Below is a
selection of some of our workshops and their descriptions. To view a schedule and to register go to www.smcsbdc.org/calendar/
Branding and Creating a Buzz
Review of Marketing Tactics that Build Brand Recognition
Develop Sales Strategies
Evolve your business with new creative approaches
Segmenting demographic information
Consistent Messaging that Resonates with Customers
Keys to the SBA Loan Process
- What Banks Typically Look At When Underwriting a Business Loan
- Preparing Your Loan Package
- Five C's of Credit
- Guidelines
- Your Credit Request
Legal: Contracts — The Devils in the Details
This workshop will give you a detailed understanding of the agreements you use every day to buy, sell, and barter.
- What is a contract?
- How are they created?
- Oral versus written?
- How are they enforced?
- What do I get if someone breaks their promise?
Legal: Inc., LLC, DBA...Which is Best?
This workshop will give you a basic understanding of the benefits and risks of becoming a Corporation, LLP or LLC, Solce Proprietorship, or Partnership.
- What Am I Now? The Joys of being a Sole Proprietorship or General Partnership;
- Corporations: What are "S" and "C" corporations? Why consider incorporating in Nevada, Delaware, or another state?
- Limited Liability Companies: The Good, The Bad and The OK;
- What if I don't want to incorporate? Insurance options;
- Tax issues and lawsuit protection options.
Legal: Five Things Every Business Should Know
The workshop will cover the test to determine if a worker is an employee or independent contractor, and issues regarding worker sick time, vacation time, firing and involvement with confidential information in the workplace.
Primary Topics (include, but are not limited to):
- Employee vs. Independent Contractor;
- 14-point test to tell the difference;
- Examples of what happens when a company guesses wrong;
- Sick and vacation time;
- Issues on firing workers;
- Workplace secrets.
Legal: Five Crucial Business Legal Issues
- The essence of contracts
- Employee v. Independent contractor- how do I tell if a worker is one v. the other and what are the rules for each?
- How do I collect money that's owed to me?
- How do I protect myself from bill collectors?
- The truth about credit repair.
Legal: Trademark, Copyright, and Patent
The workshop will cover how business people can protect their logos, pictures, stories, inventions, and other intellectual property.
- Copyright basics;
- Trademark basics;
- Patent basics;
- Trade secret basics.
Marketing Strategies for Increasing Your Sales - Sales strategy review.
- Getting past the gatekeeper.
- Building a tactical plan for customers.
- Importance of Customer Service.
- Creative follow-up.
Marketing Strategies for Going Green
- Learn to speak the language of "Green" and "Sustainability"
- Understand the Green Economy and the benefits of a Green Business Certificate
- Learn how to integrate Sustainability into your Business Strategy and Marketing
- Review of Marketing Tactics that Build Brand Recognition
- Learn the difference between Green Branding and Green Washing to drive sales results.
Mastering QuickBooks I: The Basics
This workshop will take you through the basic set-up functions when utilizing QuickBooks. You will further learn invoicing, receiving payments, making deposits, cash memos, cash sales, and estimates.
- Company set-up
- Invoicing
- Receiving payments
- Making deposits
- Credit Memos and Cash Sales
Mastering QuickBooks II: Beyond the Basics
This workshop is for anyone who wants to optimize their use of QuickBooks. You will learn the following transactions: Purchase Orders, Inventory, Entering and Paying Bills, Writing Checks, Sales Tax, Reports, Memorizing Transactions, and Bank Account Reconciliations.
- Accounting techniques using Quickbooks.
- Purchase Orders
- Inventory
- Reports
- Bank Account Reconciliations
Negotiating and Closing the Deal - Establishing good communications
- Gaining product recognition
- Customizing your sales approach
- Strategies for getting past the "gatekeeper"
- Getting to the clos
QuickBooks Point of Sale (POS) for Retailers
QuickBooks Point of Sale software gives you the inventory and sales tools to help run your store more profitably along with customer management features to keep customers coming back. Point of Sale quickly rings up sales, like a cash register, but also tracks complete inventory, sales and customer information to give you better control over your business. With every sale, your inventory is automatically adjusted so you always know where you stand-what's in stock, what needs reordering. At the end of the day you can quickly and easily transfer sales data into QuickBooks Accounting software, saving time and helping to reduce manual bookkeeping errors. QuickBooks POS can:
- Manage inventory in real time to know what's selling, what's not and what to restock
- Capture customer data to generate mailings, special offers and loyalty programs
- Improve profits with instant reports on sales, customers, and inventory trends
- Keep growing your business by adding lanes, stores and even a web store
Social Networking: Making It Work for You
Focuses small business owners on understanding the current marketplace and the necessary strategies to implement in order to differentiate their product/service from the competition. The workshop concentrates on creating verbiage that defines your specific brand presence and targets potential clients leading to an improvement of customer satisfaction resulting in an increase of sales.
- Learn how to create content for your marketing purposes utilizing social media
- Capture your customers' attention and interest
- Formulate a plan to communicate to your client base
- Capitalize on increasing brand recognition and propensity to buy
- Review of Twitter, Facebook, and You Tube
Start-up Basics: Staying on Track
This two and a half-hour workshop is designed to assist you in defining your mission and vision statements for your business. We will also look at creating strategies to fulfill your company's mission, and begin to develop an initial budget for your venture. The work begun in this workshop is critical in keeping your business focused on its core mission. You will be able to use the document you create as a roadmap to assist you in your business decisions.
- Mission Statement
- Vision Statement
- Position Statement
Start-up Basics: Staying on Track
This workshop is a continuation of Start-up Basics I: Staying on Track.
Start-up Basics: Strategic Planning takes what you did in the first workshop and begins the work of defining strategies to achieve your defined mission and vision for your business and placing them into an action plan.
It is important that you bring in the worksheets for Mission, Vision, and Position statements that you developed in Strategic Planning or Start-up Basics: Staying on Track. These will be developed further in this workshop. Limited to six attendees, who have complete the previous workshops as mentioned above.
How to Write a Business Plan
***REQUIRED FOR SBA FINANCING***
Writing a Business Plan concentrates on the theory behind planning for success. A discussion of each major element of the business plan and why it is relevant, including the strategies for completing the major sections of the business plan including sources of data.
Web Planning: Pitfalls Avoided!
This workshop is an information-packed workshop that goes over the web design process and the technical issues to be aware of in planning a website. This workshop is limited to six participants.
- Find out key issues, technical considerations, and decisions needed, before starting.
- Decide what kind of website would best fit your needs.
- Understand the process of having a website built and published to the web.
- Know the pitfalls to be aware of before contracting a web designer.
Winning Government Contracts Made Easy
Expand your business by contracting with the government. Learn about federal and state government contracts, how to become certified to contract with government agencies and how to find contracting opportunities. Get an overview of the 8(a) Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Program