Small Biz Growth

I don’t often attend conferences or small business classes here in Indianapolis so I was delighted to find out about a day-long workshop that Business Ownership Initiative of Indiana was co-sponsoring in Carmel.  I took a few classes at the B.O.I. when I was first getting Binding Bee started and official so I knew that I would be in good hands. It was a great event and they even fed us lunch!  I was also once again reminded how important it is to get out of the studio and be around other creative small biz owners to share ideas, questions, stories and growing pains.  Allison Ford, Beth Guipe Hall, and Brandon McDonald were also in attendance and had excellent thoughts, feedback, and questions to contribute both in and out of the workshop.  We all attended the Marketing Class that was taught by Kim Brand of Computer Experts, Inc.

Brandon mentioned in his blog post about the day how nice it was that Kim was teaching about marketing but was not in the marketing industry himself.  I agree!  He basically shared a huge variety of resources with us that he has collected over his decades of running a small business and answered any questions we had about business, marketing, and strategy.  The interactive style of our dialogue was incredibly helpful and made the day quite entertaining.  I verbally process things (when I’m not scribbling it down in a journal) so getting to ask questions, bounce ideas around, and contribute to other people’s questions was the perfect “classroom” structure for me.

I came away from the day invigorated, challenged and full of information.  I’ll be posting some more of my growing process as I sort through my notes and get my plan sketched out for the next few seasons of small biz ownership that I’m entering into.

Any good sites or sources that I should know about that have been helpful to you?  I would love to hear about them!