Marketing and Selling Workshop Helped with Starting New Business

Comments from  two attendees of a SCORE Chicago “Marketing and Selling Workshop”  Information about this workshop is at: http://bit.ly/MarketingSelling

Alan,

Last week’s marketing class at SCORE was a great primer for folks like
me looking to launch a new business!

The spirited end-of-class discussion with Lauren put all the pieces
together, helping a classmate put together an action plan to
understand the needs of her targeted high-end salon customers and
employees.

Thanks again!

Paul Stark
B2B Marketing Consultant

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I attended the SCORE “Marketing and Selling” workshop on Friday and enjoyed the presentation and met some very interesting people. I signed up for the entire core series and will be attending the Finance workshops next week. My goal is to complete the entire series of six this month and obtain my SCORE small business certification…….

My head is spinning for I have so much to do, yet I am an excellent planner and plan executor, so all will be well. I also have the assistance of you (sic SCORE Counselor) and SCORE.

Rosalyn Carlton

Tough Times – Is It Smart to Buy a Franchise Now?

This blog post was prepared by Gerald P. Moriarty.  He will teaching a workshop on November 9th at our downtown SCORE location.  ……………….

While some economists say there are some signs of the economy starting to improve, almost all agree that we may be heading for a jobless return to an improved economy.  I counsel many middle and senior managers from large corporations, and they are universal in their views that the job market is extremely tough. Sixteen and eighteen month searches are common.  Then they learn from colleagues that the tenure of jobs they have is hovering around the three year mark!

Two years ago, Fortune magazine published a very sobering article titled Permanent Vacation.  It described the growing practice of large corporations to thin out the ranks of their 50 year old plus executives and managers.  Then, say, a 52 year old executive faces a tough job market, and even if he is fortunate  enough to get a new position, there is a good chance he will be looking again at age 55 or 56.  The pickings are even slimmer, and if he is not lucky, then he is on “permanent vacation.”

Business ownership is one way to gain control of a business career.  Franchise business ownership may be a safer and more profitable way to gain that control, provide a nice revenue stream, and even build equity over time. Franchises are strictly regulated by both federal and state laws. The regulators require each franchisor to register critical information about the franchise with them, and then give that same information to the candidate in a book called the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD).   Included in the FDD is the number of openings, closings, and transfers of the franchise units, by state, and for the last three years.  Also included is the most recent contact information for any ex-franchisee who has left in the last year.  So, due diligence will reveal how “safe” the business is. If the candidate targets “recession resistant” franchises, he may spot a franchise that is both safe and profitable.  Some “recession resistant” franchises include hail salons, property restoration companies, health clubs, business coaching, business expense reduction companies, appliance repair, auto service, temporary help agencies, tutoring companies and many more.

To Register for the workshop: https://s08.123signup.com/servlet/SignUp?PG=1522055182300&Info=&P=1522055191158067000

Looking for a Loan? Be prepared to answer these 6 questions

Small business owners need to be organized when looking for a loan.  Irv Williamson,  a SCORE counselor, has put together a presentation for our Get Financing Workshop .   As part of that presentation, he  suggests that you be prepared to answer these 6 questions.

• What size loan do you require?
• How will you use the money?
• How will the loan benefit your business?
• When and how will you pay back the loan?
• How are you a good credit risk?
• What if the business fails or  you cannot repay the loan?

For more information on the workshop, please click on this link:

http://bit.ly/GetFinancing

Help with a Business Plan?

Our monthly workshop on business planning is Monday, August 17^th. Many thanks to Bob Paul for this content.  Bob will be presenting at the workshop.

————————————————————————————

THE BUSINESS PLAN – If you don’t care where you are going, it doesn’t matter which way you go! (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)

If you care where you are going, you need a plan.

THE BUSINESS PLAN – integrates –

• your vision of what you want to become and your long term strategy for achieving it,
• your marketing plan describing what you will sell, to whom, and at what price,
• your operational issues that are critical to your success, and
• your financial needs and goals

THE BUSINESS PLAN leads you directly into an Action Plan.

• Determine the Critical issues that are important to achieving your goals
• Set measurable goals for the Critical issues
• Create specific short-term action steps that will start you down the path to success!

Want to hear more?  Join the SCORE workshop on BUSINESS PLANNING. This workshop is a “hands-on” workshop. You are building your plan as you learn and discuss each of the business planning components.

To register: http://bit.ly/BusinessPlan

What is most important in a Business Plan

This is a copy of a weekly posting done in conjunction with Crain’s Chicago Business.

Ask SCORE: What’s most important in a biz plan? Posted by Ann D. at 8/12/2009 6:45 AM CDT

We’ve asked SCORE Chicago, the local small-business counseling and advisory service, to answer your questions about starting and running a small business. We want to hear from you. Send your questions to adwyer@crain.com — be sure to include “Ask SCORE” in the subject line — and we’ll run it past SCORE and post the answers here every Wednesday.

Recent SCORE posts offered advice on getting your marketing e-mails opened, perspective on why now can be a good time to start a small business, and ideas on taking advantage of the downturn.

In the meantime, here’s a question that SCORE Chicago experts hear often in their seminars and one-on-one counseling sessions: “Which aspect of my business plan is most important — especially if I’m trying to appeal to a banker?”

While your numbers are important, Meghan Kearns, a vice-president at Harris Bank and a frequent presenter at SCORE Chicago workshops, suggests that you focus on the marketing and management sections of your business plan.

The marketing section describes your audience — in short, who you’re going to sell to. You should be able to describe those potential customers in detail and lay out the ways you plan to reach them.

As for management, you should be able to discuss how you’re going to manage the business in good times and bad times — especially in bad times. What plans and resources would you fall back on in an economic period like the one we’re enduring now? Think about it — get some help from an adviser if you need to — and be prepared to describe your thoughts in full in your business plan.

A banker will judge your business prospects based in large part on the quality of your answers to these marketing and management-related questions.

This 59-second video from SCORE Chicago provides more a little more insight.  (You can watch SCORE Chicago’s entire interview with Ms. Kearns here.)

And for more guidance on writing a business plan, visit this section of the SCORE Chicago Web site

What Every Entrepreneur Should Know About Intellectual Property

This is a reprint of a Blog posting done by Daliah Saper.  Daliah will be covering this material as a presenter at our New Product Development workshop, on August 12th.  Information about the workshop is at: http://bit.ly/NewProduct

By Saper Law www.saperlaw.com | September 26, 2007

Intellectual property is an umbrella term for various types of rights an individual or business can have in their names, creative works, and inventions.  A firm grasp of intellectual property is important for every entrepreneur – even if you’re not a musician or inventor.  An understanding of intellectual property rights can help you protect your business or product name, software, website, logo, invention, and even your customer lists.  No matter what type of business you are in, you will come across at least some of the issues discussed below.

Trademarks

A trademark is any word, name, symbol, or device used to indicate the source of goods or services.  Trademarks can be used to protect your company name or product name, domain names, images, symbols, logos, slogans, colors, product designs and product packaging.  Registering your trademark will help you prevent others from using your mark in a way that might confuse customers or damage your business reputation.  It is important to think about trademark considerations as soon as you start your business!

Copyrights

A copyright is a set of exclusive rights given to an individual or business that has created a literary or artistic work (including computer software, photographs, architectural plans, and a whole range of other works). A copyright gives the owner the exclusive right to make copies of the work, distribute copies of the work to the public, prepare derivative works, and perform or display the work publicly.  In short, the copyright owner has the right to exploit his/her own work, and those rights are unavailable to any others.

You should also be aware that copyright issues can be complex whenever you have someone else working for you. If you own a company and have hired someone as a full-timeemployee, then you most likely will own the copyright in anything they create for you.  However, if you have only hired them as an independent contractor, then the contractor is considered the owner unless there is a written agreement to the contrary.  Your company may have a license to use what was created, but you won’t be the owner and may not be able to sell or create new versions of the work.

Patents

A patent entitles an inventor to exclude others from making, using, or selling the claimed invention for a period of 20 years.  To obtain a patent, your invention must have a very high level of originality and you must disclose the “recipe” for your invention to the public.

An inventor who obtains a patent for a “widget” can stop a competitor from creating or selling blue widgets. However, someone else may have patents relating to widgets (e.g., a patent on a widget with a handle). If so, it is possible that the inventor may be similarly stopped from selling widgets with handles. But remember that after all of the patent rights relating to widgets expire, anyone is free to create and sell widgets.

Trade Secrets

Trade secrets provide another way to protect material that could otherwise be copyrighted or patented.  While copyrights and patents are made public and limited in duration, trade secrets are private and can last indefinitely – so long as you actually keep them secret and use reasonable measures to protect their secrecy.  Trade secrets also can extend to things, such as customer lists, that are not easily protected by copyrights or patents.

Imagine a clever software developer who writes a program that predicts the Stock Market with 99% accuracy. If he patents his software, in 20 years, everyone can create, use, and sell similar software. However, if he keeps the software a trade secret, he can control the source code indefinitely and no one will ever know how he achieved such accuracy.

However, it is essential that you take sufficient steps to develop a Trade Secret Protection Program. A proper Protection Program will include steps like requiring confidentially agreements, ensuring limited access to confidential material, having password protections, and limiting the number of people with access to sensitive information.  If you take appropriate steps and your process or information qualifies for trade secret protection, you can prevent others from using the trade secret without your permission.

Contractual Issues and Licensing

Whenever you are dealing with your own intellectual property, or the intellectual property of others, there are many important contractual and licensing issues that can come up.

For instance, if pay a graphic designer to create a logo or pamphlet for you, you may think that you own the work and all copyrights in it.  But if you don’t have the correct contract in place with the graphic designer before she begins work (a work for hire agreement), then you may only have a license to use the logo or pamphlet and the designer owns the copyright!

Likewise, if you have a trade secret, and you disclose details of that trade secret to someone else without having the proper contract in place (a non-disclosure agreement), then you may lose your rights to that trade secret!

There are too many different contractual or licensing issues to address here, but take away from this that you should always be cautious when dealing with intellectual property.  To be safe, you should always have an attorney review any contracts dealing with intellectual property rights.

Conclusion

Now that you have a basic understanding of the different types of intellectual property and related issues that can arise, you should have an idea of how trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade secrets will affect your business. If you encounter any of the issues discussed above, you should consult an attorney to make sure you are fully protecting your intellectual property rights!

Why Start a Business now

This is the next in our series done in conjunction with Crain’s Chicago Business.

Ask SCORE: Why start a business now? Posted by Ann D. at 8/5/2009 6:45 AM CDT

We’ve invited SCORE Chicago, the small business coaching and counseling organization, to write a weekly guest blog on issues that matter to Enterprise City readers.

If you have a question or problem that you’d like to run past SCORE Chicago’s counselors, send an e-mail to adwyer@crain.com.  Be sure to put “Ask SCORE” in the subject line.  We’ll aim to publish answers to readers’ questions every Wednesday.

To get the ball rolling, here’s a question tossed at Larry Pelka, a SCORE counselor and former CEO of Associates Commercial, a small business lender, in a recent interview on SCORE Chicago’s TV show: “Is now a good time to start a business?”

Here’s what Larry had to say:

This is a great time to start a business. Larry notes that businesses such as Microsoft, Trader Joe’s and McDonald’s were all started in difficult economic times.

For individuals who are looking to start businesses, there are at least three trends that exist that can be favorable. First, there are more highly talented people either out of work or considering working for a small business. These individuals are looking more than ever to join an organization where they might be able to have some ownership and greater responsibility.

Second, this is a great time to rent space. With the empty space currently available, landlords are offering great deals and often paying for buildout. When it comes to negotiations for space, Larry notes that you’re now in the catbird seat.

Last, it is easier to get favorable terms when purchasing equipment. Interest rates are low. Also, with the increased inventory at dealers, a business may be able to obtain the equipment at very good prices.

The entire interview with Larry is available on SCORE Chicago’s CANTV 21 Channel on Blip.TV.

4 Considerations when Creating a Marketing Plan

Our Monthly Marketing and Sales Workshop is tomorrow, August 6th.  Did a redo of the slides.  Here are a few highlights.  Information about the workshop is at: http://bit.ly/MarketingSelling

Marketing is key to your success

• Keep it simple
• Know what business you are in

No one perfect marketing plan

• Understand your key metrics
• Set goals consistent with those metrics
• Revisit on a regular basis

Don’t fall in love with a business idea too soon

• Do your research
• Understand your competition
• Reach out to a set of advisors who can provide feedback
• Listen to the sales not made as much as the customers you land

You’re not ready to start a business until you can do a credible Year One monthly sales and profit forecast

• Your numbers are another way of expressing you plan
• Ask youself realistically  ”Can we really do that”
• Come up with a “Slow Day” – “Average Day” – “Busy Day” … Understand the impact if every day is a  ”Slow Day”

Know your Credit Score before you Talk to a Bank

Knowing your credit score before you talk to your bank can save you significant time and consternation.  In this excerpt from a CANTV inteview that we did with Meghan Kearns from Harris Bank, Meghan emphasizes the importance of a credit score.   She also relates a couple of examples where she worked with clients to recognize inconsistencies that held up the loan process.

Meghan will be our guest on CANTV 21 Hotline show tonight at 6:30.  If you live in the City of Chicago, please watch it live.  If not,  you can check it out on our BLIP.TV channel http://scorechicagocantv21.blip.tv/ in a couple of weeks.

New Product Development Workshop: How to Launch Your Product

A Special SCORE/Chicago Workshop August 12, 2009 at our Downtown Location (500 W. Madison)

• Learn what it takes to introduce your new product into market
• Find how to get financing
• How to license your idea as a product to others
• How to outsource the production
• How to market and sell your product

This Workshop will cover:

• Legal matters: Find out what legal issues are there: To form a legal entity, apply for a patent, Trademark, Copyright, protect your intellectual 
• Marketing issues: How do you plan to market your new product?
• To produce, outsource or license? The ups and downs of producing the product
• Production: If you decide to produce, what should you do?
• Logistics: How do you make it available to customers?
• Financing: How do you plan to finance your new product introduction?

Speakers

9:00 AM

Eric R. Waltmire is a patent attorney at the Erickson Law Group, where he assists businesses and independent inventors gain market advantage by identifying and protecting their intellectual property. Eric handles a range of intellectual property matters with an emphasis on Internet, computer science, and electronic technologies. Eric has a B.S. in Computer Science and a degree from  Southern Illinois University School of Law.

9:40 AM

Keith Alsberg holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago  post-graduate design work at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and is a Certified Engineering Provider. In the course of his career, Keith has developed and engineered 100s of products for many companies in a variety of industries.  His company, Square 1 Product Development has provided design, engineering, and manufacturing services to some of the country’s leading corporations.

10:40 AM

COFFEE BREAK

11:00 AM

Daliah Saper is the principal attorney at Saper Law and has served as counsel to many technology and media companies. She has worked as both a litigator and transactional attorney in the field of intellectual property. She received her J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law.

11:50 AM

Al Grossman spent 46 years in the electrical/lighting industry. In the last 14 years of his business career he was Co-founder, President and CEO of a business manufacturing and importing commercial lighting products sold through wholesalers throughout North America.  In 2008 he was inducted into the Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame.

12:40 PM

Lunch Break

1:15 PM

Richard Kerndt has created marketing and sales programs for companies such as FedEx, ITW, 3M, ExxonMobil, Lexmark, HP, and Verizon Wireless. In 2002 he was inducted into the Chicago Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame. He is a guest speaker and contributes regularly to marketing and entrepreneurial education at UIC, DePaul University’s Kellstadt Center for their eMarketing program.

2:15 PM

Roundtable Q&A for all participants….direct your questions to the experts.

3:15 PM

Peter Kim, Assistant VP, Business Banking, National City Bank, has been with National City for over six years.  He began his career through the National City Bank’s credit department, underwriting for companies of all sizes, ranging from start-up to fortune 500 corporations.  He has been a business banking officer for the past four years.

4:00 PM

Al Grossman, Closing comments

When:  Wednesday, August 12, 2009    8:45 AM – 4:05 PM  (Lunch is included)

8:30 AM check-in

8:45 AM Welcome: Al Grossman, SCORE Counselor

Register here:  http://bit.ly/NewProduct