This month's B2B Subgroup meeting will be led by Christopher Hastings.
Other than adding up their own costs and adding a % margin on top of that, most businesses have little knowledge of how to price their products. We are going to look at a few of the best tricks and tips for developing your pricing model for your business. Whether you are trying to build a SAS subscription model or running a retail store and fighting prices on commodities, we'll identify some of the key considerations to know when pricing your products.
Our presenter Christopher Hastings has studied at both the Acton School of Business and the London School of Economics, building expertise in both entrepreneurship and international development. He is the founder of two startups, one focused on providing CPAs with the tools they need to counsel entrepreneurs (including on topics of pricing) and the other focused on location analysis for economic development. Despite having written textbook chapters on entrepreneurship and run budgets of 150MM+ supply chain projects, he is never happier than when working one on one with entrepreneurs to improve their businesses.
campus2careers and Tech Ranch have developed a program to connect students with start-ups to help grow your business? Like to learn more?
Join campus2careers for an informal happy hour at Tech Ranch Austin Friday, July 30 at 4:00PM and participate in a demo of the campus2careers website that connects top student talent to startups and small businesses. Your organization needs these resources and the students need the experience and class or internship credit. Come find out how to get matched with the top student talent in Central TX this Friday at 4:00PM. To register go to: http://tracampus2careers.eventbrite.com/
Existing and aspiring entrepreneurs invited to Meet the Lender
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine recently named Austin the number one Best City for the Next Decade. In praising Austin, the ranking highlighted Meet the Lender, a city-run business loan fair, as a key example of the resources available for small businesses and start-ups.
This year, even more small businesses will have the opportunity to be a part of the next decade’s success. On Thursday August 5th, from 3 to 7PM, the City of Austin Small Business Development Program (SBDP) will host the 7th annual Meet the Lender exposition. The event, held at Palmer Events Center, brings representatives from dozens of local banks, community lenders, and other investors to the same place at the same time. In this informal setting, business owners can go from booth to booth to learn how to secure financing for their business and start forming critical relationships with lenders.
Austin has been recognized as one of the best U.S. cities to launch a new business and SBDP, a division of the City’s Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office (EGRSO), continues to offer no-cost and low-cost opportunities and resources for entrepreneurs wanting to begin or grow their businesses and successfully compete in today’s business environment.
“Small business owners aren’t always aware of the incredible and varied resources there are available to help them be successful,” said Rosy Jalifi, EGRSO Assistant Director. “We want to connect entrepreneurs to those resources. When Austin’s small businesses are successful, the City of Austin is successful and local jobs are created.”
The expected 400 or more attendees at Meet the Lender can also register to take a Business Resource Orientation class or a class outlining the City’s zoning, permitting and development processes during the fair. There is no cost to attend any part of Meet the Lender and free parking will be available in the Palmer Event Center garage. For more information or to register for the event call 974.7800 or visit our site and here's a video clip from last year’s event.
Fernando Labastida will lead this month's Bootstrap B2B meeting.
Topic: "Smarketing: How to market an international company in the US on a shoestring"
When: Monday, July 26, 2010 7:00 PM
Where: Business Success Center Chase Bank Tower 7600 Burnet Rd. Austin, TX 78757 933-1983
By use of white papers, case studies, press releases, blogging and social media, small international companies can implement the "Smarketing" methodology to enter the U.S. market: a hybrid of sales and marketing, in order to penetrate the fortresses corporate decision-makers set up to protect themselves from sales people, create buzz, and generate sales.
Fernando Labastida specializes in providing content marketing services for Latin American software companies wanting to penetrate the U.S. market. He's been a sales and marketing professional for the last 20 years, having worked for several Austin start-ups, including Powered, Vignette and Sunset Direct.
My colleagues and I are in town from New York doing a video on local entrepreneurs who rely on skilled immigrant workers. Some of our questions for the piece have to do with the caps and restrictions on H-1B visas and how those caps affect small businesses in the tech industry.
Our work is purely journalistic and educational.
We will be in Austin until Wednesday, July 14th, and are looking to talk to any interesting entrepreneurs who can speak about these issues from personal experiences. We always appreciate a character.
If you would like to know more, including our platform for the video, please email me: dghigliotty AT visibileeconomy DOT com.
What happens when folks talk a bunch and the talk makes its way into the presentations at a crowd sourcing event? Crowd talking! Come hear how it works. Join us at ATC/RISE Rave 3.0 on June 29, from 5:30 - 8:30 at ATT Executive Conference Center. Additional detail below.
What is Rave 3.0 about?
This Rave 3.0’s conversation is tech talent. Two standout presenters have the floor, Valerie Hausladen and Steven Tomlinson. They speak of passion and fortitude and the courage that finds careers that matter. It’s time for careers that fit our inner and outer fabric. These speakers will share practical stuff about how to get there. The good news, they’ll have 300 experts to help them!
What does Rave stand for?
R-A-V-E is Random – Access :: Various – Experts. Point blank: the event welcomes the audience and its expertise. The Rave design seeks each person’s thoughts: this event is all ears. At the event the audience helps make the night happen with questions and energy that will drive the talks forward.
How is Rave 3.0 different from other speakers’ forums?
From the start the Rave series has courted an irreverence for tradition. Initially, the crowd picked the speakers. Novel. Now, the crowd offers its voice. Really. To do that, version 3.0 brings social media to bare with Twitter, Facebook, email, blogs, and “question advocates”. All these things, and people, will move the crowd’s insights into the moment, to become part of it. The clear intent: make the voice of the people heard– loud and clear.
All right, what is “crowd talking?”
Crowd talking is what happens when a crowd truly voices its thoughts, feelings, and experiences. If the event increases the odds that the audience gets heard it is a job well done. This event leverages audience ideas with Twitter, Facebook, and old school stuff, for example, assigning folks to roam the room asking for content. Specifically, question advocates will capture the questions and thoughts of the audience. The speakers will then riff off of what gets heard as the talks progress. The crowd’s voice comes alive in real time, real fast.
Ground breaking stuff, this crowd talk?
Will this event be ground breaking? Hard to tell until it happens. One thing is for sure: the challenge of maxing out the crowd’s voice is worth it, whatever crowd you are part of. That’s because of the power of the wisdom of the crowd. Awesome stuff.
So why I am blogging about this?
The idea for RAVE 3.0 was a product of the imaginations of Steven Tomlinson, Kevin Leahy, and myself. The team putting the event together includes the phenomenal groups ATC and RISE led by the capable Julie Huls and Georgie Thomsen, respectively. So you know its going to be a rock star event with such leaders, speakers, and creators. So sign up by clicking on the link and RSVPing on the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108588169185734
Web developers have pounded into our heads the notion of new content as being the lifeblood of search engine optimization, but most companies have yet to figure out a strategy that consistently provides relevant content to their target audience.
In the media world, the editor controls the content of the medium. They decide what stories get published, and those decisions are based on content that they know will resonate with their demographic (because they understand their audience–the same way that you should understand your customer). It’s true in print, TV and radio, and it should also be true in regards to your website.
If the main goal of your website is to serve as a marketing vehicle that attracts potential customers and communicates with existing ones, then you need to view it as an e-publication–and your marketing department should become your newsroom–with the editor at the helm.
The process for developing relevant content on your website begins exactly the same way–determine who your audience is, understand their issues, develop an editorial strategy that helps them solve those issues (such as an editorial calendar), and assign those stories to your writers (blogs, articles, press releases). Your writers could be your internal marketing department, or people in your organization with content expertise, or they could be external writers such as freelance journalists and marketing agencies. Most importantly, develop deadlines so you can publish your material on a consistent basis.
Once you’ve started this ball rolling, there are many ways to leverage the distribution. People will start finding your relevant content through searches (pull strategy) and you can link to that content in your newsletters and announcements that all lead back to your website (push strategy).
To ensure conversion, make sure you have ways to engage your prospects–but that’s a whole other story. (See Brian Massey)
# posted by Jason Myers, Editor, Austin Entrepreneur Network and Texas CEO Magazine @ 9:28 PM 0 comments
