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Did you know that SCORE is on Twitter?

You can follow SCOREMentors for quick small business tips and updates.

Business Skills

SCORE has added a business skills assessment tool to their on-line toolbox. It is a short survey of 15 questions that results in a customized list of links and recommended readings.

It is worth looking into. The links lead to on-line workshops that are context specific. Better than sifting through long lists of on-line presentations.

I've added the URL to the business links on the left, under SCORE Business Skills Center.

Workshops In November

We have 3 workshops this November.

The Essentials of Starting A Business will be held twice. Saturday 11/17 and Wednesday 11/28. The 28th is a week later than usual because of Thanksgiving.

The Essentials of Writing A Business Plan will be on the usual Tuesday date, November 20th.

Online Classes

SCORE has teamed up with The Small Business Center to offer some online classes. Two in particular caught my eye; Planning your advertising and Can you afford to start a business.

The courses have been geared to low speed intenet connections, like mine. Not a lot of flash animation and lots of text rather than graphics. And, they allow you to enter answers and thoughts, which are saved on-line for your later reference.

I took the Advertising course. No cost involved other than about 1 hour of my time.

The couse got me thinking about internet advertising. While I was looking at a local Austin ratecard I ran across the term CPM. In context CPM stands for Cost Per Mille (i.e. 1,000). Looking that up, I found an interesting site for reference and glossary called NET-ADS. I've added a link to our library in the left column.

Workshops In October

Full plate this month.

We start off with the Marketing Workshop on October 13th, 9am to 1pm. Mike Dore will discuss approaches to developing a marketing strategy.

The third week of the month will have the Business Plan Workshop (Oct 16, 11:30-1:30pm) and the all day Essentials For Starting A Business (Oct 17, 9am to 4pm).

Then on the 25th (Thursday, 11:30-1:30pm) Barry Lewis will conduct the Alternative Sources of Capital Workshop. Barry discusses the advantages and disadvantages of Equity or Debt financing.

Busy Week Coming Up

Third week of the month is always busy. We have two workshops this week.

On Tuesday (9/18) we have the Business Plan workshop. It's two hours right around lunch time (11:30 to 1:30).

Wednesday (9/19) is the all day Essentials Workshop.

Saturday Essential Class

Beautiful day in Austin today, but 13 entrepreneurs chose to sit in on the all day workship for starting a business. Some interesting business ideas (I'm not going to give away the unique ideas), but here's a sample:

• Nutrition Consulting
• IT Consulting
• Catering
• Self Publishing
• Credit Assistance
• Graphic Design
• Bath and Body Products
• Fashion Accessories

The questions have been great. People learn more from the questions that others have than just the presentations themselves.

Marketing On The Internet

Among the services offered by SCORE is the ability for email counseling. You can type in a few keywords, and a list of potential email counselors is displayed. Then you can type a more detailed question to the counselor of your choice.

I participate as a counselor. Since my profile has "eCommerce" in it, I tend to get internet site questions.

INC Publishing along with Verizon and SuperPages.com put out a guide for SCORE called "How To Really Market On The Internet." This is a very readable treatment of a number of topics. It is worth your time to download and read.

SuperPages.com just looks like a yellow pages directory. The trick is to go a level deeper into the brocure URL; www.superpages.com/ilt is the Internet Learning Tutor. There is a further section that presents information for business on Marketing on the Internet.

Texas Music

I realize this sounds like a strange topic for a business site. But music is big in Austin, and many clients are interested in entertainment related businesses.

I was looking for a friend. As I Googled his name I ran across a business resource I wasn't aware of (he was registered as a musician). The governor's office maintains a Texas Talent Register for musicians.

The registry is a small part of a larger site, The Texas Music Office. This is a portal with a gold mine of services and state information about music. Including a section called "Business Guides." These cover a variety of topics such as booking tours, copywrites, and license requirements (to name just a few topics).

Bootstrap "Social" Networks

I've received an invitation to have an Austin SCORE presence on the Bootstrap Online Social Network. I am only vaguely familiar with Facebook etc, though I understand the concept. And, for small business marketing, I certainly understand the value of networks of people.

I'm not conversant, yet, with all the Bootstrap terminology. They have their own model for business trajectory and skill sets. I registered SCORE #249 as a "mentor." That may be a misnomer, since we often are looking for more traditional business plans and funding.

The price was right, however, FREE!

I've added a new links category on the left side for small business networks and groups in the 5 county area which is our prime source of clients. The small business links are for more national and general sites.

Update: I found a site that has a number of networking hints and articles.