Are You Reaching Your Customers Online?

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Baby Boomers and seniors are spending more time online than they are watching television according to a report by Ipsos and Google.

Average seniors and Boomers (those age 45 and older) spend 19 hours a week online compared to only 16 hours of television watching.  Their online time far outpaces time spent listening to the radio or reading newspapers and magazines. Continue reading

Labville

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Labville is a makerspace devoted to the practice of leveraging technology and techniques to build things both real and virtual with a sense of community, collaboration, inventiveness, humor and wonder.

Join the community here and mark your calendar for the 2nd Wednesday of every month from 5:30-7:00PM for a Labville Makerspace project or a guest presenter hosted at the CBI!

What’s Your Tagline?

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I facilitated an Elevator Speech workshop for our clients last week.  People did great work in the session and left with a new elevator pitch or polished up their old one.  What’s next?  Developing a good Tagline.  What is it?  A single phrase or sentence that describes your primary benefit.  Notice I didn’t say your primary product or offering – but your primary benefit. Continue reading

Just What is it We Do?

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It’s fair to say that at the Cumberland Business Incubator we do “something different every day.”  As examples, a few things that have occurred recently: Continue reading

5 Reasons You Should Hire Someone to do the Accounting

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Lots of small business owners start out thinking they will do everything they possibly can in their business to keep costs low, including doing their own accounting.  Some have learned the hard way that small errors can add up to a big mess. Continue reading

Running Your Business One Week At a Time

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No, I’m not suggesting you ignore a quarterly marketing plan, annual financials or your annual business plan, but realize that it’s important to run your business one week at a time as well.  Here are a few keys to success that need to be done weekly: Continue reading

It’s a New Day for Hardware Development with 3D Printing

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Hardware development has had issues in the past.  The costs were high for tooling, revisions, testing, labor and materials.  It wasn’t always easy to find someone to produce a small number of pilot parts, and once you found someone, they might not have been able to produce production quantities to quality specifications, so there was a new search for production manufacturing facilities. Continue reading

Your Exit Strategy – Are You Working On One?

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I’ve had a number of conversations with clients recently about exit strategies.  Knowing what you want out of your business every day is always good, and knowing what you want out of it at the very end is something to spend time and thought on. Continue reading

Mastermind Groups

Ready to Grow Your Business?head

Consider joining a Mastermind group – a group of people that you meet with on a regular basis to help you achieve your goals. Napoleon Hill discovered while doing research on the great leaders of his time that they attributed their success to having a Mastermind group to help them reach their goals. If you are ready to brainstorm ideas, share best practices, be held accountable to implement change, aren’t afraid to work ON your business, and aren’t afraid of growth…….consider joining a CBI Mastermind group.

A Mastermind group is not a leads group. It is not a training class. It is where you commit to working ON your business. If you have the following attributes you are welcome to apply; self-starter, learner, leader, positive outlook, and have a commitment to growing your business.

Learn more about Mastermind Groups.

Apply to a Mastermind Group.

 

What People Want/What People Need

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When you are in business, it’s helpful to have an understanding of what people want. Abraham Maslow developed the Hierarchy of Needs in 1943. In Maslow’s theory there are five general levels of need, each of which must be met before a person can focus on the next higher-order need. The five levels in Maslow’s theory are: Physiological (breathing, food, water, sleep); Safety (security of body, property); Love/Belonging (friendship, family); Esteem (confidence, self-esteem, respect of and from others); Self-actualization (morality, creativity, problem solving, lack of prejudice). In short, if you don’t have enough food, or you’re in physical danger, you’re not focused on whether or not other people like you or how much personal growth you’re experiencing. Continue reading