Tag Archives: business networking

Starting 2015 off Right

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I hope 2014 was a great year for you and that 2015 is all that you hope it will be.  There are a few things to put on your To Do list before 2015 starts rolling too fast.

Meet with your Accountant.  Have a meeting to review 2014.   Review the due dates of time sensitive forms that need to be filed.  Make sure you understand the financials and can explain them to a banker.  If fact, it’s not a bad idea to have a face to face meeting with your banking professional – whether you have a loan out or not – and let them know how 2014 went for you.  You never know when you may be back asking for a line of credit or financing for your growth. Continue reading →

Why Build a Tinker Space?

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 Grassroots Manufacturing Renaissance Spurs Entrepreneurship

Why is Roane State Community College building a Tinker Space inside the Cumberland Business Incubator?  This article from The Kauffman Foundation by Jonathan Ortmans provides a few answers.  Hint:  A Tinker Space, like the one being developed inside the CBI, is a smaller version of a Makerspace. Continue reading →

4 Focus Areas to Increase Your Business Value

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When you think about the big picture of your business (thinking strategically rather than tactically) are you focusing on growth (most business owners do) when you should be focusing on increasing value instead?

We spend a lot of time talking about Business Growth – and for good reason. Growth is the most obvious, visible sign that your business is doing well. Given a choice, almost everyone would choose to grow versus choosing to get smaller. Business owners and clients bring up the topic of growth a lot – usually in the context of money. I need to make more money so I need to grow (i.e. grow revenue). Unfortunately more revenue doesn’t always mean more money to the business owner. Continue reading →

It’s Global Entrepreneurship Week

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Welcome! This week all around the globe people are celebrating innovators and job creators who launch startups that bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and expand human welfare. Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) launched in 2008 and has since grown to 150 countries with over 24,000 partner organizations planning over 34,000 activities that directly engage millions of participants during the week. Continue reading →

7 Tips on Better Brainstorming

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Idea generation is an art form. It’s about setting a safe, creative space for people to feel like they can say anything, be wild, not be judged – so that new ideas can be born.

To help you generate ideas, some tips used in traditional group brainstorming follow, setting the boundaries of that creative space.

  1. Defer judgment

Creative spaces don’t judge. They let the ideas flow, so that people can build on each other and foster great ideas. You never know where a good idea is going to come from, the key is to make everyone feel like they can say the idea on their mind and allow others to build on it.  Pose non-judgmental questions and provocations so that the ideas can get better. Continue reading →

5 Behaviors That Make You a Co-Working Space Pro

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The CBI recently developed Co-Working spaces. I found an article by Cassidy North-Reist that helps define some of the behaviors that will help you succeed in a Co-Working space.

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The nature of the American workforce is rapidly changing, with more of us telecommuting or starting businesses out of our homes than ever before. It’s no surprise then that there’s been a recent surge in people taking up residency in Co-Working spaces. Continue reading →

Guerrilla Marketing – 5 Unorthodox Ways to Market Your Brand

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Before a million pails of cold water brought amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) global attention, many people had never heard of the disease. After a summer of ice bucket challenges, the devastating motor neuron disorder has an astonishing level of awareness. Although the campaign didn’t originate as a deliberate marketing strategy, it’s a great case of the power of guerrilla marketing in the social-media age.

Inexpensive, small scale and non-traditional marketing tactics can be extremely effective ways to promoting your brand if the idea catches the public imagination and goes viral. Guerrilla marketing covers a huge variety of activities. Continue reading →

Guerrilla Marketing – 5 Basics

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No matter where we live we’ve all been in a traffic jam or at a light that just won’t change in our favor and glanced at the advertising billboards around us.

This “wait marketing” that capitalizes on immobility, or forced attention, maximizes potential exposure for businesses. However, unless the motorist has some special connection to the advertiser, the odds are that he or she will forget about the ad as soon as the traffic starts moving again. Continue reading →

What’s Your Fair Share?

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This October’s issue of INC. magazine has an interesting article about splitting founder’s equity.

15 years ago Atlanta-based Ockham Technologies had three founders. One founder had part of the original idea and was putting in sweat equity and cash. A second founder was putting in sweat equity and cash but wasn’t part of the original idea. A third founder was part of the idea and put in cash but no sweat equity. What type of split of the equity would have been “fair?” Continue reading →

5 Quotes That Can Profoundly Change Your Business

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As a business owner, it’s way too easy to get bogged down in the day to day challenges. Sure it’s important to put out fires but it’s equally (or more) important to think about the big picture and where you’re taking things.

One way to get inspired and to challenge your thinking – or at least get a different perspective, is to find a quote that resonates with you. Often someone else can put into words those ideas that are bouncing around in your head.

These 5 quotes that get to the heart of business success: Continue reading →