Summer 2009

Summer GrowthVenture Program Weekly Highlights

DBEs Participate in Business Growth Program with Full Scholarship

Eight certified DBE firms are participating in the Bridges Project’s Entrepreneurial Development Institute’s Summer FastTrac® GrowthVenture™ program with full scholarships.

CLICK HERE for a complete weekly module summary.

The program started on Tuesday, July 7. The first module, “Sizing up Your Business” began with an introduction of the program and set expectations for the next nine weeks. It was explained to the business owners, that like any endeavor, they must work hard to get the outcome desired. The program is intense and requires a lot of engagement during the three-hour sessions. Participation in group activities with fellow business owners, reading the chapters and completing assignments is necessary to get the full impact of the program.

“Sizing up Your Business” includes a process by which participants think about, talk about and develop a three year vision for growth of their business. In order to do that, each individual needs to explore, in depth where their businesses are in the life cycle today. This requires an understanding of the characteristics of each stage in the business life cycle, including the early stage, growth stage, rapid growth stage, maturing stage and the stage where the business is facing the challenge of innovation or decline. Once the first two steps are taken, the business owners are introduced to the process of charting the business’ SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). Evaluating the SWOT analysis is the path taken to set goals to achieve the three year vision developed in this module.

Participants provide anonymous evaluations each week. Majority agreed the best part of the session was interacting and sharing ideas about the content with other business owners.

The next session, on Tuesday, July 14, “Exploring Growth Opportunities”, leads participants through the process of defining what growth means and how important it is that others don’t influence their definition of growth. The main focus of this module is how to apply research to explore opportunities. Different aspects or research subjects are explored including industry, competitor, market and customer research.

Each GrowthVenture module includes a guest speaker that provides information and advice on key subjects of each session. Christy Stanfield, PR & Marketing Director of TKT & Associates, Inc. presented an overview of why market research is important when planning a strategy for growth. “Whether a business owner is planning on improving technology, adding a new product or service, entering a new market or planning a new marketing strategy, research is crucial for making the right decisions,” said Stanfield.

She added, “You may not have thought of it this way before, but you have been doing market research all along. Each time you talk to your customers or colleagues about what is going on in the industry or the market, you’re doing research. When you talk to your vendors about new products in the market, you’re doing market research. When you talk to your customers about what they like, or don’t like about the service you are providing, you are conducting valuable research.”

Guided by the GrowthVenture manual, assignments after Module II were to: 1) Develop a Customer Profile, 2) Analyze Direct, Indirect and Future Competitors, 3) Evaluate Growth Opportunities and 4) Prepare for the Module III by reading the section on Making Strategic Decisions.

Tuesday, July 21, Module III, Making Strategic Decisions, covered important aspects of planning for growth. The participants have gone through the process of defining what growth means for their business; so this module focused on defining the competitive advantage and other issues that factor into making the strategic decisions that will form planned growth.

The following sessions, each Tuesday for the next seven weeks cover all aspects of business planning that will help business owners complete a working strategic plan for growth. Like over 50 other certified KY DBEs, they will be able to use the tools they develop in GrowthVenture for many years.

The fall GrowthVenture program will begin on Tuesday, October 6, 2009. Two KY DBEs have already registered, class size is limited. Please call Vetta Johnson at 502-499-9440 with any questions about the Entrepreneurial Development Institute’s FastTrac® GrowthVenture™ program.

CLICK HEREto register for the Fall GrowthVenture session, please use KYDBE1 as your Sponsor Code to receive the scholarship. There is a $100 deposit for the program manual, fully refunded upon completion of the program.