University of La Verne SBDC Small Biz Blog

If you have a passion for fixing things and enjoy working with your hands, starting a handyman business may be the perfect way to turn your skills into a profitable business. Starting a handyman business can be an excellent opportunity for those who enjoy working with their hands and want to be their own boss. With the demand for home repairs and renovations on the rise, starting a handyman business can be a lucrative venture. In this guide, we'll walk you through the essential steps to get your handyman business up and running successfully. Business Planning One of the first steps in starting a handyman business is identifying your target market and competition. Your target market includes the specific group of people or businesses you will be serving with your services. This may include homeowners, property managers, real estate agents, and small business owners. Another important step in starting a handyman business is creating a business plan and setting goals. Your goals shou...

Are you struggling to develop a successful marketing plan for your business? Creating an effective marketing strategy can seem daunting, but it doesn't have to be. By answering seven critical questions about your business, you can develop a comprehensive marketing plan that aligns with your goals and maximizes your return on investment. In this article, we'll walk you through each question and provide actionable tips and insights to help you create a marketing plan that drives results with examples. Let's get started. Check out the example here. Question #1: What is Your Business Identity? Your business identity is the unique set of characteristics that differentiate your brand from competitors and make it recognizable to customers. This includes factors such as your company's mission, values, unique selling proposition, brand name, logo, and visual identity. Consistency in these elements across all marketing channels and customer touchpoints helps reinforce your brand...

Do you have a small business website and are looking to sell a couple of products or are you looking to create a simple eCommerce website and think it takes hundreds or thousands of dollars? In this final part of my Google sites series, we will take your small business website and set up a simple eCommerce website with a cart integration and keep track of the money you make. This is part 3 of a series on building a small business website with Google sites. In part 1 , we created the site and set up our basic pages for a video marketing company. In part 2 , we upgraded the site with a professional domain name, email, booking page, and blog for our customers. In this final part, we are going to use a free app called Ecwid to create a store with some products and use a program called Wave Accounting to keep track of your finances.  Set up The first thing we need to do is to set up our store. Head to your google site backend and log in to edit your site and we are going to add a store ...

Do you have a small business google site and are looking for an upgrade? In this second part, let’s take your small business google site, give it an upgrade and make it a functional business site. In part 1 , I showed you how to use Google sites to create a simple website for your small business. In this part, I’ll show how to upgrade your site with a professional domain & email, set up an appointment calendar to schedule, and set up a blog. So, let’s get started.  Step 1: Professional Now that we have our business site set up and published, you may have noticed the web address for our website starts with sites.google.com/ with our business site name at the top of our builder page. If you want to have a professional site you want to have a professional domain that people can trust instead of some random name .  Domain name  Head to your google site and enter your google site editing screen. To add a domain, click on the gear in the top bar and move down to custom doma...

Google sites is a free web builder from google that has been retooled into a viable option for personal sites and even business sites. It’s not as robust as a lot of paid tools but it doesn’t need to be. If you want to create a simple website for your small business or local services company then this may be the one to use. So let’s get started. Creating your Google Site  The first thing you will need to do is to find where you can make your site. Head to Sites.google.com and you will find the google sites page. If you already have a Google account you can create your site and host it for free on your google drive. At the top are some templates you can start with or a blank one to start from scratch. The bottom is where all of your sites will be when you start making them. Let me show you the project I’m working on. This website is going to be a video production and marketing company for small businesses. This center pane is where all the content or the wording and graphics will ...

by Joshua Botello Using video for creating content and growing your business is the most powerful way to reach your customers. 86% of marketers say video has helped them generate leads for their business. Here at the SBDC, we create all kinds of content that most SBDCs don’t and have seen an increase in clients due to our video strategies.  In this video, I'll show you my process for creating this video and how long it takes me. I’ll show what tools I use and some tips if you are just getting started. Lights, Cameras, and action.   Pre Production At the very beginning of the process and before I even set up my tripod, I create a huge list of ideas to work with. I start with one or two-word subject titles that a video might be about but not every idea is a winner or will work at that time. I do this about once or twice a year. This gives me a huge list that I can write in a doc, spreadsheet, or anything else you use to record your ideas. Check out my video on blogging since mo...

by Joshua Botello A question we get from many B2B small businesses is “how do I get customers?” We typically refer them to LinkedIn because it's the biggest professional social network for engineers, buyers, and manufacturers. Our clients might be on the platform and don't know how to find the right people to interact with. So in this video, I’ll show you a simple 3 step process to finding prospects and customers on Linkedin.  Step 1: Know Your Customer Step 1 is to know your customer. You’ll ultimately need to create a list of people to contact and send them messages but you need to know who to target. Here is the information you need. Industry You first need to know what industry your prospects are in. If you are an IT consultant you need to know what kinds of businesses you work with. This could be financial services or the hospitality space, whatever your niche or industries are you need to identify those.  Company Now that you have your industries down it's time to nar...