Bettering Your Business – “Greening” Your Bottom Line

March 18, 2010
1:00 pm	to	4:00 pm

"Greening" Your Bottom Line:  March 18, 2010.  1-4 p.m.  YVCC Grandview Campus.  How does ‘going green’ affect you and your organization?  What are some things you can do to increase efficiency, reduce costs and expand profits by using green technology?  Learn about new opportunities in the green economy and some useful green practices for your organization. 

YVCC Grandview Campus is also offering workshops in Word, Excel and Quickbooks continuing January through May.   Get the Brochure with full schedule and details!

Social Media – Fad or Foe?

Are you fighting the invitations to join all the social media networks?  Or are you waiting for them to pass?  According to Guy Kawaski, Founder of Alltop, Inc. and entrepreneur-in residence of GarageTech.com, "Most entrepreneurs still don’t know how to use Twitter. They still think it’s a social network to update their friends on the current state of their pets or the lines at Starbucks. For entrepreneurs, Twitter is the ultimate marketing platform, and they need to embrace tools like Tweetdeck, CoTweet and Objective Marketer".

Social networking and social media are here to stay.  If Facebook has 300+ million users and LinkedIn has over 50 million, just think of who you could reach.  I’ve been reading a lot about how to maximize the social media experience; the most common takeaways I’ve found are to:

1. Strategically choose your social media venues to get the most out of it.  Rather than sign up for everything at once, pick a few to get started.  For example, Facebook, LinkedIn and another one that is industry-specific. 
2. Know your market and who you’re trying to reach.  Who is your customer and what is the best way to reach them?
3. Take it in small steps!  It is easy to get overwhelmed and overloaded if you’re new to social networking.  It’s also easy to get caught up and spend way too much time on these sites.  Learn about applications that you can post to one spot and it will update your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
4. Respect other users and practice good web-etiquette. Constant postings may backfire on you – I know I’ve hidden some Facebook ‘friends’ (businesses included) who posted constantly, and really don’t appreciate getting daily emails (or in some cases, more than once a day) from the same person or group reminding me of upcoming events.     
5. Take advantage of as much FREE social networking as you can.  I’ve always said, "If it’s free, it’s me", why pay if you don’t have to?

Not sure how to start?  Here’s a great link to "How to use Facebook for Businesses" by Hubspot.  It even has a downloadable manual and instructional videos on social media.  What is your most valuable social networking tool?  What is the best thing you’ve learned about social media?

 

Washington’s Innovation Summit 2010

April 9, 2010

Washington Technology Center hosts Washington’s Innovation Summit 2010 – showcasing businesses and thought leaders driving industry development in aerospace, defense and energy. April 9, 2010, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center; 206.685.1920; Cost $150-230. Luncheon only, $50; watechcenter.org/summit.

 

 

Red into Black

It seems anymore that Thanksgiving is now secondary to Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year.  The days of stores opening at 5 a.m. have started even earlier – 3 a.m., Midnight, Thanksgiving Day – in efforts to attract shoppers.  Do you know why it’s called Black Friday?  If you think the reason is because shoppers get up in the wee hours and it’s still dark out, think again. 

I struggled with accounting classes in college – I never really understand the whole debit and credit stuff, but I did learn the difference between being in the red and the black, which in the accounting world, black is good and red means you are in the hole.  If you have a business and don’t know where the point on your balance sheet that you go from ‘red’ to ‘black’, you might want to brush up on your financial statements. 

If  Black Friday is historically the day that companies go from being in the hole to turning a profit, does that mean they operate almost ten months in a deficit?  I remember talking with an entrepreneur this summer and asked how business was.  He stated that he was finally in the month where he earned a salary, so things were looking good!  He also knew precisely where he was at dollar-wise to be at his break even point.  One trait of effective managers/owners/CEO’s is that they know every aspect of where their company is fiscally – revenues, expenses, salaries, projections, etc. 

Keep this in mind if you have a business or are looking to start one – you can’t just rely on your accountant or bookkeeper – you need to keep a close eye on your budget for the economic health of your company.  There are free resources for you if you need help or aren’t sure where to start.  Give me a call, contact your local SCORE chapter for a free counseling session, or set up a time to meet with the Small Business Development Center. 

Bettering Your Business – Quickbooks

April 15, 2010
1:00 pm	to	7:00 pm

Quickbooks:  April 15, 2010.  1-4 p.m. Advanced Quickbooks May 12, 2010.  YVCC Grandview Campus is offering workshops in Word, Excel and Quickbooks continuing January through May.   Get the Brochure with full schedule and details!