Calendar

Do you reside in the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia and are thinking about starting a new business?

Do you have questions about how to move forward? Are you considering moving your hobby into a more structured business form? Have you already started your small business and now realize you may have missed a few things?

Your Shenandoah Valley SBDC has answers, information, and resources to help!

In our Start Smart Workshops, we discuss the path to good decisions and a successful start. You’ll learn to take a thorough 360° approach to your business and all its components – from product development to target marketing to financial projections and bookkeeping. We also cover the regulations and registrations you need to know.

Follow-up appointments are then available with SBDC business advisors to focus on your individual business growth needs.

Thank you for your registration to Start Smart Workshop via Zoom Time: September 15th 10:00am. Please find the Zoom link and review PDF Workbook attached in the reminder email 48 hours in advance. Please let me know if you are unable to attend or have questions via email to duganaj@jmu.edu

Thank You! Allison Dugan, Shenandoah Valley SBDC

Presented by Virginia SBDC Inclusivity Ambassador, Dr. Hope Murphy. This 45-minute informal information session will help you to get the most out of SBDC RESOURCES, programs, and networks in support of your small business.

As the largest small business support program in the country, the SBDC offers the services that small business owners need to succeed such as:

• Small Business counseling (free)
• Specialty programs (free)
• Access to business data and information (free)
• Cybersecurity training
• Small business loan process
• Training

After this session, you will know what is available, how to access it, and how to make the most of your free counseling sessions with the SBDC.

About the Presenter

Dr. Hope Murphy specializes in connecting business owners with the resources needed to build their businesses. Her experience includes providing business counseling to veterans through the Veteran’s Business Outreach Center and counseling/training entrepreneurs at the Women’s Business Center.

While Dr. Murphy counsels all small business owners, her passion is to provide business counseling that supports the unique needs of minority business owners.

Dr. Murphy is a small business owner and she provides diversity and inclusion training to organizational leaders and their teams. She and her family live in Stafford, Virginia. hmurph3@gmu.edu

A confirmation email with the Zoom login information will be sent after registration, please be on the lookout for it.

Topic: Creating a Capabilities Statement The Federal Government buys over $600 billion per year on goods and services, 5% of that spend is allocated for Small Business. This is a huge opportunity for firms, who qualify, to grow their business and become part of the challenging world of Government Contracting through set-aside opportunities. In order to get noticed by small business offices, you must first create a winning capability statement. This is the most importing marketing piece you will create for your business. A properly formatted capability statement will help you get noticed and differentiate you from your competition. In this presentation you will learn:

• Proper formatting of the statement
• Information to include and not include
• Differentiators, Core competencies and past performance content
• You will be provided an editable template to use for your own capability statement
• How to use the statement

Speaker(s): Lisa Wood is the Statewide Director of the Virginia PTAC, hosted by George Mason University where she is also an Adjunct Professor of Management. Prior to that, she served as the Statewide Director with the Connecticut and Ohio PTAC programs and was also Director for the Northwest Commission PTAC in Pennsylvania. Before joining the PTAC community, Lisa was a Procurement Specialist for Bechtel Plant Machinery, Inc. in the Greater Pittsburgh Area. In this role, Wood performed contract administration and negotiation duties. She also recommended bidders, handled issue inquiries, negotiated bids, performed cost and price analysis, and prepared comprehensive letters to justify recommended contract actions. Ms. Wood holds an MBA from the University of New Haven and a BSBA through Robert Morris University of Pittsburgh where she is also pursuing her PhD in Instructional Management and Leadership.

If you need further assistance or have a question, please contact us at (540) 654-1383

Learn how your business can be found online with Google. This workshop explains how Google Search works and how you can improve a website’s visibility with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The session also introduces products like Google Business Profile, Google Trends, Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Ads, and more.

In this workshop we’ll discuss best practices for:
– Improving your website’s visibility in Google’s organic search results, on all devices
– Creating a free Google Business Profile
– Advertising your business on Google

Presented by Grow with Google speaker, Randi Penfil

Thanks to Shenandoah Valley SBDC, Capital Region SBDC, Central Virginia SBDC, Laurel Ridge SBDC, SBDC Lynchburg Region, and Virginia State SBDC for hosting this webinar along with Grow with Google.

Presented by Virginia SBDC Inclusivity Ambassador, Dr. Hope Murphy. This 45-minute informal information session will help you to get the most out of SBDC RESOURCES, programs, and networks in support of your small business.

As the largest small business support program in the country, the SBDC offers the services that small business owners need to succeed such as:

• Small Business counseling (free)
• Specialty programs (free)
• Access to business data and information (free)
• Cybersecurity training
• Small business loan process
• Training

After this session, you will know what is available, how to access it, and how to make the most of your free counseling sessions with the SBDC.

About the Presenter

Dr. Hope Murphy specializes in connecting business owners with the resources needed to build their businesses. Her experience includes providing business counseling to veterans through the Veteran’s Business Outreach Center and counseling/training entrepreneurs at the Women’s Business Center.

While Dr. Murphy counsels all small business owners, her passion is to provide business counseling that supports the unique needs of minority business owners.

Dr. Murphy is a small business owner and she provides diversity and inclusion training to organizational leaders and their teams. She and her family live in Stafford, Virginia. hmurph3@gmu.edu

A confirmation email with the Zoom login information will be sent after registration, please be on the lookout for it.

Now’s the time to make sure your business profile is verified and updated on Google Search and Maps. Lots of changes have been happening with a Business Profile. This is a free tool for local businesses who want to connect with customers on Google Search and Maps. In this session, we’ll show you how to:

– How to create and/or update your profile on Google
– Hide your address
– Use your Business Profile to connect with potential customers
– What’s new, tips and tricks to updating your profile
– Hands on-demo of the product in action

Presented by Grow with Google speaker, Randi Penfil

Thanks to Shenandoah Valley SBDC, Capital Region SBDC, Central Virginia SBDC, Laurel Ridge SBDC, SBDC Lynchburg Region, and Virginia State SBDC for hosting this webinar along with Grow with Google.

Speaker(s): Charese Chambers

Fee: No Cost

Fee: No Cost

Pay As You Go so You Don’t Owe: A Guide to Withholding and Estimated Taxes

Taxes should be paid throughout the year, as income is received, to avoid large tax bills and penalty. Even with our pay-as-you-go system, the number of taxpayers with tax underpayments increases year to year. Join the Virginia SBDC and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for this workshop to learn how you can avoid tax underpayments. During this workshop we will discuss:

• Adjustments to Tax Withholding
• Estimated Tax Payments
• The Tax Withholding Estimator Tool, and
• Various Payment Options

A confirmation email with the Zoom login information will be sent after registration, please be on the lookout for it.

Presenter: Anika Pompey, Senior Stakeholder Liaison with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

Fee: No Cost

Learn how to sell your products online. We’ll walk through listing your products for free with your Google Business Profile and Merchant Center. In this workshop, we’ll:

– Discuss the Products tab in Google Business Profile
– Introduce Google Merchant Center and the basics of creating a free account and a product feed
– Show you how to connect an E-Commerce website (using Shopify as an example) to the Merchant Center

Presented by Grow with Google speaker, Randi Penfil

Thanks to Shenandoah Valley SBDC, Capital Region SBDC, Central Virginia SBDC, Laurel Ridge SBDC, SBDC Lynchburg Region, and Virginia State SBDC for hosting this webinar along with Grow with Google.

Presented by Virginia SBDC Inclusivity Ambassador, Dr. Hope Murphy. This 45-minute informal information session will help you to get the most out of SBDC RESOURCES, programs, and networks in support of your small business.

As the largest small business support program in the country, the SBDC offers the services that small business owners need to succeed such as:

• Small Business counseling (free)
• Specialty programs (free)
• Access to business data and information (free)
• Cybersecurity training
• Small business loan process
• Training

After this session, you will know what is available, how to access it, and how to make the most of your free counseling sessions with the SBDC.

About the Presenter

Dr. Hope Murphy specializes in connecting business owners with the resources needed to build their businesses. Her experience includes providing business counseling to veterans through the Veteran’s Business Outreach Center and counseling/training entrepreneurs at the Women’s Business Center.

While Dr. Murphy counsels all small business owners, her passion is to provide business counseling that supports the unique needs of minority business owners.

Dr. Murphy is a small business owner and she provides diversity and inclusion training to organizational leaders and their teams. She and her family live in Stafford, Virginia. hmurph3@gmu.edu

A confirmation email with the Zoom login information will be sent after registration, please be on the lookout for it.

Fee: No Cost

Entrepreneurship presents unique challenges to the decision making processes of the brain. A successful entrepreneur must be able to embrace challenges, learn from mistakes, view setbacks as opportunities and otherwise reframe difficult situations to maintain hopefulness and enthusiasm. In this conversation, we’ll explore the concept of a growth mindset from a neuroscientific perspective, drawing from research to create new strategies to build resilience and to make the most out of the thousands of decisions we make daily.

Dr. Catherine Franssen is the “Pumpkin Spice Neuroscientist” whose broad scientific training, innovative thinking, humor, and passion for informal education has led to hundreds of opportunities to share the science behind everyday life through blogs, social media, books, magazines, popular news outlets, and top academic journals. Experienced at delivering research-driven productivity and wellness workshops to major corporations based on 20 years of stress-related research. Passionate about communicating lessons from neuroscience to improve business strategies, career development, and personal wellbeing, Dr. Franssen has recently founded Franssen Strategies, LLC.