These two-hour to three-hour seminars are held on one evening and cover a wide range of small business topics. Most of these seminars are held at the Small Business Center, located at the SOUTHBank Building  in downtown Durham, the Orange County Skills Development Center in downtown Chapel Hill, or at the Orange County Campus in Hillsborough.

Forget the 4 P’s of Marketing! Skip the SWOT analysis! Learn from a top marketing consultant the 7 Essential Elements of a Winning Marketing Plan and 6 Rules for Successful Marketing. Understand creating a powerful positioning statement, a new view of competition, pricing strategies, and a marketing math exercise that provides a reality check on your sales goals. Taught by Carolyn Rhinebarger, StrategicGuru, Inc.

You know your product or service upside down and backwards, but do the numbers just drive you up a wall? Become familiar with those financial terms that confuse you but that accountants love to use (cash versus accrual, debits and credits, depreciation, assets and liabilities, owner’s equity, liquidity, and more). Get hands-on experience in preparing a financial statement, including cash flow, income statements, and balance sheet. Taught by Jess McLamb, The Roper Group.

Regardless of your art media, business success includes finding your style, developing and trusting your vision, taking the mystery out of photographing your work, presenting your work, and creating a professional résumé. Learn how to market your work by going through the steps on how to approach a gallery, applying for grants at different stages of your career, and objectively pricing your work. Taught by Nancy Tuttle May, renown local artist.

Want to reinvigorate your brand and focus your marketing message?  Learn how to analyze your business brand and how to articulate its promise more clearly. Don’t miss this chance to work on developing a marketing message that will precisely communicate your brand’s meaning to your target customers. Taught by Carl Baumann, SCORE Chapel Hill.

Is your business hanging tough or just hanging on? Gain the best ideas and insights to create a positive and profitable environment for growth. Focus on clarifying your numbers, knowing your customer, defining your market, and expanding your products and services. Give your business this important “tune up.” Taught by Jim Baker, 21st Century Solutions.

This free monthly session is the perfect place to bring all your start-up questions concerning local licenses and permits, business legal forms, taxes and insurance, marketing, and sources of capital. Get answers to your specific needs and learn about resources from a veteran business instructor as well as from fellow entrepreneurs’ questions.

Developing mutually beneficial relationships is what networking is all about, and you need to develop these relationships to succeed. Understand the secrets of successful networking from your 30 second commercial to your follow-up. Learn about memory hooks, business cards, managing contacts, attitude, and websites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Merchant Circle - the online way to network. You’ll obtain hands-on experience to make your next networking event a success. Taught by Jess McLamb of The Roper Group.

Want to participate in the military procurement boom for NC? Learn more about the non-standard ways a business can obtain financing for pursuit of contracts to the military, including DOD/Federal financing options, Factoring, NC Rural Center funding programs, SBIC equity funds, NC DOC financial assistance programs, Neuse River Development Authority, and more. Taught by Bill Greuling of the NC Military Business Center.

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