Published Mar. 29, 2013
SCORE Westchester provides tips for creating an effective elevator speech for introducing your new business.
What is an "Elevator Speech"?
An "Elevator Speech" is a concise, carefully planned, and well-practiced description about your company that anyone should be able to understand in the time it would take to ride up in an elevator.
Published Mar. 29, 2013
Learn how to choose the best legal structure for your new business.
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Sole Proprietorship
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"C" Corporation
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Limited Liability Partnership
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Partnership
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"S" Corporation
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Limited Liability Company
(This information is provided for guidance only. Competent legal accounting advice should be obtained to assist you in making a decision on form of organization)
Published Mar. 29, 2013
The Willamette SCORE chapter provides insight into what lenders look for in a successful and convincing business plan.
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Don’t push adjectives. Let me assign my own. This year for every plan that really looks like it might be disruptive or game-changing I saw 20 or so that claimed to be.
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Tell stories. A story tells market need way better than general market numbers. Write about problems you solve, who has them, how you solve them, and why you do it better than anybody else.
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When it comes to finding a great name for a business, brand, product or service, it really comes down to this: A good name should make someone smile or nod, not scratch their head in confusion.
When it comes to finding a great name for a business, brand, product or service, it really comes down to this: A good name should make someone smile or nod, not scratch their head in confusion.
About the Author
Daniel Kehrer, Founder & Managing Director of BizBest Media Corp., is a nationally-known, award-winning expert on small and local business, start-ups, content marketing, entrepreneurship and social media, with an MBA from UCLA/Anderson. Read more of Daniel's tips at
www.BizBest.com, follow him at
www.twitter.com/140Main and connect on LinkedIn at
www.linkedin.com/in/danielkehrer.
Steve Strauss, founder of www.theselfemployed.com, discusses the basics of creating a website for your small business.
Q: Steve – my son is, despite what I tell him, going to start a new business. I don’t like the idea at all, but if he is going to do it, he is going to do it. One thing I know is that he will need a website and I would like to pay for that. Can you tell me what it would cost and how I would go about getting one done for him?
RM
About the Author
Steven D. Strauss is a lawyer and writer and is one of the country's leading experts on small business as well as an international business speaker. The best-selling author of 17 books, his latest is the all-new 3rd ed. of The Small Business Bible. You can listen to his weekly podcast, Small Business Success Powered by Greatland, visit his new website for the self-employed, TheSelfEmployed, follow him on Twitter, and "like" TheSelfEmployed on Facebook. You can e-mail Steve at: sstrauss@mrallbiz.com. © Steven D. Strauss
Steve Strauss, founder of www.theselfemployed.com, explains the concept of seller financing and how/when it may work for buying a business.
Q: I have been offered a chance to buy a business and the owner is willing to finance part of the purchase. What I mean is that I cannot afford the $50K he is asking but he said he would be willing finance half the cost over 5 years if I could come up with the other half -- $25,000. It seems too good to be true. Is it?
Robin
About the Author
Steven D. Strauss is a lawyer and writer and is one of the country's leading experts on small business as well as an international business speaker. The best-selling author of 17 books, his latest is the all-new 3rd ed. of The Small Business Bible. You can listen to his weekly podcast, Small Business Success Powered by Greatland, visit his new website for the self-employed, TheSelfEmployed, follow him on Twitter, and "like" TheSelfEmployed on Facebook. You can e-mail Steve at: sstrauss@mrallbiz.com. © Steven D. Strauss
Elizabeth Hughes-Callison has used her work experience to start a Decatur-based business intended to help companies in need of assistance. EHC Admin Services is able to provide administrative support for businesses, sales personnel and other busy people, Hughes-Callison said. Services include administrative bookkeeping, word processing, notarizing and accounts payable.
After taking the First Step FastTrac course offered by SCORE at Millikin University, Hughes-Callison decided her business plan was viable.
Sometime you have to follow your heart. That was sage advice Monica received from her mother who is also her inspiration, and social media guru. You see, Monica was heading down the path to become a neurosurgeon. She wanted to save the world. While she was in school she also studied Eastern Asian studies. But at some point she began courting the idea of focusing on her East Asian Studies, dropping Neurosurgery altogether. She did in fact drop it, and completed her BA in East Asian Studies and Chinese. After finishing school she moved to China and taught as a visiting professor.
A family illness caused her to return to Dallas where she accepted what was to be a short term stint at an international IT firm. She clocked six years at the firm, gaining experience as a Business Analyst, and earning an MBA along the way.
Monica was able to tailor her MBA program in International Management to combine her varied background in psychology and neurosurgery with her passion for culture and language studies.
With her MBA in hand, Moffitt sought to get a meaningful job within corporate America leveraging her education and experience to help company with marketing and consumer behavior across international boundaries.
In Sept of 2011, Monica officially started business as Tianfen Consulting. Tien Fen, talent literally. She explains that that means heaven's gift, whatever your talent is. When asked why she became an entrepreneur, she joked, “It is so clear… because I love status quo.”
Tianfen Consulting is a cultural consulting firm with a myriad of integration points from Educational Services to Business Planning to Strategic Design. Beyond general management consulting they offer analytics and strategy design for HR, Sales, and Marketing.
Core offerings include:
Business Planning
Cultural Consulting
China Visa Prep/Consulting
Educational Services
Strategic Design
EB-5 Visa/Immigration Consulting
Foreign Direct Investment Specialists
How SCORE Helped
Shortly after hanging her shingle as a consultant, Monica went to SCORE. "My first big question was taxes. Things like QuickBooks. I needed to know what was out there. I also had to unlearn some things. My biggest concern was taxes. I didn't want to make any mistakes. I'm lacking in financial and accounting. Also, what about international taxes and how do i get paid.
When asked what advice she would give another entrepreneur, Monica said, “Think about your role in the business 5, 10, 20 years from now. How invested are you. Do you want investors? Start with your end goal and then work backwards. That is the basis of how you will move forward.”
Martin Metzler is not your regular start up entrepreneur. First, he admits he is a bit of a hybrid because parallel to his corporate career he’s also been an entrepreneur. One of his earlier ventures was a wellness institute and med spa that he successfully built with his wife and later sold. Another un-classic startup entrepreneur trait is the fact that Martin's current venture wasn’t started by him. In fact, it was a restart. While advising the principals involved in the businesses it became apparent that the business could take flight if expanded methodically through a combined corporate and franchise model. It turns out that Martin has experience with all that. Though the partners were initially only seeking business advice from Martin, the practitioners were intrigued as they thought about expanding their unique service offering and successful business model. They joined forces and created a new corporate entity, Structura Institute Holdings LLC and 2 subsidiaries, one for corporate owned operations and one for franchising.
Structura Body Therapies provides advanced body therapy and massage services to clients for relief from pain and mobility conditions resulting from car accidents, scoliosis, rotator-cuff injury, athletic performance, and long forgotten injuries. Structura has built a prestigious reputation in customer service and effective treatments.
Martin is setting out to open 200 franchise clinics and 30 corporate locations within 5 years. Currently there are 3 corporate owned clinics and prospective franchisees are actively being taken through the information process. Yet there is still an eye toward the future. Martin added, “On a longer term perspective, international markets and adding additional therapies, services, and a retail line are all possibilities. For now, we have a great model and our clients love us. They are telling us that everybody has to know about us. Their encouragement drives our expansion.”
My Successes
Martin had something to share about competition. “People ask me so what happens when people emulate what you are doing? I tell them its fine, let them come. It is utopia to believe that you will find a business and be the only one forever. Guaranteed there will be competition. However, stay ahead. Have the next upgrade, even if you don’t’ release it right away. Embrace competition; it is an indicator that what you are doing is right.”
Martin is thinking big, 1000 stores big in 10 years. But just like the business partners that brought him into the business initially for counsel and then to expand the opportunity, Martin has subsequently turned to SCORE for counsel and more recently to franchisees to expand the opportunity. As the African Proverb says, “if you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”
How SCORE Helped
Martin is proof that we all need a little help. An accomplished businessman and entrepreneur he still sought the help of objective counsel. That is why he turned to SCORE where he met Chuck Rudnick. Martin shared, “Chuck would give me feedback, his thoughts, suggestions, and recommendations. Then I would tweak things. He is a wonderful sounding board. I think that 2 heads are better than 1 and 4 eyes are better than 2. For me, I needed a more advanced level sounding board and advisor that I found in Chuck. With his vast experience he was able to help me focus and keep me on a successful track.”
When asked if Martin would recommend SCORE to other entrepreneurs, he said, “Absolutely and I don't care whether you are a green behind the ears entrepreneur with zero business knowledge or whether you are an experienced executive, you can always learn and improve. There is a counselor for everyone. People usually pay big bucks for this. At SCORE it’s free and its foolish not to use it as a resource.”
He added, “No matter whether you want to start a small business or a large business, get the right team of advisors early on. Don't try to do it all yourself. You’re not a lawyer or a CPA probably, so why deal with that yourself. Get the perspective of others in their field of expertise. Above all, be open minded. No matter how much you know, you can always pick up something new.”
Jason Brower is no stranger to opportunity, nor is he a stranger to hard work. While being completely satisfied at his high tech software engineering job where he worked alongside chemists, physicists, and electrical engineers to produce anti-counterfeiting devices, he wasn’t fulfilled. While clocking his normal 40 hours a week for his employer, he was moonlighting on a project that would later become Oceanside Software Corporation. He jokes, “I should have bought stock in 5 hour energy – I was living on that stuff.”
What sparked his idea was a seemingly innocuous conversation at a restaurant with a sales rep that was boasting about how much money he was making selling Point of Sale systems. That was the summer of 2009. Jason was intrigued and thought this might be his next big thing; after all it fit squarely within his love of engineering and software. 40,000 lines of code later, Oceanside Software Corporation was born.
Oceanside Software provides complete end-to-end point-of-sale solutions for quick-service and table-service restaurants. They provide everything from the hardware and software to merchant credit card and gift card processing.
Oceanside POS ® offers a fast and efficient way to place orders and accept payments in a fast paced restaurant line such as franchise customer Burrito Jimmy
My Successes
When asked what advice you would give another entrepreneur, Jason said, “Pick something you absolutely love, something you can imagine yourself doing 120 hours a week for 5 years straight and not get sick of. You have to have a strong passion for what you want to grow. Don’t do it for the money.” He added, “If the reason you want to start the business is that you want to be your own boss, then you need more reasons. Be willing to put your heart and soul and risk everything. It is a gamble and a risk. You’ll fight through every obstacle. You’ll be 2 days from running out of money. But, you’ll find a way to do it. I feel like I’m a very logical person but I also know that I have to believe in foolish miracles.”
On July 8th 2012, Jason announced on the 3rd birthday of Oceanside, that he is turning Oceanside POS ® into a community driven Open Source Project. Four days later, Peter Simendi from Connect Africa became the first project contributor to the world’s first Open Source Restaurant POS System.
It looks like Jason is not only well onto his next big thing but he is enabling the next big thing for other entrepreneurs too.
How SCORE Helped
When Jason was starting Oceanside, he didn’t head to SCORE right away for help. That would come later. He’d earlier attended an entrepreneurship training program at the Institute for Social and Economic Development ( ISED) so he felt h could write a business plan.
After gaining customers and additional traction, Oceanside Software started to become noticed by potential suitors. Not having much experience with equity and acquisitions, Jason decided to seek some help from SCORE. He had the good fortune to receive non biased advice from a SCORE counselor that had worked for IBM previously. He got more than he bargained for. He was also encouraged to apply for and was subsequently accepted to the “Getting Down to Business” program created by Capital One Bank, in alliance with SCORE.. This program ensures that small business owners have access to information, resources, mentors and financing that can help them grow and succeed.
“In May of 2012, Oceanside Software was one of 15 businesses accepted into Capital One's ‘Getting Down to Business 2012’ program. We are excited to be part of a program that focuses on businesses with under $1,000,000 in revenue. Thank you to Joyce and all members of SCORE and Capital One,” commented Jason.
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