As business owners and company leaders, we should always be networking and learning to help our businesses and grow ourselves as well as our teams. So, like you would expect, when I saw that SCORE was hosting their 7th Annual Small Business Conference in Philadelphia on October 26th, I signed up. There were some great tools and resources I learned there that I would like to share with you.
Before my good friend, Project Coach, and business transformation executive, Karen Norris, invited me to the Small Business Conference, I had never even heard of SCORE. For those of you who are in the same boat as I was, the SCORE Association is a non-profit, national organization with over 350 chapters which has been designated by the federal Small Business Administration as their primary resource partner. For over 50 years, SCORE volunteers have helped hundreds of thousands of small business owners via workshops, meetings and special events, and free one-on-one mentoring. The workshops are also free, but some of the other sponsors may charge a small fee. If there are 350 locations, there’s probably one near you! You can find out more information about SCORE by going to https://www.score.org. I’m following the Philadelphia chapter now so I can continue to go to their events and will also look into their mentorship program.
Another great tool I learned was how to edit your Google business listing – what shows up on Google Maps when you search for a company. As a business owner, you can edit what’s on that listing to provide potential customers with the most up-to-date information by going to https://www.gybo.com/business. And it’s free! If you don’t have a business listing, you can create one. You may have to log into your Google Admin console to enable it at https://admin.google.com/. You do have to have an actual location in order to use this service, though. Since I work remotely from my home, I don’t have access to it.
The last great resource I’ll share on this blog is an internet forum where you can help people out and gain a following. What’s a great way to find potential clients? Go to places where they’re asking questions that you have answers to! During the panel discussion at the conference, they mentioned a site called Quora (https://www.quora.com/) where you can go and ask questions or answer some that other people have. By replying to other people’s inquiries, you’re getting your name out there and being seen as an expert at the same time. Once you establish a presence, you can even host a session where you respond to queries that people ask you specifically!
These are just some of the great tools I learned from SCORE’s 7th Annual Small Business Conference. What other awesome resources do you have that can help business leaders or entrepreneurs? Comment on my blog or social media posting about it to share!