Category Archives: General Business Advice

Cross-Promotion Can Help Compatible Businesses Build Client Base

Posted on by
By Finance New Mexico

By Finance New Mexico

Sharing customers seems incompatible with a competitive marketplace, but examples of such cross-promotion are everywhere: the bank or coffee shop that occupies its own niche inside a supermarket, for example, or the fast-food chain that promotes a blockbuster movie with theme-related food offerings.

But the large corporations that take advantage of these strategic arrangements don’t have a franchise on cross-pollination. In fact, many small businesses have found that collaborating with a compatible business or businesses can be mutually beneficial: It can help all parties expand their outreach into new sales channels and build a client base while saving marketing costs. Continue reading →

Students Get Small-Business Experience

Posted on by

By Carole Rutten, Deputy Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory Community Programs Office

Highlands University natural resources management professor Edward Martínez, right, talks with Eliza Montoya about her research poster at Research Day 2015; photo by Margaret McKinney/Highlands University

New Mexico Highlands University natural resources management professor Edward Martínez, right, talks with Eliza Montoya about her research poster at Research Day 2015; photo by Margaret McKinney/courtesy NMHU

Preparing college students for a career involves more than just filling their heads with knowledge. It includes giving them a realistic idea of what employers will expect from them once they graduate.

Several students at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU) are getting this well-rounded perspective as part of a workforce development initiative of the university’s Achieving in Research, Math & Science (ARMAS) Center, the Las Vegas/San Miguel Entrepreneurial Network and Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Community Programs Office.

The collaboration supports small businesses in San Miguel County by providing meaningful work experiences for undergraduate students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees at NMHU. Continue reading →

New Mexico Film Conference Sheds Light on Entrepreneurial Opportunities

Posted on by

By Belle Allen, State Outreach Coordinator, New Mexico Film Office of the New Mexico Economic Development Department

The film industry in New Mexico offers numerous opportunities for entrepreneurs to get in on the “lights, camera, action!”

To share information about state resources and growing industry trends with filmmakers, producers, accountants, studios, vendors, crew, actors and emerging media innovators, the New Mexico State Film Office is hosting the 2015 New Mexico Film and Media Industry Conference Oct. 29-31 at the Isleta Casino & Resort in Albuquerque.

Established players in the state’s vibrant film industry aren’t the only ones who could benefit from the workshops and sessions being planned: The event is a setting for savvy creatives and go-getters to find a niche in established service areas and to learn about unmet needs their products, properties and talents might fill. Continue reading →

Consultants Help Yarn Cafe Owner Raise Business Profile

Posted on by

By George Kenefic, Director of Enterprise Empowerment, The Loan Fund

About a year after she had secured a small-business startup loan through The Loan Fund, Deborah Grossman got a visit from two consultants who work for the nonprofit lender. The pair — Joaquin Amador and Andrew Carrabus — dropped by Grossman’s Santa Fe store, Yarn & Coffee, to ask if she needed help with marketing, financial record keeping or any of the other tasks involved in starting and sustaining a business.

The timing was fortunate. “I was trying to figure out how to get more people in the door,” Grossman said of her shop, where people can buy yarn, knitting and crocheting tools and accessories, patterns and books or take a needle-craft class — and enjoy a cup of coffee, tea or cold drink at the same time.

Grossman strives to create a community atmosphere at her business housed in a stand-alone building tucked behind the Pantry Restaurant on Cerrillos Road and Fifth Street. Continue reading →

Knowing When To Hire an Accountant Matters for Small Businesses

Posted on by

Businessman writing in an accounting ledgerAt some point in the life of most businesses, finances become complex enough that the owner decides to delegate financial oversight to someone with the training and expertise to provide more than basic bookkeeping or tax preparation services.

If the business is being audited, for example, the owner might hire an enrolled agent to represent it. Enrolled agents are tax-law experts authorized by the U.S. Treasury Department to advise and represent individuals, businesses and other organizations in such situations. Continue reading →

Hire Right the First Time

Posted on by
By Amy Lahti, Consultant and Trainer, WESST

By Amy Lahti, Consultant and Trainer, WESST

Entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses are accustomed to doing everything it takes to move their business forward. But there comes a time when even the most efficient entrepreneur must call in help. For most startups and small businesses, hiring workers is the only path to growth.

Many early-stage entrepreneurs outsource work or find contract employees among friends and family. Even if a first employee is a friend of the owner, the business is subject to the laws governing employee-employer relationships as soon as the first paycheck is written. If the business thrives, the first employee will be one of many workers hired in the life of the business. Continue reading →

Perfect Pitch: How to Avoid Common Presentation Pitfalls

Posted on by
By Finance New Mexico

By Finance New Mexico

If you’ve ever had to pitch a business or product idea to an investor or potential partner, you know the presentation can make or break the deal.

Because the stakes can be high, serious entrepreneurs quickly learn what to avoid when giving a presentation, whether it’s a 30-minute speech before a peer group or six-minute proposal to Demo Day investors. Continue reading →

Ropes Course Builds Communication Skills

Posted on by
By Patricia West-Barker for Finance New Mexico

By Patricia West-Barker for Finance New Mexico

Unless you are an entrepreneur laboring alone in your garage, your company’s success may depend largely on the quality of the team you’ve assembled to conduct your business—whether that team is made up of two, 20 or 200 people.

To find out what makes high-performing teams tick, MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory monitored the communications of large numbers of people as they went about their work. The study, published in the Harvard Business Review in April 2012, found that “communication plays a critical role in building successful teams.” Face-to-face interactions (versus email, phone and text) were extremely important, as were the frequency of non-work related conversations. Continue reading →

Businesses Find the Evolutionary Path to Profitability

Posted on by
By Claudia Infante, Projects Coordinator, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

By Claudia Infante, Projects Coordinator, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

One obstacle to improvement in a typical American company is the assumption that change requires months of planning, major expense and a work stoppage or slowdown. Then there’s the fear that old habits and practices will slowly return as people forget what they learned amid the pressures and demands of running a business.

Even when the need for change is obvious, such companies often resist fixing something until it’s utterly broken.

An alternative, nonreactive view embraces change as a continual process of incremental improvements and tweaks — not as an exercise in obsessive compulsion but as an adaptive approach to reducing waste-related costs, eliminating inefficiencies and optimizing competitiveness. Continue reading →

Understanding Accounting Basics Empowers Business Owners

Posted on by
By Finance New Mexico

By Finance New Mexico

Accounting is the lingua franca, or common tongue, that allows business owners in multilingual New Mexico to communicate no matter what language they speak at home.

A basic understanding of accounting principles allows entrepreneurs to take batches of numbers and translate them into easily comprehensible statements of performance and profitability. It helps them keep track of money as it enters and exits their coffers and make reasoned decisions based on what the numbers say. Continue reading →