University of La Verne SBDC Small Biz Blog

Joy Helou DDS, Inc.  1434 S Grand Ave Glendora,CA,91740 Joy Helou DDS is a professional dental corporation located in Glendora, California. Joy purchased an existing practice due to the previous owner’s philosophy of practice and existing clientele, which proved to be a great fit. Joy is a relative of the Dean of Business and Public Management, she reached out to him for help with a business plan since the dental school didn’t equip graduates in that area. Joy’s biggest challenge was the lack of a business background. Since dental students spend years gaining skills in medicine, they would not have time or instruction dedicated to running a business. “My background in the sciences like biology and dentistry. I graduated with a B.S. from the University of La Verne in biology. The hardest part was having to buckle down, look at the business plan with Sean and make decisions with numbers. Currently, I look at that plan almost daily because it gives me a refresher on what I need to be ...

by Joshua Botello Want to know how to blog for your business? Check out how we do it here at the SBDC. I'm gonna take you through the process of content creation that I use for the SBDC. So this is so much a step-by-step guide as a “how I work” type of video. I’ll throw in tips and tools that I use and I hope you get something great from it. This is going to be part of a series of marketing your business with the latest techniques like video production, webinars, podcasts, and social promotion campaigns. Ideation Your first step when creating a business blog is: What are you going to talk about and why? Is it to build awareness or SEO? To help customers purchase or for customer service. This will influence what topics and format you are going to choose. Brainstorming Once you have an idea of your audience and how you want to talk to them, let’s brainstorm some topics. If you are just starting you want to create a bunch of topics at the start so you have a variety of topics to pull ...

By Joshua Botello If you’re looking to create graphics for your emails for marketing materials but have no idea how to do that, then using the tool Canva may be something you want to look into. Canva is a free online graphic design tool that can help any small business owner be a graphic designer with free templates for Marketing and social media. So let’s get into the review. Who’s it For? Canva is primarily for small business owners who don’t have a large marketing budget to spend on graphic design. It is also for the non-artistic or creative business owner who needs to create email or other social media content. You can easily grab a pre-sized template for most social media platforms and quickly edit for a graphic or make your own custom ebook, worksheet, or presentation. Canva is not for those who are engaged in creative marketing and do you have a budget for a graphic designer to create their graphics for them. Demo So getting started with Canva is as easy as setting up a free a...

General Driveshaft Service, Inc. 133 W Maple Avenue Monrovia, CA 91016 Duane and Kristin Howland are the management team of General Driveshaft Service, Inc in Monrovia, California. The company builds and modifies driveshafts for rear-wheel-drive vehicles. The vehicles Duane works on range from large diesel trucks to high-performance race cars and even classic cars. Duane worked for the company for 23 years when the previous owner decided to retire and sell the business. “In 2016, we were trying to figure out if we were going to buy this business (General Driveshaft) or if Duane was going out on his own. We got to the point where we wanted to buy this business and we weren’t quite sure how to do that or how to negotiate with the previous owner. We really didn’t know where to start,” Kristin explained. The University of La Verne SBDC had just opened its doors and became the talk in certain circles on campus. Kristin became familiar with the center and reached out for consulting. There we...

  by Joshua Botello   A Notary Signing Agent or mobile notary is a profitable business that almost anyone can start. Just because it’s easy to start, doesn’t mean it's easy to run. Mobile notaries seem to be popping up everywhere because it's so easy to start but hard to stand out and grow the business. In this video, I'll tell you what you need to know about starting up a notary business to see if it is right for you. Business Concept If you want to be a Notary, you first need to figure out what services you want to offer. Will you be offering signature verification only or will you expand to include Live Scan or other services? Your next step will be determining who your customers are, such as real estate loan brokers, lawyers, school districts, health care, or other professionals. Finally, you want to determine your type of business mobile or office. Many Notaries are mobile and able to charge for travel but you will need to make that decision based on your clientele. Co...

By Joshua Botello 2020 was all about virtual meetings and Zoom was the one to use. It was easy and free. But is it a good choice for your small business? In this video, I will cover what you need to know to get started with Zoom and its features to see if it’s right for your business. So let’s get started. Who is Zoom For? Zoom is primarily for small and medium business owners who are looking to set up virtual meetings and want easy-to-use software. Zoom is also an easy way to give webinars and stream online to Facebook, YouTube, and other third-party platforms. Zoom is not great for tech-savvy business owners or full-time content creators who want more quality in their streams or live webinars.  Demo Let's take a look at how to get started and what we can do with Zoom. Just head to Zoom.us and sign up for a free account with your email address and a password. Once you can set up your account you can download the zoom client on your Windows or Mac and log into your account. From y...

by Joshua Botello Dr. Shawn Smith and Dr. Brian Nyamwange are the Co-founders of Symba Center, a non-profit free clinic that provides care for people who do not have insurance. As a graduate of Loma Linda University, Shawn saw firsthand the disparities of Loma Linda and neighboring San Bernardino. “Dr. ‘Bowtie’ Brian and I were healthcare professional students asking ourselves, 'how can we address the health needs in this community?” When Shawn started working at Western University of Health Sciences he found some resources that may be able to help get his idea off the ground. “I immediately went to our Innovation Center at WesternU and they were pretty excited about it,” Shawn recounted. The innovation center focused on technology and commercial applications instead of philanthropic ventures. The staff said “There is a small business development center locally at the University of La Verne. We’ve heard a lot about the great work they are doing and I can put you into contact with...

by Joshua Botello Scaling your small business is less about the “right time” or the “stars aligning” and more about building your business systems and growing. How do you know when you should scale your business or if you can? In this article, I’ll cover 5 aspects of your business that you as an owner should evaluate to know when or how to scale your business.  GOALS If you are looking to grow or even scale your business you need to have a plan. If you created a plan when you started your business, there are some basic milestones you probably set for yourself. If you are an existing business, these might be your goals for the next 1-5 years. This strategic plan should be referred to and updated often and must have the appropriate goals and milestones to reach for growth. As a business owner if you don’t meet those milestones you are not ready to scale your business. Financials Your business’ financials are a strong indicator to measure growth and when to scale. While this is tru...

By Joshua Botello Is your business ready to compete in the market? In this video, you’ll learn how to conduct your competitive research. If you are just starting your business plan or you've been at this game for a while, you need to know who your competition is. Many business owners fail to do this research and then wonder why they aren’t winning new customers or growing. In this video, I'll give you a 3 step process to competitive research where you’ll: Identify your competitors Gather intelligence Finally, put it into a form you will be able to use to grow your business. So let's get started. Step 1: Identify Competitors As you start on your journey of competitive research you first need to identify your competitors. What? You don't have any competitors? Wrong. You do have competitors whether you know them or not. Now it’s time to find them. Use Google If you never thought about your competitors before now it is time to find them, but how? When doing this research yo...

JigsawTek www.JigsawTek.com   Richard Hanson is the owner of JigsawTek in La Verne, California. JigsawTek is an IT management and services company for small businesses with a background in IT services for corporate players like Northrop Grumman. Richard’s background was software development working on projects between New York and Orange County California. In 2013, JigsawTek Needed to change it’s focus towards managed services targeting small businesses. “We recognized we needed to do a business plan and started putting it together. There were certain areas that we just didn't know how to deal with,” Richard explained.  At a business planning seminar, Richard was informed by the speaker that SBDC’s have mentors and you really should pick up a mentor to help “define and move forward with your business..The University of La Verne has an SBDC right on campus. You should talk to them and get a mentor and that's when we met Malcolm Geffen.” JigsawTek’s chief challenge was that Rich...