Networking - Owners View

First Looks Forum eye-opener for a first-time entrepreneur!

October 29, 2012 By Marcos Gomez 1 Comment

It was a great experience meeting and talking with SXSW Interactive Festival director Hugh Forrest

I’m taking a different approach towards starting up my own self-sustaining business. What long-time and successful business owners were able to offer me, a musician by trade, at the Business Success Center (BSC) and Texas Entrepreneurs Networks (TEN) First Looks Forum in October was an eye opener.

I compose, perform, teach and am currently a student at the University of Texas, and am also about to graduate soon. I have a tough time balancing the aforementioned and trying to get higher paying gigs. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Building, Business Development, Business Management, Events, General Testimonial, Marketing, Networking, Planning & Vision, Social Media Tagged With: Business Mentor, Business Success Center, DanielMGomez.com, First Looks Forum, full-time student, Hugh Forrest, Internship, Mentee, music, music student, musician, recent graduate, Self-sustaining musician, social media, SXSW Interactive Festival, Texas Entrepreneurs Network

3 Ways Business Grants Have Changed for Good & 3 Ways to Prepare

June 19, 2012 By Jan Triplett Leave a Comment

Look out world, here it comes. You read it here first. After a “gazillion” years of how business grants work, the world has changed. Maybe for good!

Who did it? Chase Bank and LivingSocial. (In full disclosure we are going after this grant. We want to use the money to take our Owners MBA™ for existing business online, add ebooks, apps, and include special segments for veterans, rural business owners, and owners who are disabled. We also want to create an owners community as we did for our Entrepreneurs’ Association in the 1990′s.)

Why did they do it? It depends on whom you ask.

What’s different? [Read more...]

Filed Under: BSC Customer, Business Ideas, Business Trends, Funding, Marketing Strategy, Networking, Owners MBA Tagged With: Austin Business Journal, Business Grants, Business Success Center, Capital Factory, Chase Bank, eligibility, Entrepreneurs' Association, Grants for for profit companies, Jason Meeker, Jaxzen Marketing, LivingSocial, Mission Small Business, Networking, Online Coupons, Online Marketing, SBIR, social media, The Stage Alliances

What’s wrong with networking meetings?

June 9, 2012 By Jan Triplett Leave a Comment

Get your meeting in better order for everyone. Photo by mrbill from flickr.com

What’s wrong with networking meetings? It’s the same thing that’s wrong with most business meetings. Organizers and hosts take things for granted.

These meetings leave the impression that…

Everyone who should know everyone already does.
It’s obvious how our meeting works and if you don’t get it, too bad.
People with different tastes just shouldn’t eat with us.
If you can’t find us, not our problem.
We’re glad you came, but we don’t really care if you had a good time or come back.

The prevalence of these really makes me hate to go to meetings. The worst offenders are the ones that call themselves “networking” meetings. I wrote A Networker’s Guide to Success. I know what networking can and should be. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Ideas, Business Management, Business Process, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Events, Infrastructure, Leadership, Networking, Owners MBA, Planning & Vision Tagged With: Business Success Center, Chase Bank and Living Social grant program, Greeters, Improving Meetings, Infrastructure, Marsha Vanhorn Client Services Manager, Meeting Checklist, Meeting Host, Meeting Organizers, Meeting Pet Peeves, Networker's Guide to Success, Networking, Owners MBA, Problems with Meetings, Speakers

3 Networking Skills Every Introvert Has

August 31, 2011 By Jan Triplett Leave a Comment

Networking skills are not the exclusive property of extroverts. Introverts have them, too.

Not the belle or beau of the ball? Don’t do well in groups? Are you kind of shy or just hate playing the networking game? You can still be a great networker. The best part is, you don’t have to and shouldn’t change you.

Networking Rules

You do have to play by the rules. Networking is a balancing act; give and take. It’s not just about sales or prospecting. Although these can happen. You can also use it for finding friends, jobs, fun places to go or avoid, and a million other things. Think about it as a combination of a “net” which gathers things in and keeps things out and a lot of hard “work”. Believe me, it doesn’t come easy to extroverts either although it may seem that way.

: Rodin’s “The Thinker” could have been named “The Introvert”. Photo by James Whitesmith.

How Introverts can use their strengths

But you can play to your strengths and get great rewards. What are those? Most introverts I have known are great gathers of information and deep thinkers. When I did a session on Networking for Introverts at SXSW two years ago, I first wondered if anyone would show up. They did and all those introverts made me a true believer in their abilities. This depth means introverts have a lot to give. Most are good observers, intuitive, with great analysis skills. Hard work and thoroughness is central to how they operate. I recommend to every extrovert, that they network with at least one introvert.

Scary Business

November 5, 2010 By Jan Triplett 1 Comment

I was just interviewed by Patricia Rogers of the Austin Business Journal . Ms. Rogers is the List Director for ABJ, writes the Growth Strategies and does some wonderful profiles. She asked me a lot of good questions and I learned something about her. She’s from Houston, we share a love of animals especially horses, and, luckily for Austin, she didn’t follow the advice of her uncle to stay out of journalism (he was a journalist in Houston).

What's your scariest business moment. Mine? No one would show for a seminar I was giving. Photo from Flickr by Aunt Owwee

One question she didn’t ask was about a scary moment in business. Mine was scary and the most fun. Last March I did a program for SXSW “Networking for Introverts”. Why was I concerned? What if no one showed up? That didn’t happen. As a matter of fact the room was full to overflowing. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community Activism, Networking, Public Speaking Tagged With: Austin Business Journal. SXSW, Austin Women in Construction, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Extroverts, Lady Bird Lake, Networking for Introverts, Patricia Rogers, Soroptimist International, Town Lake Gazebo

Why Independent Businesses Must Do More Than Donate

October 25, 2010 By Jan Triplett Leave a Comment

Worked to Keep Austin Neighborhood & Small Independent Business Friendly

Next month, it will be four years since I became the Business Liaison Chair for Responsible Growth for Northcross (RG4N).

I chose to get involved because I am a business owner, a small business activist and I live and work in the area.

Last night was the VIP opening of the more neighborhood-sized WalMart on Anderson Lane in Austin, Texas. The RG4N board was invited and several of us went including the original President, Paige Hill.

Our efforts to stop the supercenter were not about size as much as about the impact of that size. That impact includes traffic, litter, security, safety issues for those with disabilities, crime, air and water quality. It was also about the impact on locally owned stores that do not fare well with a big box, especially a WalMart, nearby. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community Activism, Networking, Small Business Advocacy Tagged With: Activism, Alamo Drafthouse, Austin, Big Box, Business Neighborhood, community, Encore Music, Genuine Joe's, Impact, Independently-owned Business, Jason Meeker, Kids & Cats, Locally-owned Business, Neighborhood Associations, Networking, Paige Hill, Responsible Growth for Northcross, RG4N, Scandinavian Design, Scott Gray, small business activist, Small Business Owners, supercenter, Texas, Thunderbird Coffee, WalMart, Zingers

4 Parts to a Platinum Customer Profile System

October 21, 2010 By Jan Triplett 2 Comments

There are 7 potential customer types you could have. But you should have only the best, the Platinum Customer. They give you money and a lot more.

If you aren’t satisfied with the value of your current customers, make better choices by setting up a Platinum Profile™ identification system. This is more than just “target” or “niche” marketing. The four parts of a Platinum Profile™ are demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and geography. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Management, Networking, Planning & Vision, Sales Tagged With: ACT, Austin, Buying Behavior, Buying Cycle, Buying Georgraphy, Cospace, Demographics, DIY Sales, Do Nothing Sales, Ghost Competitors, Meet Here Mornings, Metrics, Network, Niche Marketing, Platinum Customer, Platinum Profile™, Platinum Sale, Proactive, Prospect, Psychographics, Radioactive Waste, Sales, sales process, Sales System, Salesforce.com, Salespeople, Selling Cycle, Standards, Strategic Allies, Target Marketing, Texas, value

The Networker Magazine Remembered: Overtime Roach Article Reprised

August 3, 2010 By Jan Triplett Leave a Comment

Austin, Texas’ small business and entrepreneurial history is long and full. There were special support meetings called “Satellite Network Meetings” all over town and even in Round Rock long before there were Meetups and Bootstrap groups.

Masthead banner from The Networker 1981, originally sponsored by the Commission on the Status of Women, City of Austin

And, there was The Networker, a small monthly publication especially for women. From June 1980 to its last issue in August 1987, I wrote, managed or was its editor. We covered politics, interesting women, events around town, the arts, business, sports, education, healthcare, and jobs. We covered issues from the ERA to “Should women fear computers?” And, yes, that was the title of an article. We covered women magicians like Judy Wilkes and Valerie Cordell, early aviators like Pearle Ragsdale, truck racer Shawna Robinson, women firefighters and women at war. Young and old, of all colors, creeds, and backgrounds were included in our news. We even did some interesting articles about men including Cactus Pryor and cartoonist Ben Sargent. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community Activism, Networking, Small Business/Entrepreneur History Tagged With: Austin, Austin Commission on the Status of Wmoen, Ben Sargent, Bootstgrap Austin, Cactus Pryor, Developing Entrepreneurs, Dorothy Hartshorne, Eleanor Richards, entrepreneur, Helen Handley, Jane Dinsmoor, Judy Brown, Lu Russell, Mary Margaret Navar, Mayor Ron Mullen, Meetups, Meg Wilson, Nadea Gizelbach, Network Satelllite Meetings, Networking, Networking Day Proclamation, Overtime, Pearle Ragsdale, Small Business History, Texas, The Networker Magazine, Women Magicians, Women's Conference, Women's Network Brunch

4 Concerns about the City of Austin’s March Small Business Summit

April 22, 2010 By Jan Triplett 1 Comment

Austin, Texas City Seal

I would like to congratulate Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell and the City Council for holding its first Small Business Summit in March.

Forty of us were invited by Council Members and the Austin Independent Business Alliance to come and give our thoughts on the major ways the City could address business owners concerns. I was invited to participate by Council Member Laura Morrison, who was the former President of the Austin Neighborhoods Association among her other achievements. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community Activism, Networking, Research Tagged With: Austin City Council, Austin Independent Business Alliance, Austin Neighborhoods Association, Austin Small Business Summit, Casa De Luz, Choose Austin First, City of Austin, City of Austin Small Business Development Program, Council Member Laura Morrison, Enterprise, entrepreneurship, Governor's Conference on Small Business, Mayor Lee Leffingwell, Micro business, Minority and Women-Owned Businesses, National Federation of Independent Business, Open Meetings, Site Street, small business activist, Uptime Devices, WBE/MBE Commissions, White House Conference on Small Business, Yellow Cab

3 Older Business Books That Inspire

January 8, 2010 By Jan Triplett 2 Comments

Periodically, it’s good to go through your business library and free-cycle what no longer inspires you. Passing them along to others means I don’t have to feel badly about getting rid of books. Instead I think of them as getting a new home.

Here are three that I would not part with no matter what year it is or how old they they are. So instead of giving them away, I want to encourage you to add them to your library or go to the library and check them out. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Management, Networking, Resources, Sales Tagged With: Albert J. Bernstein, Austin Independent Business Alliances, Big Box Ordinance, Big Box Swindle, BookPeople, E.F. Schumacher, Independent Business Investment Zone, Neanderthals at Work, Northcross IBIZ, Responsible Growth for Northcross, Small is Beautiful, Stacy Mitchell, Sydney Craft Rozen

Scary Business

Why Independent Businesses Must Do More Than Donate

4 Parts to a Platinum Customer Profile System

The Networker Magazine Remembered: Overtime Roach Article Reprised

4 Concerns about the City of Austin’s March Small Business Summit

3 Older Business Books That Inspire

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