|
|
Small Business Connections June 2013
|
|
|
Welcome to Small Business Connections!
The Illinois Small Business Development Center at Waubonsee Community College is here to serve your small business needs. We offer free business counseling to entrepreneurs and business owners, as well as a variety of small business workshops. To stay up to date on events, happenings and general IL SBDC information, we invite you to click below.
Call us today at (630) 906-4143 to learn how we can help you start or grow your business.
|
|
Small Business Spotlight
|
ABC Moms 
They say it takes a village to raise a child. Dana Burke and Jennifer Schuler started ABC Moms in 2008 with a vision of empowering parents along that journey.
As so many entrepreneurs do, Dana, a special education teacher, and Jennifer, a licensed clinical social worker, parlayed their expertise and passion into their new venture. At its onset, ABC Moms provided behavior-based family counseling to parents of children from toddlers to teens.
Dana and Jennifer met through a mutual friend and quickly realized they had many similarities. At the time, they were working in separate school districts, both in the role of Intervention Specialists. Throughout their extensive experiences in the schools, Dana and Jennifer had encountered so many parents that were struggling with children's behavior in the home and seeking in-home support.
As mothers themselves, they wanted to reach out to the community of parents to share their knowledge to help transform families and to promote positive parenting through love and understanding. Dana and Jennifer both feel that being a parent helped them to be better educators, and being educators helped them to be better parents. Thus was the conception of ABC Moms, a partner in parenting.
In 2010 they met Terry Parker, RN, who introduced them to a new concept that was gaining popularity on the east and west coasts. Dana and Jennifer loved the idea, and ABC Moms extended its services to parents of infants, providing overnight care, sleep training, lactation services and new parent education. Terry became their head nurse, spearheading the new infant program.
In 2012, Dana and Jennifer came to the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at Waubonsee for help addressing the challenges of a growing but cyclical business. They were struggling with how to coordinate hiring and scheduling, as they fluctuated between months where they had too many clients, and others where they had unscheduled staff.
"We came to the SBDC to solve our staffing problem, but left the meeting with much more. At the end of our first meeting, we not only had a game plan for the hiring process, but also realized that there was much more potential in our unique service," they said.
The SBDC helped ABC Moms prepare a pitch to the Fox Valley Entrepreneurship Center (FVEC). They received a grant, and working with the SBDC and other consultants, they embarked on an intensive three month program that included rebranding, repositioning their services, developing a hiring strategy, and creating a plan to take them to their next stage of growth.
Dana and Jennifer are now hard at work implementing this plan. Their new branding and web site are under way, and they hired, trained and certified seven new Infant Care Specialists. They also revised their marketing to better present the continuum of care that ABC Moms offers families, from infant care to parent coaching, home-school liaisons, and individualized plans for special needs children.
The new ABC Moms brand and website will go live in about a week. Dana and Jennifer invite you to see their new branding unfold. Take this opportunity to check out their website today to see their current brand today, then come back in a week or two to see the new brand.
"Working with the SBDC has opened our eyes to so many ideas and possibilities. After listening to all of the details regarding our company and service, an ongoing action plan was created to address our individual challenges, while remaining true to our values, vision, and mission. After every meeting with the SBDC, we leave feeling rejuvenated, determined, and motivated. Our partnership over the past several months has helped to transform our steady service company into a true business that stands apart from any competition. We are so grateful for this invaluable experience," report Dana and Jennifer.
For parents, a call to ABC Moms opens the door to a special resource where they can turn for expert answers, loving encouragement, peace of mind, and a good night's sleep. For more information, visit www.abcmomsinc.com or give Dana and Jennifer a call at (630) 299-4909.
|
|
Biz Buzz
| |
Take the Haze Out of Cloud Computing 
By Kimberly Warren, CEO
Crosswind VoIP
The use of the term 'cloud' in the IT services world has left many of us feeling a bit hazy. In its basic form, the use of the term 'cloud' means that multiple resources are accessing the same application from multiple geographic locations. This can be done privately, for instance, when a company virtualizes their servers and applications into hosted data centers whereby multiple offices from around the world may access the data and applications in those data centers. Or it can be done in the public cloud where an application is hosted and multiple clients access the technology remotely over a broadband connection. Either way, the cloud is nothing more than a many-to-one relationship over a broadband connection.
Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), or VoIP in the cloud is new cloud service that is taking off among companies ranging in size from several users to thousands of users. The benefit to using this type of service is that small and mid-sized businesses can access features that in the past were too costly to implement, or were only available to Large Enterprise customers.
With the cloud there are no costly upgrades. There are no maintenance costs. There are no licensing fees. There are significantly less up-front costs for hardware. With reduced capital costs, companies can invest in other parts of their business. With reduced operating costs, companies can drop savings (typically 30-50%) to the bottom-line by eliminating those old copper telephone lines and routing voice traffic over the internet.
The other great benefit to moving to a cloud-based VoIP solution is that you can access it from anywhere, anytime-as long as you have a broadband connection, increasing mobile work force productivity.
The results: your business gains a competitive advantage by having the latest-and-greatest telephony features, as well as being more operationally efficient.
A recent study by Rackspace indicated that companies using cloud computing improved profits by an average of 22%. In addition, 49% indicated that cloud computing has helped their company compete with larger companies, indicating that the cloud will give a boost to the next generation of startups. These statistics, plus many others from the study, were reported recently in several articles in Forbes:
Picking the right provider is critical. Look for a partner that performs a preliminary network assessment to ensure that your company has an IT infrastructure that is ready for the cloud. Make sure that they understand your business and how it operates. Ensure that you understand the SLA (Service Level Agreement) and that they are willing to compensate you for any loss of productivity. Make sure that the partner you choose can service your entire business (including remote locations and other offices). And finally, find a partner that is willing to show your organization how this technology can further improve your business operations.
|
|
Biz Bitz
|
Affordable Care Act News
What Small Businesses Need to Know About The Affordable Care Act
- This FREE 90-minute seminar will focus on small business opportunities and obligations presented by the Affordable Care Act including available tax credits, notification requirements and brief strategy considerations
- Learn how to comply with new regulations, how to minimize your tax liability, and how to build a health insurance plan in the new market
- Get the latest information on Health Insurance Exchange/Marketplace and Co-ops
- Click here for more information
Date: Fri., June 28
Time: 8:30-10 a.m.
Register Now
| |
Can Quick Serves Save the World?
No longer is local sourcing just a utopian ideal. It's a practice coming to life and continually gaining momentum in foodservice, with the number of local ingredients on menus growing by 73 percent over the last four years, according to market research firm Mintel.
In this article on local sourcing, QSR examines how this process can change the face of limited service-and the food system as a whole.
Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Peer Groups
John M. Ruh Consulting presents this FREE workshop which is solely for the growth oriented entrepreneurs, leaders and managers. You will learn from a short presentation as well as work in peer groups. Have your questions ready! To see more on this workshop or to register please click here.
Small Business Fraud - The Risk of Trusting Too Much
The National Bank & Trust Company is hosting a FREE seminar on Small Business Fraud on Thu., June 13, 2013 at the DeKalb County Farm Bureau in Sycamore, IL. Craig Greene, a partner with the firm of McGovern & Greene, LLP of Chicago, presents common small business frauds and 8 red flags to be aware of in preventing deception. With over 50 years of combined experience in forensic investigations, litigation support, and internal control assessment, audiences find his tips on fraud prevention and support to be extremely valuable. Advance reservations are required. Any questions or to RSVP please contact Tamara Newquist at (815) 754-7910 or email tnewquist@banknbt.com by June 7.
|
|
Get Smart: Small Business Workshops at Waubonsee
|
 Starting Your Business in Illinois ($30)
Wed., June 5, 6-9 p.m. (Aurora)
Tue., July 16, 6-9 p.m. (Plano)
Thu., Aug. 1, 6-9 p.m. (Sugar Grove)
Marketing for Small Business ($30)
Wed., June 19, 6-9 p.m. (Aurora)
Social Media Marketing for Small Business ($30)
Tue., July 30, 6-9 p.m. (Sugar Grove)
Google for Business ($30)
Tue., June 25, 6-9 p.m. (Aurora)
Facebook for Business ($15)
Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Law ($30)
Wed., July 10, 6-8 p.m. (Aurora) Power Networking ($30)Wed., Aug 28, 6-8 p.m. (Aurora) Is Franchising Right for You? ($30)Wed., July 24, 6:30-8:30 p.m. (Aurora) Business Plan Boot Camp - #1 Markets & Marketing ($30)Thu., June 20, 6-9 p.m. (Aurora) Wed., July 17, 1-4 p.m. (Aurora) Register at Waubonsee TicketsBusiness Plan Boot Camp - #2 Forecasting & Financing ($30)Thu., June 27, 6-8 p.m. (Aurora) Tue., July 23, 1-3 p.m. (Aurora) Register at Waubonsee Tickets
Check seminar details for the full list, class descriptions, locations, ticket numbers, and pricing. To sign up, complete and submit the registration form. For additional information call the Illinois SBDC office at (630) 906-4143.
|
A variety of QuickBooks and Excel classes are available to meet your small business accounting needs. Click here for complete class descriptions, locations, dates, times and costs.
|
|
|
|
|
Illinois SBDC at Waubonsee Community College
Funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration and Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. All opinions, conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA or DCEO.
WCC does not discriminate based on any characteristic protected by law in its programs & activities.
|  |
|
|
