Next week the nation’s top entrepreneurs will come together in Washington, D.C. and virtually via the Internet for a three-day celebration of National Small Business Week, hosted by the SBA from May 22-25.
With a theme of Driving America’s Economy, this year’s event is sponsored by some heavy hitters in the world of business innovation including eBay, Google, Intuit and Cbeyond and includes keynotes from SBA Administrator, Karen Mills, and the host of MSNBC’s “Your Business” JJ Ramberg.
Aside from a host of award ceremonies, including the announcement of the National Small Business Person of the Year, the event also includes a schedule of educational seminars and forums – all of which are streamed live via the Internet.
With a strong focus on innovation, topics include: strategies and resources for taking your business global through exporting (President Obama’s vision is to double U.S. exports in the next five years); tips and best practices for joining the social media conversation, and a panel-based discussion on how small business can use innovation to drive growth.
How can you get Involved?
If you can be in Washington, D.C. next week you can register to attend National Small Business Week here. If you can’t travel you can still take part by joining live streaming webcasts of key sessions as they happen.
You can also get involved in your own community. Consider letting your customers know that it’s National Small Business Week by offering a celebratory special promotion or use email marketing to thank them for their business.
Learning from other National Small Business Week Winners
Aside from the knowledge share that takes place during National Small Business Week (NSBW) itself, a useful corollary of the week’s events came about this year when the SBA produced a series of videos in which previous NSBW award winners share their practical strategies for growth.
Hosted on the SBA site and on YouTube, these videos offer valuable real-life stories and topic-based insights into a variety of topics including marketing, government contracting, team building, business planning and more.
The following articles slice and dice these videos to give a quick snapshot of some of the more popular videos:
- Five Tips for Building your Small Business Brand Using its Best Advocate – You! – Entrepreneur and Metro D.C. Small Business Person of the Year 2006, Warren Brown is a hugely successful brand advocate for his small business – CakeLove. Read how Brown uses his personality, vision and growth strategies to build and advocate the CakeLove brand.
- Are You Ready to Grow Your Business? Five Tips to Help You Prepare for Growth - Where is your company heading? Do you have a plan to get there? Carey Wilson of the Maryland Small Business Development Center offers five valuable tips for preparing your small business for growth.
- Growing your Business as a Team: 10 Team Building Tips from the Real World of Small Business - Whether you are in the business of making money, running governments, or organizing communities – teamwork is essential. It is the basis of engagement, innovation and success. Get 10 tips from award-winning small businesses on practices they have used to build their successful business teams.
Small Business Matters is brought to you by Business.gov to provide helpful and easy-to-understand tips for small and home businesses, including direct links to resources that help business owners to navigate the government maze. Business.gov is sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration to provide small business owners with access to federal, state and local government resources from a single access point. Business.gov creates a dialogue among business owners and the organizations serving them, making government resources and information more accessible to the nation’s small business community. The U.S. Government and the U.S. Small Business Administration neither endorses nor guarantees in any way the external organizations, services, advice, or products included in any external website links. Furthermore, the U.S. government neither controls nor guarantees the accuracy, relevance, timeliness or completeness of the information contained in non-government website links.
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