difference for Julia. And hopefully, we did.”