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"Your Success Connection" and the KUSBDC team
wishes each of you a prosperous and happy New Year. To help you
get your business off on the right track for this year this
e-newsletter features some new planning tools for you to use
"working on your business".
The KUSBDC closed out the year with another record year with
client successes and program results. We were excited to be
featured in the Wall Street Journal on December 16, 2002 along
with our client Bob Moose. We look forward to serving you this
year.
| In
this issue |
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| XL
Network Group Inc. featured Client Spotlight |
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I am pleased to announce that the first business to move
into the Foundation for Entrepreneurial Studies business
office incubator with the KUSBDC is XL Network Group
Inc. Vicki Hoffnagle, President and her husband Greg are
featured as our client spotlight.
XL Network Group Inc. will focus in IT LAN/WAN
development and support. The firm is well qualified to
bid on both large scale projects as well the small to
medium sized business projects seeking help and support
in the IT area. They will specialize in three areas of
IT:
1) Design, installation and support of Cisco Systems
products.
2) Microsoft LAN development and support.
3) Web development in the area of web enabling of legacy
client server applications.
If you would like to contact Vicki or Greg you may do
so by calling 717-232-2474 at 2917 North Front Street,
Harrisburg, PA.
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| Learning
Opportunities for January |
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Starting and Growing a Successful Business -
Designed for new or hopeful entrepreneurs, this workshop
outlines start-up steps and provides a SBA checklist for
going into business. The workshop will allow you to
learn and practice networking with other entrepreneurs.
In addition, the workshop will cover financial planning,
legal structures, and ...
Business Plan Part I- Receive access to
KUSBDC's improved Business Plan for Success web-based
planning tool that provides Step- by- Step guidance in
researching and writing your business plan. Learn how to
use this powerful tool to help develop your business
plan with ease! Workshop topics include business
description, products and services, marketing
analysis....
Business Plan Part II: Marketing Communications -
Workshop topics will include the positioning message,
public relations, personal selling, sales promotions,
advertising, distribution, customer experience, and word
of mouth strategy. Learn the basics of successful
marketing communications...
Business Plan Part III - This workshop will
discuss the financial issues related to writing a
winning business plan. The topics covered include: sales
forecasting, cash-flow projections, and the balance
sheet. We will provide each client with an RMA financial
ratios data sheet for their specific type of business.
We will discuss the methods....
Business Plan Part IV - This new and final step
in the Business Plan Series, will include a discussion
of financial information required to complete your
business plan, a presentation by a banker or economic
development loan specialist covering the 5 C's of Credit
and various loan programs, venture capital, angel
networks, and bank applications...
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| Web
Site Evaluator developed by Martin Brill |
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Just 5 years ago, a website made you the "talk of
the town" and perhaps unique among your peers, but
that's history. Today, it is commonplace and indeed
expected that you have a web site just as you have an
email address and a telephone!How good is your web site
and is it effective in helping you achieve your business
objectives? In this recessionary climate of careful
spending and cut-throat competition, each business must
maximize the benefit of its web site. After all, you
invested scarce time and money to create the web site.
Are you reaping the benefits?
Here is a quick test. The purpose of this evaluation
tool is to provide you with a non-technical framework to
judge the effectiveness of your web site. Like most
other analytical tools, the value of the output will
depend on the effort you expend. Why not take a few
minutes and analyze your web site within the 9
categories below so that your e-business is "all
that it can be."
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| "It's
time to work on your business, rather than in your
business" |
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| Now
that the New Year has arrived with much anticipation it
is time to dust off that old business plan and spend
some time doing what Michael Gerber would call
"working on your business, rather than in your
business". As part of our pledge to continually
offer our clients better service we launched our second
version of our "Business Planning for Success"
on-line planning tool this past summer.
More than 1500 of you have experienced this tool
first hand through your participation this past year
with our business planning workshops. We are offering
these workshops at a location convenient to you during
the next several months. To find out more about these
free workshops click on the "Register for
Seminar" option in the quick click corner.
What you may not know is that this resource also has
a helpful strategic planning tool available for your use
as well.
To help you update your plan we are offering all of
our 'Success Network" clients free access to our
confidential on-line Business Planning for Success (BPFS)
tool or the "Strategic Planning for Success" (SPFS)
tool. To activate your account all you need to do is go
the newsletter quick click corner and click on the
"Business Plan for Success" and register for
your account. If you don't believe how helpful this tool
can be to you just read what Vicki Hoffnagle had to say
about the tool in our "Client Spotlight
Corner"
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A New IT Business Launches
for the New Year
The Small Business Development
Center (SBDC) has been a great asset for the start up of
our company XL Network Group, Inc. In September, I
started attending the bi-weekly Business Plan for
Success workshops at the Kutztown University SBDC in
Harrisburg. The mentors were excellent at providing the
appropriate information needed for the beginning stages
of our business plan. They all brought enthusiasm that
inspired us to keep moving forward and laid a strong
foundation for our company. Each workshop presented a
different topic from financial analysis to targeting our
personal marketplace. The topics presented were used to
complete the on-line business plan and financial
spreadsheets.
The extensive framework of
Active Plans and the on- line SBDC business
plan/financial-planning tool, accelerated our startup
process dramatically. Without this tool, the month that
we spent writing our business plan and developing our
financial projections would have easily tripled. This
tool included sections where.....
On December 2, the KUSBDC
team moved to our newly renovated office space in
Harrisburg. Our new contact information:
717-346-2029 Phone
717-346- 2038 Fax
2917 North Front Street Harrisburg, PA 17011
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