Back to school – new classes this fall!

YVEN is happy to announce the next round of the Working Lunch Series AND two government contracting 101 workshops.  The Working Lunch Series starts Wednesday, September 9th and will be every other week for four sessions.  Classes are:  Thinking about starting a business?;  Business Plan Basics; Financing your business; and Marketing your business.  These are perfect if you are kicking the idea around of starting a business.  The workshops will be taught by SCORE counselors and professionals with real-world business experience.  Classes are held in Yakima from 11:30 – 1:00 p.m.  Cost is $10.00 if pre-registered or $15.00 at the door and include lunch and materials.

Do you think you have what it takes to sell to the government?  Attend a ‘Government Contracting 101′ class to learn more about government contracting.  These classes are offered in partnership with YCDA ( a Southcentral Washington Procurement Technical Assistance Center) and the Rural Community Development Resources.  They will be offered in English, but taught by a Spanish-speaking instructor so translation is available. 

• The first class will be held Wednesday, September 23rd from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. in Yakima.  Cost is $10.00 and includes materials. 
• The second workshop will be held Friday, September 25th from 11:30 – 1:00 at Snipes Restaurant in Sunnyside.  Cost is $15.00 and includes lunch and materials.

To register for one or all of the classes, please call Tammy Everts at 509.575.1140 or email tammy@ycda.com

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Just a second…

We’ve all heard that you only get one chance to make a good first impression.  What if you only have ONE second to make that impression?  One second, really?  I just sat in on a website development webinar and the instructor said it can take a visitor as little as one second to determine if a visitor will stay on your site.  Yikes!  I also just finished an article on presenting and communicating and it noted that first impressions are created in seven seconds.  One or seven, either way, that is not much time to make a good impression.  Right or not, I’ve found that if I click on a website and don’t like the way it’s laid out, I will look at another one.  Same goes with a handshake.  Have you ever met someone with a really wimpy handshake or that couldn’t articulate their point and made a decision on what kind of business person he or she would be just based that?  Guilty as charged. 

Whether it is developing your website, your business cards, how you walk into a room or how you introduce yourself and talk about your business, it goes to show that it is more important now than ever that you practice what message you want to send and the type of impression you want to make.  In all our business development classes we stress how important networking is, but maybe we need to place more emphasis on making a good first impression in other areas like websites and printed materials.  Honestly two big turn-offs for me to do business with someone or evaluate their professionalism are spelling errors and a non-professional email address.  You may think that a funny email address shows your sense of humor, but personally I’m not amused by ‘lusciousbooty’ or ‘bigstud’ @email.com.  Disclaimer:  these emails have been changed to protect the guilty!

Now, here’s another example of how spoiled we’ve become with instant information and having seconds to make a first impression.  I wanted to provide a link to the article in the magazine I received on communication behaviors and when I visited the company website, was extremely disappointed that they did not have the issue that has gone out in the mail available on their site.  I was on the website all of about five seconds where if they had the current issue, I probably would have spent a good 15 minutes looking at different articles.

Have any good (or bad) first impression stories?  Please share if you do – we can all learn from others’ successes and areas of improvement.

 

Making the first buck

So you’ve started your business!  It’s official, you’ve got a business name, business license, a website, maybe even a real office.  Now what?  The floodgates don’t magically open with lines of new clients.  How do you get those first customers?  Is there any wonder why businesses frame that first dollar?  You can’t have a ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy without doing some legwork to let people know about your new company.

Here’s a great article from USA Today (brought to me via Smart Brief on Entrepreneurs) by Rhonda Abrams that gives 5 for entrepreneurs to get your first customers, ‘Getting your first customer takes work’.

There are free local resources to help with marketing your business.  You can meet with a SCORE counselor to review your marketing plan, get detailed market research from the local Small Business Development Center or visit our marketing page, just to name a few.