Two entrepreneurs and one business professor were guests on Sarasota’s WSRQ radio’s Empowering Small Business Sat., Dec. 5th show. It was a stimulating discussion about what is an entrepreneur, the seven P’s of business success, stories of startups, and trends in the field. Scott Perron, CEO of 24/7 Floors, who employs several sales people talked about customer service, Howard Katz of Tom James Clothier emphasized personal attention, while Clint Day described a better method for building new ventures. Rather than the traditional 15-page business plan, a newer method developed by Silicon Valley called the Lean Startup is more successful. It uses the Osterwalder business model canvas (BMC), a one page planning tool with nine sections of critical building blocks -the value proposition, customer segment, distribution channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, key activities, key resources, key partners, and cost structure. When used often and persistently with the targeted customer, the lean startup lets the actual end user design the product or service to meet their problem solution or demand need.
Host Dave Kauffman, CEO of Empowering Small Business, Inc. and a professional business coach, learned Scott Perron’s son Zack was enrolled in the Chamber of Commerce YEA or Youth Entrepreneurship Academy now underway in Sarasota. Clint volunteered that he was teaching two of the classes and what a tremendous opportunity for youth the YEA curriculum was. There are 12 girls and 12 boys from area K12 schools enrolled, and over the course of a year they will be transformed into confident entrepreneurs. Topics include the art of entrepreneurship, legal forms, marketing and economics, business communications, risk management, ethics, computer science, media and press relations, leadership and teamwork, and financial literacy.
An audio of the 55 minute program is available by link – http://sarasotatalkradio.com/category/empowering-small-business/.
