Here are some organizations that provide information that may be helpful for you as an entrepreneur. Use at your own discretion. Best wishes to you and your success.
Business.Gov
This website is the official business link to the U.S. government. Business.gov gives guidance through a maze of government rules and regulations providing access to services and resources helping businesses develop, grow and succeed.Visit Business.gov.
Count Me In
Count Me In is the leading not-for-profit provider of micro loans and business resources for women entrepreneurs. Apply to the Make Mine a Million $ Business awards program to get the assistance to grow your micro business to a $million enterprise. For more information visit MakeMineAMillion.org or CountMeIn.org.
Enventys
Enventys provides vertically integrated solutions to product development. For more information visit Enventys.com.
Everyday Edisons
Everyday Edisons a PBS television show, introduces viewers to the process of invention and help them understand how to take their own ideas to the next level. For more information visit EverydayEdisons.com.
Inventors Digest
Inventors Digest provides education and inspiration to independent and professional innovators. For more information visit InvestorsDigest.com.
FastTrac®
FastTrac is a practical, hands-on business development program designed to help the entrepreneur hone the skills needed to create, manage, and grow a successful business. FastTrac participants don't just learn about business, they live it. They work on their own business ideas or ventures throughout the interactive program--moving their ventures to reality or new levels of growth. For more information visit FastTrac.org.
Kauffman eVenturing
to high growth. The site provides original, relevant, practical "just-in-time" information, articles, and tools. Written by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, and aggregates "the best of the best" content on the web related to starting and running high-impact companies. For more information visit Eventuring.org.
Manufacturing Extension Partnership
MEP is a nationwide network of not-for-profit centers in over 400 locations nationwide, whose sole purpose is to provide small and medium sized manufacturers with the services they need to succeed. Centers are funded by federal, state, local and private resources to serve manufacturers. That makes it possible for even the smallest firms to tap into the expertise of knowledgeable manufacturing and business specialists all over the United States. These specialists are people who have had experience on manufacturing floors and in plant operations. For more information visit www.mep.nist.gov.
SCORE ®
The SCORE Association (Service Corps of Retired Executives) is a resource partner of the Small Business Administration (SBA) dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of small businesses nationwide. There are more than 10,500 SCORE volunteers in 389 chapter locations who assist small businesses with business counseling and training. SCORE also operate an active online counseling initiative. Score.org.
Small Business TV
Small Business TV is a video news and information destination site for America's small business community. Their commitment is to provide small business owners with the resources and tools to manage, grow and protect their ventures. For more information visit SBTV.com.
StartupNation ®
A website and nationally syndicated radio program directed to the nuts and bolts of entrepreneurship. Visit StartupNation.com.
United Inventors Association (UIA)
United Inventors Association is resource for inventors/entrepreneurs seeking help in bringing inventions from garage to market. An educational non-profit delivering expert advice, product evaluations, patent searches, news and opportunities. For more information visit uiausa.com.
United States Small Business Administration
The SBA provides small business counseling and training through a variety of programs and resource partners located strategically throughout the U.S.
sba.gov.
Women’s Leadership Exchange ®
The WLE mission is to provide the knowledge, the tools and the connections women need to be successful in their own businesses, the corporate world and the not-for-profit environment. For more information, go to WomensLeadershipExchange.com.
In addition to the sites noted, use your local “Yellow Book” as an additional resource. Under the “Contents” page you will see a reference for U.S. Government listings. Use this information for contact telephone numbers for the Small Business Administration. This toll-free information is available for use in English and Spanish.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Online Tools for Advertising and Sales
I spend a lot of time online managing advertising for PhonePeople.com offering affordable 800 numbers to businesses. Every weekday I am online trying to figure out how to best reach my target audience of growing small to medium businesses.
TODAY'S TOP SEARCH TRENDS
In order to see what's catching people's eyes, I turn to Google Trends Lab. You can see what people are searching for most on Google. It's updated constantly. Take a look for yourself.
ONLINE ADVERTISING
The majority of my advertising world revolves around Google AdWords. They have online text ads and banner ads and you track direct conversions and cost per order. Google also make it easy to advertise in print, TV and Radio. The best part is that all of your marketing is in one place, which makes it easy to track your advertising spend. If you set up tracking codes or custom phone numbers, you can track advertising success.
I also use Visit Yahoo Search Marketing for advertising but get less traffic and have to monitor conversions more closely for accuracy. Yahoo is also a good tool but a little slower to get significant results, at least in the testing I have done for the last few months.
ONLINE SEO
SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via organic search results for targeted keywords. In other words, it places you higher in the search results without you being a paid sponsor. It's definitely a good goal to get higher organically for keywords related to your content and what you are trying to sell or promote. You can do this by providing relevant content, adding metatags to your site, linking to blogs, promoting your site, sending out press releases and/or hiring an SEO firm if you need help. If you can get high in the organic search, then you can reduce your online advertising spending and make more money with lower expenses.
These are some of the tools I use and hopefully at least one thing can help you.
Best of luck,
Angela DiCarlo
p.s. For you Wikipediacs, there is an upcoming conference in Egypt July 17-19, 2008 for people who contribute to Wikipedia. I use Wikipedia at least twice a day to find information on whatever I am researching.
TODAY'S TOP SEARCH TRENDS
In order to see what's catching people's eyes, I turn to Google Trends Lab. You can see what people are searching for most on Google. It's updated constantly. Take a look for yourself.
ONLINE ADVERTISING
The majority of my advertising world revolves around Google AdWords. They have online text ads and banner ads and you track direct conversions and cost per order. Google also make it easy to advertise in print, TV and Radio. The best part is that all of your marketing is in one place, which makes it easy to track your advertising spend. If you set up tracking codes or custom phone numbers, you can track advertising success. I also use Visit Yahoo Search Marketing for advertising but get less traffic and have to monitor conversions more closely for accuracy. Yahoo is also a good tool but a little slower to get significant results, at least in the testing I have done for the last few months.
ONLINE SEO
SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via organic search results for targeted keywords. In other words, it places you higher in the search results without you being a paid sponsor. It's definitely a good goal to get higher organically for keywords related to your content and what you are trying to sell or promote. You can do this by providing relevant content, adding metatags to your site, linking to blogs, promoting your site, sending out press releases and/or hiring an SEO firm if you need help. If you can get high in the organic search, then you can reduce your online advertising spending and make more money with lower expenses.
These are some of the tools I use and hopefully at least one thing can help you.
Best of luck,
Angela DiCarlo
p.s. For you Wikipediacs, there is an upcoming conference in Egypt July 17-19, 2008 for people who contribute to Wikipedia. I use Wikipedia at least twice a day to find information on whatever I am researching.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Pecha Kucha - A New Form of Presentations
Here is a novel idea I came across this morning - Pecha Kucha presentations. If you haven't heard about it yet, then check it out. It may make your world of presentations and networking meetings better than ever.
The idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have many presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one night. Therefore the 20x20 Pecha Kucha format was created: each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up. Each Pecha Kucha event usually has 14 presenters. Presenters (and much of the audience) are usually from the design, architecture, photography, art and creative fields, but recently it has also stretched over to the business world. (Wikipedia)
So instead of dreading the writing of a long presentation, you could make and hear multiple presentations that are less than 7 minutes long each. What a great way to make more time for real interaction after peaking the audience interest.
There are a lot of great videos on YouTube that demonstrate Pecha Kucha. Video About Pecha Kucha.
Have a great week!
Angela DiCarlo
The idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have many presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one night. Therefore the 20x20 Pecha Kucha format was created: each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up. Each Pecha Kucha event usually has 14 presenters. Presenters (and much of the audience) are usually from the design, architecture, photography, art and creative fields, but recently it has also stretched over to the business world. (Wikipedia)
So instead of dreading the writing of a long presentation, you could make and hear multiple presentations that are less than 7 minutes long each. What a great way to make more time for real interaction after peaking the audience interest.
There are a lot of great videos on YouTube that demonstrate Pecha Kucha. Video About Pecha Kucha.
Have a great week!
Angela DiCarlo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
