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Eight steps to start and grow a business |
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We all need help. Our challenge will always
be
to find good people to get to
know and trust;
people from whom we can learn.
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Background:
Business is about creating value. One of the key values is our relation
with other people. We have found the strongest small business owners are
members within at least three very different groups of organizations:
1. Join Your National Trade Association. It
is your continuing education platform. It is a place to participate in the
annual meeting. You can volunteer to host a seminar and share your best
insights from your work.
All of the people in these episodes of our
show have been very active in their national and regional trade associations.
Our most successful small business owners have been active members in several,
each reflecting a facet of their business. |
| For more about
our work with national trade associations |
2. Join
Your Local Civic and Educational Organizations. Nurture your community
and nurture your country. We recommend the local, state and national
Chambers of Commerce. We need good government
and good laws to perserve the open business climates that we enjoy and to
continue to make all levels of government business friendly. We also recommend
the NFIB, National
Federation of Independent Business.
That is a
baseline.
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| For more about our
work with the Chambers of Commerce & NIFIB |
Join Your local public television
station. In 2000, who would have thought that 60% of the world would
now have high-speed access to the Internet? By 2010 most of us here will have
high-definition to the desktop. It'll be a huge competitive wedge within the
media market. Remember that public television was instructed by the FCC to
adopt broadcast high-definition television at a cost of billions of
dollars or they would lose their license to broadcast. There is a place for all
that bandwidth and technology, however, the model is still not yet clear.
Our vision for public
television is a new dynamic of local-national productions that have constant
feedback loops built into all the programming so communities of interest become
communities of participation. |
| For more about our work
with public television |
If
you are growing rapidly, work with your
Economic Development
Commission.
If you are a
startup, work with your
SBDC, and/or your local university (continuing education
courses). Each can introduce new perspectives quickly. |
3. Join ethics-based organizations including
religious groups. We all need help to focus on universal values which
provide a deepness, centering, balancing, perspective and, yes, even wisdom to
what we do and how we know what we know. we all need these insights in these
times.
Cross-industry groups, such as your Better Business Bureau and
the service organizations like the Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis and KofC are good for
inspiration, networking, and supporting your community.
Here are a few
things you could do that will just take a little time. The growing community of
Small Business School will be ever so grateful:
 Let us know you were here: Without any
charges or hooks of any kind, you can be listed under your
state's pages. Then, if you think you would
like to get on track to have a local episode of the show about your business,
you can begin answering questions and create content on this site -- an
overview, case study, and transcript about your business. Essentially it is
your script for that episode which will become the video!
No one who
has ever been on this show has paid to be on it or pays for these pages on this
site. SmallBusinessSchool is all about rewarding the good and turning our back
to the bad.
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