South Florida Small Business Events

Here are some of the upcoming international business events in the Miami and South Florida area:

 

Miami Herald: Business happenings around South Florida-

Here is the link to the Miami Herald’s list of weekly business events.

 

Latin Business Club of America: Networking Event-

Join Latin Business Club of America for another fantastic Networking Event Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm 20 Biscayne Blvd. Miami FL 33132 Where Flagler Meets Biscayne www.MIABiscayne.com FREE ADMISSION COMPLIMENTARY DRINK & APPETIZERS Over $1000*  Cash Raffle and Prizes will be given away Valet parking available: $10 Our last cash winner went home with almost $500 In 2009, we gave away over $15,000 in cash and prizes *$1000 refers to the combined value of cash and prizes that will be given away

Latin Business Club of America Networking Event Joining us at our networking event will be: The Doral and Airport West Chamber of Commerce The Florida State Hispanic Chamber Latin Chamber of Commerce of USA (Camacol) Peruvian American Chamber of Commerce of Florida American Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce and Panamanian American Chamber of Commerce LET'S GET NETWORKING!!!

 

South Florida International Business Expo-

South Florida INTERNATIONAL

Business-to-Business Expo

Business-to-Business Trade Show – Free Seminars - Awesome Networking – Trading After-Hours

Organized & Supported by Members of the “Alliance to Promote International Trade”

INFO: Broward (954) 565-5750 Palm Beach County (561) 683-8414 Miami-Dade (305) 278-1811

or Publisher@SouthFloridaChamber.org or Register to Exhibit @ www.ChamberRSVP.com

or under Products & Services at www.SouthFloridaChamber.org

PRESENTED BY

Broward County Chamber of Commerce, South Florida Chamber of Commerce, Florida Foreign Trade Association, World Trade Center Miami, Peruvian American Chamber of Commerce of South Florida, Bolivian Business Council, Brazilian American Chamber of Commerce of Florida, Caribbean Trade Center, Chile U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Colombian American Chamber of Commerce, Costa Rican American Chamber of Commerce, Dominican American National Chamber of Commerce, Doral Business Council, Ecuadorian American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Miami, El Salvador American Chamber of Commerce, Florida China Chamber of Commerce, Greater Miami Aviation Association, Hialeah Chamber of Comer & Industries, Nicaraguan American Chamber of Commerce, Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce Miami, Puerto Rican/Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Broward County, U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce Inter-American Chapter, Venezuelan American Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce, Enterprise Florida

TEAM EVENT – Together Everyone Achieves More

@ The Miami Free Zone

2305 NW 107^th Avenue, Doral, FL 33172

Up To 300+ Exhibitors & 5,000+ Business Exec’s

International Trading After Hours

Business Expo: Wednesday, May 12^th, 2010

commemorating world trade week 2010

3:30pm – Seminars, Opening Ceremony & Business Expo, 8:30pm – Raffles, 9pm end of expo.

FREE ADMISSION with RSVP Below to Seminars & Expo Includes Hors d'oeuvres, Great Networking & much more!!!

Exhibitor Space Only

6Ft Table Exhibitor Package $175.00

Oversized VIP Exhibitor Space $350.00

Membership & Exhibitor Packages Include:

6 Ft. Table Expo Package, 1 Year South Florida/Broward County Chamber Membership, Free $295 Ad In the South Florida Business News Newspaper, A Tile Ad ($240 Value) for 90 days on www.SouthFloridaChamber.org, Full business listing in our 4 Color Referral Directory, Your Member Discount faxed and e-mailed to all members, Free Classified ad, Free Job Posting, Free Article Submission, Free Coupon ad, Free Professional Gallery Listing plus Much Much More……

ONLY $425.00* (Value $2,320) or OVERSIZED VIP Spot Only $625.00 (Value $2,995)

RSVP PLEASE __#Attending May 12^th __Exhibitor Registration May 12^th __Send Info RE: Below

Company Name __________________________________Contact Name___________________________________

Address__________________________________________________City______________________Zip__________

Phone___________________Fax______________________E-mail________________________________________

___6Ft Table Exhibitor Package $175.00 ___Oversized VIP Exhibitor Package $350.00

_Pkg #1-6’ Package & 1 YR Membership $460* _Pkg #2 – Oversized VIP Exhibitor Spot & 1YR Membership $660.* *= Includes One Time $35 admin fee

_Check ck.#_____ Tot Amt $______ Electricity – $25 Extra Log Onto www.ChamberRSVP.com to register and pay on-line

__ MC,VISA,AE,DISC #__________________________________________________Exp. ________Sig._____________________________

Any refunds requested on this show will be honored towards future shows or advertising. No cash or credit card refunds. BCCC/SFCC is a 501 c 6 non-profit org.

Fax With Payment To (954) 566 - 3398

Or Mail to SFCC BCCC 2425 East Commercial Blvd. Ste 103, Fort Laud. FL 33308

81 Consecutive Sold-Out Trade Shows, Over 16,075 Exhibitors, Over 329,000 Attendees, Millions of Dollars in Transacted Business, Partnerships, Alliances, Contracts, New Customers, New Relationships, New Products!!

INFO: Broward County (954) 565 -5750 Palm Beach County (561) 683 - 8414 Miami-Dade County (305) 278 - 1811

www.BrowardBiz.com www.ChamberRSVP.com www.SouthFloridaChamber.org

Join the Broward County & South Florida Chamber of Commerce on Facebook by clicking here http://www.facebook.com/broward.chamber

Follow the Broward County & South Florida Chamber of Commerce on Twitter - Click thru on this link www.twitter.com/BrowardChamber

For the next 30 days, all business owners in South Florida are entitled to one free job posting on the Broward County & South Florida Chamber of Commerce websites. Send the Job Offered Title and any description of this position and any contact information to Publisher@SouthFloridaChamber.org.

To see the 2009 Official Broward County Referral Directory on-line, log onto http://www.sficc.org/2009-referral-directory.html

To see the 2010-2011 Official South Florida Referral Directory on-line before it goes to the printer, log onto http://www.erhunit.com/erhu/dir/

To see the most current issue of the South Florida Business News Newspaper on-line, log onto http://www.southfloridabizdirectory.com/Newspaper.swf

 

University of Miami: Multi-Chamber Networking Event-

 

Green Day Hialeah-

 

14th Annual Lawyers Strike Against Child Abuse Bowling Tournament-

GRAB YOUR BALL We're Going Bowling!

Family Resource Center of South Florida Presents the 14th Annual Lawyers Strike Against Child Abuse    Bowling Tournament

Saturday, June 12, 2010      Registration 12:30pm Tournament 1:00 pm BIRD BOWL B o w l i n g  C e n t e r 9275 SW 40th St · MIAMI · 305.221.1221 Registration Fee                                        Limited Space! $350 team/lane                                                    Live DJ 4 bowlers per lane                                    Raffle & Auction includes shoes & lunch!                                                  DOWNLOAD THE RESERVATION FORM Questions, call (305) 960-5536 All proceeds to benefit:

5 Ways to Improve Your Small Business Operations

Every small business wants to find more efficiencies, save on costs and thereby generate a greater profit.  Add your comments on things you think also help.  Here are 5 ways that a small business owner can improve their small business operations:

Establish a Plan

The first key to any sort of improvement is the lay out a plan.  Put it writing and spell it out clearly.  Planning can occur on many different levels and at many different times.  If your company has several areas of operation, you can address one issue at a time and therefore spread out your planning time.  Regardless of how you structure it, though, it is critical to create a plan for your operations.

Research Your Industry

It is critical to constantly educate yourself on what you are doing.  Take a look at your competitors.  What are they doing to be successful?  Why are they doing what are they doing?  What can you do better?  Also, take a look at businesses that started in your industry and then failed.  Why did that happen?  What did they do that lead to failure?  How does that compare with what you are doing?  Also, research the processes that you use in your business and compare those to similar industries and see what they do.

Measure Your Changes

For any plan to really be successful, you need to have a way of measuring success.  When you sit down and plan out the things that you will do to improve your operations, it is critical that you spell out how you are going to measure it.  What are you doing to track the changes?  Who is in charge of documenting the information?  What numbers are most important for you to see that the changes are working?  Make sure your plan comes with a way of evaluating it.

Re-evaluate Your Small Business

Always take time to go back to your original plan and re-evaluate the things that you are doing in your small business.  How have the circumstances changed?  What can we continue to improve?  What is working?  What should we discontinue?  This process of re-evaluation is enabled by effectively created metrics under your plan, as addressed above.  Always be willing to make adjustments to improve your business, but have a real reason for when you make those changes.

Delegate in Your Small Business

As much as is practicable in your business, assign tasks to other people either internally or via out-sourcing.  This becomes even more effective when you have a good handle on the talents of the individuals that you are using for delegated work.  If you know your employees well, you may be able to delegate some tasks, such as social media management, that might not normal fall under the purview of their responsibilities but that they have a great aptitude for.  The more you can maximize everyone’s efforts in the business the better your operations will be.

 

What are your thoughts?  Add you comment below:

Small Firms Need a Healthcare Checkup as Laws Evolve

Health care reform generated a lot of discussion and debate.  Now that the bill has passed, small business owners need to evaluate the impact that the new law will have on their operations.  Because of the importance of the issue, I wrote the following article for the Miami Herald.  What are your thoughts?

Miami Herald Article: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/19/1583525/small-firms-need-a-healthcare.html

5 Ways to Get New Clients/Customers

Every business owner knows how important it is to constantly feed the stream of clients or customers they are doing business with.  Here are five tips that, if diligently followed, will help your business increase in clients or customers.

1) Provide Good Service/Good Products

First and foremost, you really need to provide a product that people want.  Providing good service or a good product will do two things with current clients/customers: First, it will keep them interested and they will return for more services.  Second, they will share their positive experience with friends and neighbors in similar situations and refer your services.  Existing clients can be some of the best marketers for your business, so it is critical that you provide them with as many great experiences as possible.

2) Create a Buzz

There are many ways to get people to talk about what you do or produce.  More traditional forms of working with traditional media can be beneficial in many instances.  Uses services like HARO and research local news organizations or industry journals in order to find opportunities to contribute on topics of interest.  Respond to those areas and issues that fit your circumstances and comment in articles that match your expertise.  Also, there are many opportunities to use new media like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to manage and increase the conversation about your products.  The most important elements of creating buzz are persistence and a little luck.  Stay the course and you find ways to generate interest in your product.

3) Talk to People

It is key to take advantage of every chance you get to tell people about your products or services.  Consistent communication with service providers or former clients will keep your business on their minds.  Talk about what you do at dinner parties, networking events and trade shows.  The more people you can speak with about your services, the more likely you are able to receive new clients or referrals.  Go to lunch with other people, seek out opportunities to meet new people and then talk with everyone that you can.  You never know who might be interested in what you do.

4) Get Exciting

For all of the above ideas to really work, you have to be excited and exciting.  If you are passionate about what you do or provide, people are going to be more likely to listen.  Otherwise, all of the above run the risk of coming off as annoying or pushy.  If you are enthusiastic about what you do and what you provide to others, that enthusiasm will rub off on them and they will be more interested in what you do.  They will want to learn more.  Some will turn into clients.  Others will spread that enthusiasm to others.  Get excited about what you do, be exciting to others and you will see increases in clients/customers.

5) Follow-up

Finally, it is necessary to follow up with people.  If you say that you will do something/contact them, then do it.  Some client or customer relationships make take several months/years to develop, but if you stay on top of the relationship, they often turn in to great client relationships.  The more ways you create opportunities to follow-up, the better able you are to track the effectiveness of all your efforts to get new clients.  Create benchmark/action items for each person that you speak with to track how you will follow-up.  Consistency in all of the above will create opportunities to gain more clients.

5 Ways to Improve Your Contracts

Every small business owner should have a good handle on what is in each of their contracts and should play some role in their development.  The reason for this is that contracts can play an important role in shaping the nature of the business that is performed.  Here are five “c’s” to focus on while developing your contracts.  Feel free to add any suggestions that you may have in the comments:

1) Clarity

Make sure that you and whomever you are contracting with understand the nature and the terms of the contract.  While it is relatively simple these days to purchase or download template contracts for your small business, it does not necessarily mean that they will be a clear outline of what the two parties are planning on doing.  For a contract to be truly effective, it needs to be clear.

2) Conversation

Take the time to discuss with the necessary parties what everyone thinks their role and others’ roles are in the agreement.  A contract, in essence, is the written summation of what the parties agree their roles and responsibilities are.  Talk about it.  Negotiate it.  Make sure everyone understands what they should do and what others expect.

3) Consistency

Contracts are much easier to manage if you establish a level of consistency in each transaction.  While each deal is different, there are many similarities from deal to deal.  The more consistency you can create, the easier your job is.

4) Cooperation

Too many people feel like business needs to be dog-eat-dog.  Real, meaningful business is about relationships.  Work hard to establish those relationships and then use any agreement to maintain that.  Work together to build consensus on what the business relationship will be.  Create opportunities to succeed and be reasonable with mistakes.  We all make them.

5) Cohesiveness

At the end of the day, it is important to make sure that your agreements work together.  This can mean across deals (duties and responsibilities in one contract should not conflict with duties and responsibilities in another contract) as well as within a specific contract.  Make sure that there is harmony in the work that you are doing and there is less likelihood of difficulty.

3 Reasons You Should Use Google Alerts In Your Business

Love it or hate it, Google has created numerous web resources that can be of great benefit to business owners.  One such resources is the Google Alert feature.  Here are three reasons that your business should consider using Google Alerts:

 

Monitor Your Brand-

Google Alerts can be an excellent way of monitoring your brand on the internet.  By setting up an Alert for your company name, a product, or your own name, you are able to track what is being said about you or your product on the internet.  This allows you to efficiently respond to any potential concerns in a timely way and better engage in the conversation about your brand.

 

Monitor Your Competitors-

Also, as you are monitoring your own brand, you can also monitor what competitors are doing or what is being said about them using an Alert.  Again, by doing a search for a major competitor’s name/products, you can track what their successes and failures may be and adjust your marketing/game plan accordingly.  This can be an effective resource for market research and SWOT analysis.

Understand Trends in Your Industry-

By using Google Alerts to monitor industry topics, you will be better able to adapt what you are doing to changes in your industry.  You can also gain access to resources that will help you improve your understanding of general business topics that you may feel you need some further education on.  The benefit is, whatever you are interested in tracking and learning about, you can monitor with a Google Alert.

 

What other resources do you suggest using?  Add in the comments below:

Today in Business Blogs

Included below are some links to business blogs on the internet today:

Customer Complaints are Good for Business

This article discusses the increased access that we have to customer complaints because of social media and important principles to implement as we respond to those complaints.  We must always evaluated what is at the root of that complaint and use it as a catalyst to improve ourselves and our business.  It goes beyond simply responding.  Complaints really should be agents for change and that requires a bit of humility on our part.  Get more information by reading the article.

Prenuptial Planning for Business Partners

Clearly outlining interests and expectations are boons to managing any growing business relationship.  Business owners should take the necessary time to evaluate potential issues and how you deal with them at the onset of the relationship; not when the problems arise.  This article includes some good tips about how to go through that planning process.

Why Small Town Small Biz Has an Advantage at Using Social Media Tools

Social media is creating tools that are becoming more and more localized.  So, while it is also easier to engage the world, we should also recognize the benefits in engaging our local audience.  This article has some great information in that regard.

Small Business Advisory Sessions

As a part of my law practice, I will be offering a new service entitled Small Business Advisory Sessions.  Information is included on my website.  Click to learn more.  I would love some feedback on what small business owners would like to see in an Advisory Session like this.  Please add to the comments the things that you would look for.

The Benefits of Advisory Boards to Small Businesses

I came across this blog post and it presents some ideas that I have been thinking about a lot recently.  Advisory boards are used frequently in major corporations but are often overlooked by small business professionals.  Advisory boards are great ideas for three reasons: 1) it allows business the chance to get feedback from industry professionals, 2) it creates and interesting and unique sounding board for small business owners, and 3) it can also act as a unique marketing arm for the business.  Take a look at some of the resources in this blog:

http://mazurkraemer.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/the-value-of-an-advisory-committee-for-your-business/

25 Ways to Jump-Start Your Business

Linked is an interesting article from Inc.com that discuss 25 things that you can do in order to jump-start your business.  Here are why three of them stand out to me:

#2 Engage Your Employees-

By engaging your employees more in decision making and planning within your business, you can an added “advisory board” with an unique and fresh perspective on the direction of your business.  It also allows employees to feel more committed and involved in the organization, thus further motivating them.

#6 Shed Your Problem Customers-

This is true in any industry, we should not be so caught up in making a sale, closing a deal or signing a new client that we lose sight of what they might cost us in the long run (e.g. unrealistic demands on time, inability to be satisfied, consistent complaints about work product).  You are better served focusing on a few good clients.  Don’t let the bad ones distract your time from that.

#18 Find Some Amazing Interns-

As the article says, interns help to fill gaps within your business.  Take advantage of local colleges and university.  Work with career services offices to create new and unique ways of motivating quality interns to join your team.

 

For more ideas, check out the article-

 

http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/02/25-ways-jumpstart-business.html

Access to Information:

One of the biggest drawbacks to the increased access to information that the internet gives us is the difficulty of sifting through everything to get to the information that you need.  This is especially true when looking through blogs and other user-generated content.  Here are some resources that help you sift through information to get to content that is useful:

http://alltop.com/

http://globalvoicesonline.org/

And here is some guidance about how to select blogs from the OPEN Forum:

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/article/how-to-decide-what-blogs-to-read-4-steps-trent-hamm

Personal Identity and Business Identity

The difficulty that many business owners have is separating the personal identity from the business identity. This is increasingly difficult in the new world of social media and direct line communications. There are three considerations to keep in mind when working on identity and business branding.

1) Your Industry

Each industry presents its own unique challenges based on how business interact with one another and their clients.  When determining how to create your business identity and potentially separate that identity from any personal presence that you may have in the public arena, it is first important to evaluate what the industry standard are and how similarly situation business operate.  In some industries, it is necessary for a business owner to separate their personal information/identity from the brand they are created.  This can be due to professionalism concerns, confidentiality issues or similar situations.  In other industries, the individual and business identities can become more blended as a business owner my want to establish more personal relationship with clients/customers.

2) Your Market

Also, in issues of branding and identity, it is important that a business owner know what the expectations of their market are.  Some customers or clients expect certain relationships to exist between themselves and the business provider.  This is especially true when operating internationally.  Pay attention to the culture of the market that you are operating in as well as the people with whom you are interacting.

3) Your Privacy

The last consideration you will have when evaluating the overlap of professional and personal identities is personal privacy.  This is critical relative to home contact information as well as information about family members.  In many industries, it is better to keep as much of this information private so as to protect the interests of those around you.  What is important to  remember in this regard is that many times the information that is supplied over social media sources is not private unless you specifically make a effort to make is so.

Examine Pricing

Here is a timely article about what companies should do to evaluate pricing.  This is important for the coming year as the market is still adjusting.  Enjoy the read:

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/tips/archives/2009/11/examine_pricing.html

Establish Daily Forecasting

Managing labor and resources is especially important to small business owners in this economy.  Here is a good article on things to do to establish daily forecasts:

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/tips/archives/2009/11/establish_daily.html

Sell Value, NOT Time

One struggle that many businesses face is how to quantify the value of the product or service that they provide.  Here is an interesting article about what pricing figures should be based on; especially in services businesses.  Enjoy the read:

http://blog.smallbusinessadvice.com/2009/10/21/sell-value-not-time.aspx?ref=rss

Small Business Counselor Video Series: Business Entities

Learn more about business entities here:

Can States Save Their Small Businesses:

Entrepreneur.com has an interesting article about the things that states are doing in order to assist their small businesses.  Read here:

http://blog.entrepreneur.com/2009/10/can-states-save-their-small-businesses.php

Planning For Your Small Business

Creating the metrics that work for you:

One of the major issues that separates successful individuals from less successful individuals is the ability to create and adapt a workable plan.  Because 2009 is coming to a close, now is an excellent time to establish your goals for 2010.  There are many resources for planning and goal setting for businesses.  I would like to outline three things that I have seen help in creating an effective plan: 1) creating metrics that work for you, 2) work the plan, and 3) adapt the plan.

CREATING METRICS THAT WORK FOR YOU

There first key element to establishing an efficient plan for your business is to establish proper metrics.  Metrics are the figures that are used to measure how well you are working toward your goals.  Good metrics are your stepping stones to achieve the goals that you have set.  They also allow you to track how achievable your goals are.  For example, if you want to achieve 5% growth in 2010, you metrics need to include the specific things that you will accomplish during the year to achieve that growth and the specific timeframe for accomplishment (i.e. marketing plans, improved efficiencies in pre-existing products/services, cross-selling, etc.).  The more specific the scope and time of your metrics, the easier it is to evaluate your goals.

WORK THE PLAN

Now that you have laid out your metrics for the coming year in order to successfully achieve the goals that you have made for yourself, the next critical element is to actually work your plan.  Do the things that you have decided that you need to do in order to achieve the goals that you have set for your business.  All to often, business owners lay out a business plan that will benefit, adapt and streamline their business.  Things they know that will help them to succeed, but when the time to implement comes, the owners/managers end up doing the same things that they have done in the past and end up getting the same results.  When we set goals to make changes, we must make a consistent, focused effort to achieve the metrics that we have laid out for ourselves.  This means that we must keep the goals and metrics in our minds.  Three good ways to do this: create accountability, set time to follow up, and keep the goals and metrics in a place in your office where you will have consistent view of them.

ADAPT THE PLAN

Given both positive and negative advances over the past several years, our domestic and global economy has significantly changed.  In order to succeed going forward, our businesses need to be adaptable and flexible.  As you are working you plan and evaluating your metrics, you need to determine how effective that plan really is.  As you properly evaluate the things that you are doing, you may need to make changes to the plan and metrics that you have created to fit the realities of your business.  By remaining fluid and adaptable, you can better succeed in your business.

Now is a great opportunity for you to create a plan for success either personally or professionally.  If you want feedback on what you are planning or how to implement your metrics, feel free to call me and we can discuss it.

20 of the Best Resources to Get Your Startup Off the Ground

Here is an amazing resource for startups from Mashable.com.  A lot goes in to launching a new venture and one of the benefits of the internet is that it offers access to resources that allow people to educate themselves in the industry they are working in.  This article brings a lot of those resources together:

http://mashable.com/2009/11/05/resources-for-starting-your-startup/

Shelling Out to Keep Your Business Alive

What are you doing to keep your business afloat?  Here is an interesting article from Entrepreneur.com that discusses the lengths that certain small business owners are going to in order to keep their businesses operating.  Feel free to comment about some of the things you are doing in order to maintain your operations.  Here is the article:

http://blog.entrepreneur.com/2009/10/shelling-out-to-keep-your-business-alive.php