Helping Businesses Grow & Succeed
What is public relations? “It starts with understanding the purpose of the company and then defining how the company communicates, with customers and with journalists,” said Nile Kirec, a consultant at Florida SBDC at FIU, the small business development center within FIU’s College of Business, who specializes in marketing, PR […]
Most small business want to hire veterans, but few are actively trying to do it. Those are the findings of a large small business survey out this week. This quarter, the MetLife & U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business Index surveyed small businesses about their experience in hiring and retaining […]
As small businesses get ready for the final quarter of the year, it’s a good time to reflect on some best practices for growth. We are beginning to see signs that the economy may slow down, which makes having a handle on all your growth levers all the more important. […]
The “R word” is back. A growing number of economists and business forecasters are raising the likelihood of a recession. I know, I know, here in Florida we just escaped a hurricane and now we are talking about recessions? But recessions hit smaller companies much harder than larger ones, so […]
In Florida, 60,000 Florida companies are exporting $55 billion in goods and services overseas. Small businesses account for 66 percent of all those exports. The exporting process may seem daunting but if you have a product or service with a proven track record in the domestic market, you may be […]
Last year, the Category 5 Hurricane Michael caused $18.4 billion in estimated losses in Florida and severe devastation for thousands of small businesses. Listen to Panhandle business owner Ben Kaempfer, general manager of Cottondale-based Register’s Meat Company: “We lost $35,000 worth of inventory because we weren’t able to refrigerate it. Our employees […]
Before he opened his retail store, Eric Wooden designed his own line of urban graphic t-shirts on nights and weekends and sold them from the trunk of his car. On weekends, Wooden attended trade shows and knocked on a lot of doors of Miami retailers, finally winning his first wholesaling […]
When Corina Jimenez’s doctor in Venezuela urged her to cut dairy from her diet, she explored options for satisfying her sweet tooth. She didn’t like what she found out there – eating healthy shouldn’t mean sacrificing taste, she believed. So Jimenez did what others in her entrepreneurial family would do: […]
Siri, find me a story about voice searches for small businesses. This year, the chatter in small business marketing circles is moving from SEO its VSO (voice-search optimization), as it should be. By next year, more than half of all internet searches will likely be voice searches, using AI-enabled assistants […]
An interesting young company offering franchises for the first time might sound like a sexy opportunity, but buyer beware. With franchising, you are buying into a proven business model – it’s one of the key benefits of franchising. Because 70% of startup companies fail, your risk rises fast with younger […]