Doing What I Love #Trep Talks with @torontolibrary #entrepreneurship #smallbiz
Invigorating! Insightful! Introspective!
That's a typical day in the life of the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at TPL. I've had the honour of meeting and consulting with 15 of our 43 aspiring and new entrepreneurs during these past 10 days. Here's a glimpse of the small business topics and themes we've covered to date:
- Marketing: discussing target audiences, market segmentation, knowing your customer, how to market to your target audience, branding, brand extensions, developing your story, your message
- Sales: ways to network, client acquisition, forecasting, defining your unique sales proposition, pricing strategies
- Product development: features vs. benefits, design principles, how to unblock creativity, packaging design alternatives
- Recruitment: how to hire and fire, staff retention, loyalty
- Planning: how to focus and set targets, how to get unstuck and move forward
- Operations/Production: big batch vs. small batch manufacturing, local vs. outsource
- Financing: finding financing, how to structure financing
- Strategy: finding partners, finding expertise, testing small vs. going big, course correcting, how and when to launch, positioning your value proposition
- Risk Management: liability and insurance, how to protect your intellectual property
Congrats to our entrepreneurs for their candour, courage, and consideration! I wish them much success as they continue their entrepreneurial journey. Round 6 starts this Saturday November 23rd at North York Central Library. Stay tuned for more lessons learned!
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