The first "Simple Steps for Starting Your Business" workshop was held in Boise at the Treasure Valley SCORE chapter's office's training room on Parkcenter Blvd. There were 15 workshop participants and several SCORE volunteers in attendance. The series of five workshops continues on Thursday, March 14th, 7 pm. Register for the series by going to our home page, treasurevalley.score.org, or by calling 208 334 1696 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., M-F.

Redefine Your Management “Quality Time”

As an Accion Austin Partner, Austin SCORE is pleased to make known a
Free Yelp and Accion's Small Business Connections workshop
covering Online Marketing and Microfinance

This is a very tempting concept as it would first appear to have very low start-up costs. This article is to give you a step by step process for which you can start an online shopping cart store.

You need a Business Plan and a Marketing Plan. Just because it is an online store, it does not mean you can bypass the thought processes that occur natually as you develop these documents.

Let's start with the basics:

1. Idea - The idea doe not have to be new but you must ask yourself why are people going to prefer to buy from my store vs others.
2. Competition - Who is your competition and how will you compete?
3. Costs - What are you costs in doing business?
4. Delivery and Warehousing - What shipping services are you going to use or are you going to have local pick up?
5. Advertising - With millions of website and only 10 on the first page of a Google search, how are you going to get on that first page.
6. Shopping Carts - There are many to choose from and they vary from a simple PayPal button to more complex retailing systems.
7. Analytics - To improve anything you must measure what you are doing now so you have a history of data.

5 Important Things to Know About Buying a Small Business

By Barry Rickert and Mike McDermott

Joe Gieger, author of Entrepreneurial Success, said today in our monthly SCORE meeting, "You have three options when you buy a business: Sell it, Liquidate it or Operate it."

While there are many entrepreneuraial choices, let's assume you wish to buy and operate a business.

Price is important but not as much as you think.
Most people are worried about price right off the bat. How much are you asking? That is the last question you should ask and as I will explain why later.