University of La Verne SBDC Small Biz Blog

  In this webinar, we will be covering the common forms of ownership for small businesses and their filing requirements: Sole proprietorships General partnerships Limited Liability Company Corporations Our Guest Speaker, Lucius C. Davis III is the Small Business Liaison in the Taxpayers’ Rights Advocate’s Office. He assists with the development of small business education and outreach programs in order to help business owners better understand their income tax requirements and responsibilities. He also provides information about the Franchise Tax Board’s (FTB) programs and services that are available to them. Prior to becoming the Small Business Liaison, Lucius worked in Collections and in Filing in the Business Entities Section as an analyst at FTB. In the private sector, Lucius owned a small business for 10+ years. Prior to that, he played professional basketball overseas for 13 years. The Forms of Ownership presentation is a discussion of the most common forms of business owners...

www.ACRAtech.net   ACRAtech, Inc.  2502 Supply St Pomona, CA 91767 Scott Dordick is the CEO of Acratech, inc., which designs and manufactures photographic tripods and equipment. Scott became a client of the University of La Verne SBDC and Malcolm Geffen for help with automating and managing their accounting systems for the business.  The photography industry was in decline due to the improvement in cellphone picture quality. Cameras had been getting incrementally better years before but had gotten to the point where consumers were upgrading their cameras less often. "We were looking at our sales numbers over the years and they were just declining. We would go to the trades shows and it was doom and gloom...The writing was one the wall that we needed to do something," explained Scott.  Scott continued to work with Malcolm to help with declining sales and increasing production costs. Malcolm advised to established strategic alliances with major competitors and Acratech...

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...

Binary Exercise and Sports Training Los Angeles, Ca https://www.beastathletics.org/  Follow on  Instagram Arthur Romero is the founder of Binary Exercise and Sports Training (BEAST), a non-profit organization that trains local kids in the San Gabriel Valley. Arthur recognized a lack of coaches who genuinely care about the kids and community. “One of the reasons I started BEAST is to bring people together and offer opportunities to the youth as far as sports training, sports development, and just being able to succeed in their respective sport overall. Because everything in sports translates to life,” Arthur explained. “I had actually developed the idea for BEAST early on when I started as a freshman at the University of La Verne. I was really all over the place as far as what I wanted to do with it and how to take it to the next level,” Arthur said. By chance, Arthur introduced himself to University President Devorah Leiberman while walking on campus and asked for any resourc...

  Financial projection are the most intimidating part of starting a business. So much so, that many people want to know how much it's going to take to start up. Many people just skip this step until they actually need it. In this webinar, you will learn: Determine the feasibility of your business idea Calculate the break-even sales volume Prepare financial projections often needed for an SBA loan Download the Google sheet and follow along  here.   You can view only. [ File > Download > Make a Copy ] so that you can create your own spreadsheet for you to keep and update. Start Up Financial projection can be use this to answer a lot of common startup questions like… Will my business idea work? Is my business feasible? How much should I pay myself? How much do I need to sell to be profitable? How much do I need to start the business? Common Start Up Expenses Existing Businesses You can also use this with clients seeking a loan because even if you’ve been in busine...

By Joshua Botello If you are looking to take content like a blog, youtube channel, or a news company to the next level and turn it into a full-fledged business, there are some specific things you need to take care of. Many content creators start as a hobby but have no idea what it takes to turn their passion into a legitimate business. In this start-up guide, I will show the 5 steps to get your media business started and what you need to know to operate as a legitimate business. So let’s get started. Business Concept The very first step is to come up with a business concept. Many of you watching will already have this down if you have an existing blog or youtube channel. Beyond your concept, you may need to research if this is a sustainable topic that will last or if it’s just a fad. You also want to make sure the content you create is fresh and not being talked about in a saturated space that will increase your competition and make it harder for you to make money once you monetize you...

By Joshua Botello Are you worried you’re running out of cash for your business? Do you find your business doesn’t have money to pay your bills or do you run short on cash for payroll? In this video, I’m gonna show you how to create a cash flow statement to better manage how your business is spending money. Keeping track of finances is hard for many small business owners and many of our clients get overwhelmed for fear of messing up their accounting. What if you could have a simple document that was generated automatically to show the flow of cash into, and out of, the business and know if you could meet your business obligations? In this video, I’ll explain what a cash flow statement is, the components of a cash flow statement, and how to use it for your business.    What is a Cash Flow Statement The statement of cash flows is the last of our 3 basic financial statements the business owner can use to track their business finances. The cash flow statement is used to perfor...