Congratulations to the Roane State Community College Cumberland Business Incubator Crash Course MBA Accelerator participants that will be working on their business skills and business growth over the next few months. Mark your calendars for Pitch Night – May 3rd when all are welcome to hear the business presentations and the outcome of the accelerator process. The Accelerator participants include: Continue reading
Change your life… by the books you read. The list below is from Stephen Heiner, “an American in Paris” who sold his business in Kansas City to move to Paris and start several more. I have read many of the books that Stephen lists, and although I may not have considered it before, I do believe that many of them have had an influence on my life. I thought you might enjoy reading what Stephen and I have read. From Stephen: What follows is a brief list for those interested in the life of travel and entrepreneurship you can create for yourself through deliberate and personal lifestyle design. Continue reading
The Cumberland Business Incubator reached a major milestone in December of 2015. Every single area was utilized within the 10,000 square foot incubator.
A quick introduction to our newest tenants and a review of those that have been with us a while seems appropriate. Continue reading
Michael Sippey is currently the VP of Product for Twitter and shared the following tips in an article I read recently. According to Sippey there is one important rule and three steps for gathering powerful customer feedback that can make all the difference for your product roadmap. Continue reading
One of the ‘secrets’ to a successful small business is having employees who are engaged, aligned with what you’re doing and enjoy working with you and your team. We’ve all experienced interactions with businesses where the employees are clearly just showing up for the paycheck and don’t care at all about what they’re doing. That’s a business on life support. It’s equally easy to see when employees genuinely like and believe in what they’re doing…and that makes all the difference to a customer and ultimately the business. Continue reading
The season where we all start to look at our numbers will quickly be upon us. The end of the year. The context that those numbers are in matters, so take a deeper look this year until you understand what your numbers are really telling you.
Let’s say you brought in $200,000 of revenue this month. Is that good or bad? It depends. If you brought in $100,000 last month, it’s good. If your expenses were $400,000 this month, it’s bad. Everything in context. Continue reading
It’s Global Entrepreneurship Week around the world. In Cumberland County in cooperation with Junior Achievement of East Tennessee, the local Youth Achievement Foundation and the Cumberland Business Incubator (CBI) of Roane State Community College, a lot is happening. Continue reading
I read an article by Ryan Robinson and thought you would like to know what he has learned through his interviews and studies of the most successful entrepreneurs. What makes them successful? Why do they succeed when so many do not? Continue reading
The seven stages of building a total online presence according to Duct Tape Marketing are:
1.Content Platform – Much of what happens online revolves around content. It’s how you get found, why people pay attention and how you start to exchange value. Content platform starts with building a listening station with tools like Google Alerts, TweetDeck, Trackur, Social Mention, Sprout Social and Raian6. You’ll be listening to gain insight into your market, your competitors and important groups, including key journalists, working toward a better understanding of the most important keyword phrases that resonate with customers in your market. Continue reading
It seems that I have walked the floors at trade shows or vendor display areas at conferences a lot during 2015. If you have plans to participate in booth (or table and chair) marketing events in 2016, I hope these tips make your time spent there more rewarding. Continue reading