University of La Verne SBDC Small Biz Blog

by Joshua Botello Starting a food truck seems to be all the rage now as an alternative to a full brick-and-mortar restaurant. While a food truck might seem like a cheaper alternative to starting up, this doesn’t mean it takes any less work to get your business started. The food truck industry is fairly regulated and there are a lot of things to consider before you get started. In this video, I’ll cover five areas of consideration and answer the question: how do you start a food truck business? Business Concept You need to determine what cuisine of food you want to create for your business. Much like the concept of a brick-and-mortar restaurant, your food truck fare should be based on some concept of cuisine or fusion. The next step is you need to nail down your menu . Based on your cuisine you will need to figure out what food can be made in a small space like a food truck. Now that you have a solid menu, you will need to think about what equipment may be needed to make each item or m...

by Joshua Botello One of the hardest things about starting a new business is: How do you price your products? Today my guest will answer that question. Dr. Frank Steven Fialho is a Marketing professor at the University of La Verne College of Business and Public management. Let’s get into the interview.  How Important Is It For a Business to Get The Pricing Right? Dr. Fialho: Most people look at marketing as promotion and sales. Very few people understand that marketing is tied to the product, price, and distribution (Place). Price is so important. I am also wanting to price before a product because it’s so important. You need to decide on the price, it’s a huge piece of the 4 Ps. It comes from a lot of market research that you have to do for your product, so it’s very critical. When you said you wanted to talk about price, I could see how businesses struggle with Price. There’s no doubt in my mind. Our students in the Integrated Business Program, I tell them when they startup “On...

by Joshua Botello Many small business owners often find themselves short on cash at the most inopportune times. These businesses might have trouble with small business loans when they need them but it may be too late. A business line of credit is capital that small businesses secure when they can and use when they need to avoid cash flow issues. In this video, you’ll discover how a line of credit works and see if it's right for you; how to apply and secure a line of credit for your business; and stay until the end for some valuable tips to increase your chances of getting your own line of credit for your business.  What is a Line of Credit? A line of credit is a short-term, revolving credit (open-ended) account you borrow up to a set amount from $10,000 to $1,000,000, depending on the type of the account and institution. Similar to credit cards, the LOC can be accessed to pay for equipment, repaid, and accessed again as long as the credit limit isn’t reached. Depending on the inst...

by Joshua Botello One of the biggest questions we get when starting a business is "How do I start an LLC?" Forming an LLC is fairly easy in California and can be done for less than $100 and in about 5 mins if you want to do it yourself. Now before we begin, a small disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. This is for educational purposes only.  Not every business can become an LLC. Professionals like doctors or professional services may need to be formed as professional corporations. If this sounds like you, you should consult with a licensed lawyer to get advice on how your business can be set up.  You can always sign up at lavernesbdc.org/newclient and click get started, to schedule an appointment with one of our business consultants and get help with filing your LLC. With that out of the way let's get into the guide.  Step #1 Forming the LLC The first step we need to take care of is forming the LLC. So head to your browser and type in SOS.CA.GOV. Th...

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...