American Express OPEN/SCORE Speed Coaching FAQ

The purpose of Speed Coaching is to provide education, resources, and inspiration to small businesses. It will do this by putting business owners on their own fast track to becoming bigger, faster, better, and stronger through participating in a focused, interactive program that pairs them with experienced business coaches.

SCORE is America’s premier nonprofit source for free, confidential small business advice, boasting a national network of more than 11,200 experts drawn from Fortune 500 companies and successful small businesses.

As the team at American Express exclusively dedicated to providing products and services to small business, American Express OPEN draws on more than 20 years of market-leading expertise to help put participating small businesses on the fast track to growth and expansion.

Events were scheduled at the following locations/dates:

Previous Dates:

April
4/20: Treasure Coast/Space Coast, Florida
4/23: Cleveland, Ohio
4/23: Columbus, Ohio
4/23: Dayton, Ohio
4/25: South Palm Beach, Florida
4/28: Wilmington, North Carolina
4/30: Concord, New Hampshire 

May
5/6:   Salt Lake City, Utah
5/11: New York, New York
5/12: Orange County, CA

June
6/19: DC Convention Center, Baltimore, MD & Washington, D.C.
6/23: Portland, Oregon
6/26: Tampa, Florida

In 2007, the first event was held in Orlando, Florida. More details about the inaugural event.

Marketing Your Business

How do you develop and define your product or service? How do you identify and understand your target market? Maximize sales to current customers? Use strategic tools to evaluate and learn from your competition? Effectively promote your company? The answer to all these questions: effective marketing. The marketing workshops will offer an interactive discussion of cost-effective, creative, integrated marketing solutions—including guerilla advertising tactics and everyday promotional resources you may not have considered.

Success Stories

Get ready to be inspired. During this Q&A-style workshop, you’ll participate in a group conversation with a handful of entrepreneurs who have been where you are, know what you’re going through, and made it to the top. After you quiz them on the triumphs and setbacks they experienced on the road to success, you’ll be more convinced than ever of one thing: Entrepreneurs aren’t born—they’re self-made.

Following the Money

This workshop has a simple goal: to help you better understand your business finances, thus helping you direct future growth and funding. Call it the bottom line on the bottom line. Learn about the main sources of capital, what lenders and underwriters look for in a small business, how to optimize your credit profile, the basics of financial statements, and much more.

The Speed Coaching events are FREE for small business owners. These events reflect the commitment of American Express OPEN to supporting SCORE in its mission to reach out to our nation’s fastest-growing sector—small business!

Speed Coaching is designed for small business owners who will benefit from a one-on-one session with a SCORE counselor. The business owner will be introduced to SCORE’s resources and counseling program and will be able to continue counseling sessions in the future. A maximum of two people per invited company may attend the event.

SCORE and American Express OPEN, in conjunction with your local SCORE Chapter, will welcome attendees and pair them with assembled SCORE business counselors.

Aside from the fifteen-city Speed Coaching events, mentoring sessions can be scheduled on a private basis through any of SCORE’s 370 chapter offices across the country. Additionally, workshops and tools to assist small business owners will be made available at no charge through the SCORE homepage, at www.score.org, and American Express OPEN Small Business portal, at www.openforum.com.