Calendar

Description:
Are you an aspiring or established business owner looking to get started with QuickBooks? Are you trying to figure out what you’re doing but keep getting lost? Do you like bagels? Well, then this is the workshop for you!

Who You Are: Although anyone interested in QuickBooks is welcome to take this workshop, it is designed for aspiring and established business owners looking to learn the basics.

What To Bring: You will need your laptop and possibly power cable. We will be performing exercises together using a sample QuickBooks Online data file.

What You Will Learn: In this SCORE workshop, you will learn how to use QuickBooks Online to record your daily business transactions. (No QuickBooks signup required!) Subjects covered include:

• Customer sales and payments
• Supplier purchases and payments
• Banking and Chart of Accounts
• Reporting from QuickBooks Online
• Best practices and common mistakes

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Description:
Make a plan now for "Keeping the Lights On"
Is your business prepared for a disruption beyond your control? Are your employees prepared?
An actionable business resiliency plan could mean the difference between business continuity or closure. Join the Washington SBDC for a no-cost 30 minute Business Resiliency webinar, "Keeping the Lights On".  An introduction to our 25-page guide to help small business owners prepare to respond quickly and recover from disruptions. Webinar participants will also receive a business resiliency plan template that they can customize to meet the specific needs of their business.

Keeping the Lights On will cover how to:

• Identify your critical resources
• Plan to use alternative resources
• Respond with your plan
• Bring your business back to normal

There will be a 30 minute Q&A session immediately after the webinar

This planning guide does not specifically cover COVID-19 or disruptions caused by the coronavirus. The webinar will include time for questions from participants about possible strategies for dealing with any disruption to business as usual. 

Pandemic Business Resources can be found at https://wsbdc.org/protect-your-business/

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Description:
This workshop will present straightforward, practical steps to managing cash  Are you or your client a small business owner managing in this downturn?  Perhaps your business did not exist during the last financial crisis 2008-2009.

Whether your business is a service business, manufacturing, retail or e-tail, restaurant or food service, import/export, there are solid strategies to help you manage your cash and keep your business alive during this turbulent time. 

From this workshop, you will learn how to:

• Manage current cash from operations by analyzing revenue, diversifying revenue sources, understanding the structure of costs & expenses, and managing your profitability
• Manage cash through investing and capital expenditures
• Manage cash from financing by managing debt, lines of credit, dividends, and distributions
• Learn about resources in place to help small businesses manage through the crisis.

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Description:

Learn how to read and understand financial statements. Understand how they apply to your business situation and what the various parts of the Balance Sheet and Income Statement mean. Learn how to evaluate the financial health of your business through the analysis of the Balance Sheet and Income Statement. 

Topics covered:

• Finance/Accounting terminology
• Why your Balance Sheet is so important
• The relationship between The Balance Sheet & Income Statement
• Cash & accrual methods of accounting
• Taxes and your Income Statement

We encourage participation by all attendees. Asking questions and sharing business experiences adds to the educational value you will receive. 

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Description:
This workshop is designed to give you, the business owner, the financial skills and know-how needed to perform key tasks like to:

• Determine how to accurately compute the amount of funding you’ll need to start your business.
• Learn how to project sales and create a projected profit and loss statement to forecast your future financial results realistically.
• Create a cash flow statement and manage your cash flow successfully.
• Keep your accounting records properly.
• Understand what taxes you and your business will be susceptible to pay and how to pay taxes timely.

Proper management of finances is crucial to any business’s success and a special set of skills is needed if you are a one-person business.  Join us to learn how to calculate your startup costs for potential financing, project your sales and profits, manage your cash, establish the right accounting system for your business and pay your taxes on time.  In other words, ensure you build a business right from the start that will grow and be profitable!!!

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Description:
Join us and other entrepreneurs in this hands-on workshop where you will write your “Unique Value Statement” for your new product or service.  This is a concise description of your product or service and explains the unique value your product or service provides to your customers.  As part of the workshop, participants will receive real-time feedback from a SCORE mentor to help them fine-tune their Value Statement.

In the second part of the workshop, you will use the “Lean Canvas” to begin the process of turning your product/service into a business.  In this interactive session, you use the canvas to help guide you in expanding the information in the Unique Value Statement by capturing key ideas, concepts, and strategies about your business in the canvas.  This creates a basic framework that you can use to complete YOUR full, detailed business plan.

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Description:
Do you want to know the 8 key strategies small businesses can use reduce their Federal and Washington taxes? Do you want to gain a deeper knowledge of what taxes you and your business are required to pay? If you answered "yes", you need to attend this workshop which is specifically designed for small businesses and their owners, and save you money!

This workshop will:

• Show you the types of Federal, state and local taxes to which a business in Washington may be required to pay.
• Demonstrate to you, with real-life examples, how to minimize your business and personal taxes so you keep more money in your business and your pocket.

View this short 2-minute video to understand more about this workshop:  video teaser

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Description:
Do you want to emotionally connect with your customers, expand your opportunities, and build a profitable business by having the right “brand”? Look no further!! Here’s a SCORE workshop that will provide you the know-how to help you build the brand you have always dreamed about to make your business a success. 

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Description:
In Part 1 of our Marketing workshop series, we start by helping you identify your target market.  These are your best potential customers and knowing them helps you create a better product or service.  It also makes all your promotional efforts more focused and effective.   

We show you how to finalize the design of your product or service and make sure it’s right for your target market.   Then we take you through how to create a value proposition that perfectly captures the unique value your product or service brings to your customers.  Next, you have to build your marketing message.  That’s the information for your brochures, websites, and anything else you use to sell your product or service.  We will also review a number of promotional methods and help you draft a promotional plan for your business.   

This workshop focuses on hands-on exercises to help you create a target market, value proposition and promotion plan for your business.

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Description:
In Part 2 of our Marketing workshop series, nothing hurts the profitability of your business more than choosing the wrong price for your products or services. In this workshop, we show you a process for pricing your products. Since pricing a service is very different than a product, we cover the separate process for pricing your services. We also show you how to get your business online

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