^{“Is Franchising for You”?}

Joel Libava, local franchise expert, consultant, and popular industry blogger will be discussing topics such as:

1. Franchise Myths vs. Realities
2. Finance and Legal information
3. Research techniques and much more…

If you would like to learn about franchising, and find out the trends you should be looking at, attend this class!

Watch a 3 minute video from Joel on Key Entrepreneurs Live, then register, here.

Get a head start, and read one of Joel’s posts about “Hot Franchises” on one of his increasingly popular blogs.

Ask a Banker - The 4 C’s of Credit 

 
Featured Blogger Mike Toth from Key Bank

According to the SBA, 99.7% of all businesses in the US are small businesses. More than seven out of ten of these businesses use some type of credit to finance their operations. This represents a significant risk for small business owners, and yet is a critical component of growth.

On October 18th, Michael Toth, head of Business Banking operations for KeyBank in Northeast Ohio and a prior small business owner, will educate small business owners on how banks evaluate small business credit requests, with a particular focus on “The 4C’s of Credit…Credit, Character, Collateral, and Capacity”. Over 75% of small business owners finance their business operations in the first 3 years with personal savings. After 10 years, this drops by nearly ½ as small business owners rely on bank sources of credit. Toth’s presentation will reveal ways that small business owners can increase their likelihood of obtaining bank credit in the early years of the business.

Does your bookkeeper process your payables AND reconcile your monthly bank statements? Do other employees in your office potentially have access to blank checks? If your answer is ‘yes’, you may be exposing yourself to operational risks that can result in financial losses and reduce your personal income. Toth will discuss ways that you can proactively reduce financial risks in your business in order to maximize your small business profits.

Please join Mike Toth on October 18th at the COSE Small Business Conference to hear him talk about these topics and more.

Hello everyone,

 This past Monday, we had our first session of our eMarketing Techniques Series.  It seemed to go very well, as our 24 participants learned about the vast amount of techniques that can be used to grow our businesses and organizations online.

 Not only did we go over topics like email marketing, SEO, online video, and many more that will be covered in subsequent sessions, but we also took a look at some Web 2.0 sites that can help us out as well.  And they’re all free (well for the most part).

 One of the free services we took a look at was Google Alerts.  This allows you to set up an alert any time a certain search string is updating in Google.  I personally have a “Brad Kleinman” google alert sent to me every time my name hits google.

 Within hours after the class, I received this alert:

Google Blogs Alert for: “brad kleinman”

Brad Kleinman - Practical eMarketing Tips for Entrepreneurs
By Jason L. Colon
Brad Kleinman packed the first two hours full of practical information that could be put to use immediately. The following are a few highlights. 1. Newsletter Marketing - Two online services, Constant Contact and iContact, …
jasonlcolon.com - http://www.jasonlcolon.com

Thanks for the add Jason!  Click here for the link to his entry.

 Regards,

../BSK

Hello everyone,

As you may know, we often post articles in regards to Web 2.0 and how entrepreneurs can leverage the power of the web to connect to their customers. A GREAT resource for you to check out is: SEOMoz.org’s Best of Web 2.0 article.

So a big part of what we do here at the center is to utilize various eMarketing and Web 2.0 apps on the internet and let you know what we think.

A tool we just tried out is CONDUIT. Now this is cool! This tool allows you to create your own toolbar and have your customers download it into their web browser. Easily integrate your RSS feeds, important info, pretty much anything you want! Check ours out…and download it!We hope you enjoy your FREE toolbar as much as we enjoy ours!

toolbar powered by Conduit

Regards,

../BSK

Texting… It’s blowing up.

And it doesn’t look like its going to slow down. The statistics about mobile marketing are mind blowing, and Stephen Brand of Mindgrab Mobile does a great job of telling us about the hot topic. Watch the video below as Stephen talks about mobile, and flip through his slideshow at the same time.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Stephen and talk about mobile. Take a look at our chat:

Mobile marketing…definitely something entrepreneurs should keep their eyes on. Don’t you agree?

Regards,
../BSK

Hello everyone,

I would like to ‘dub’ this the official first blog entry for the Key Entrepreneurs blog. We’ve been making a great deal of headway with the in-house development of the website. Take a look at a work in progress here: www.KeyEntrepreneurs.org.

Of course the project is in a state of production, but we would love to hear what you feel about the website so we can CONSTANTLY IMPROVE it. The OFFICIAL Launch of KeyEntrepreneurs.org will be:

Official Launch of Key Entrepreneurs.org

September 20th, 2007

[we should have one of those cool web2.0 countdown applets here]

Save the date. In the meantime, I’m GOING GOING, BACK BACK, TO CALI CALI. Yes, that’s right, I’m traveling to the West Coast for Corporate College next week to meet with EON Reality. EON is in Irvine California (few hours out of San Diego) and they have some of the COOLEST virtual reality technology I have ever seen.

• their 3d engine is RIDICULOUSLY cool
• their technology in general is out of this world
• they have an entire touch screen interaction system similar to the one Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report

In fact, take a look at this <2 minute video on YouTube!

So, we’re going to California to determine whether or not we should invest a good amount of money on this type of technology. Think of the power of this technology along with other hi-tech companies like:

• Microsoft
• Cisco
• Immersion

The opportunities are endless. What would you do with technology like that? We want to hear your ideas…leave a comment.

Regards,
../BSK