The transcript, case study guide and video for People Power, Building Teams, with as seen on Small Business School the series on PBS-member stations and the Voice of America around the world. The best little show on television about the American spirit.

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last update: April 2007

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right here by logging in and answering questions.

This web site is for lifelong learning for small business owners.

You can return to school without leaving your desk.

Back in 1994 for our very first episode of the show, we prepared a case study guide for the PBS Adult Learning Service special broadcast of the show to every college and university throughout the USA. By 1996 we were working with hundreds of business school professors around the country to use these case studies guides within their classrooms. Students were assigned cases to read online. Today there are well over 2000 questions and answers about starting, running and growing a business, and the number grows every day.

We have brought all these study guides on line within this community. Virtually every aspect of starting, running and growing your own business is addressed. Take one step at a time. You have choices. You can work through the FREE section of the site within our Eight Steps (above) – four to start and four to grow a business.

The weekly show and this website, SmallBusinessSchool.org, is the foundation of the Small Business Index of Learning Companies.

Complete a few classes at SmallBusinessSchool.org and you will find that with every answer you have given, you can selectively use parts of each to generate your own case study guide and transcript automatically. Then, you open the options to display those pages back under your state, your type of business, your business name, and your name.

Later you can opt to generate a business plan, use it to raise debt capital, or even generate a SCOR document to raise equity capital.

Helping business students has its own rewards but our goal has always been to help our fellow small business owners. Even in 1996 our goal was to set up an interactive mechanism online so each of our small business owners could answer the same questions and develop their own episode of the show.

Thanks.

For even more:

1. Go the Homepage or the overview

2. Go to our vision statement or Open letter

3. Go to an introduction to the dynamic pages

4. Learn a little more about the profiles

5. Learn more about the Indexes for Growing Companies

WATCH TELEVISION THAT TEACHES

Key Ideas of this episode

1.		Hire Attitude Not Skill
2.		Hire People Who Can Read People
3.		Hire People Others May Overlook
4.		Hire Nice People With Energy
5.		Offer A Career Track With Good Pay and Benefits
6.		Create An Intern Program
7.		Promote From Within
8.		Put What You Want In Writing
9.		Interview and Audition
10.		Teach, Preach, Coach, Counsel
11.		Provide real Training
12.		Train Everyone, Not Just Sales
13.		Listen To All Ideas
14.		Offer A Job For Life

ONLY EIGHT POSSIBLE STEPS IN BUSINESS

Step 8. Exit at the top	$$$$
Step 7. Sustainability	$$$$
Step 6. Growth	$$$
Step 5. Employer	$$
Four steps to run / grow your business.

Step 4. Sole proprietor	$$$
Step 3. Incubate	$$$
Step 2. Start-up	$$
Step 1. Initial idea	$
Four steps to start / run your business.

By lifting up successful people with warm hearts and big spirits, and studying their motivations, insights and inspirations, SmallBusinessSchool serves eight large constituencies, each on one of the steps along this path of life and business.

Steps 1 to 4 – you create work for yourself.

Steps 5 to 8 – you create work for others.

At each step we examine the ways people also create wealth (an abundance of value). Every story is a very personal story of one person's journey to become successful in his/her work. Each person has worked through (and is constantly reworking) the problems associated with the first four steps of growth. A few have worked through all eight steps. Their insights, advice, and example are powerful lessons for all of us to learn about the meaning of life and work. These people are not Hollywood models, but role models. These are people who give our culture ethical fabric and depth.

What Happens to a case study guide?

It all starts with a case study guide. By answering these questions, you'll begin to articulate evergreen truths about your business. You'll be challenged to see how your business is a good business. You'll be developing your first principles (i.e. something similar to those you hear with the opening of every episode of the show).

These kinds of case study guides are now used in schools all over the USA and around the world.

First, in 1997, Prentice Hall asked to insert these case study guides as chapter endings in their best-selling business textbooks. Millions of those books are used by business students around the world.

Since 2001, Thomson Learning adopted Small Business School and has included the case study guides and video clips for their best-selling business textbooks. Today, thousands of business schools and management classes, many high schools, and one elementary school (Holmes Beach, Florida) have used these case studies in their classroom.

Thanks.

The Small Business Index of Learning Companies
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