This week, Skye Learning is spotlighting Shelly Berman-Rubera, a business coach and strategist who is the founder and president of Small Business Results (SBR). She is a Certified Small Business Coach with a Master Certification in Business Management. Skye was thrilled to include her in Introduction to Small Business Management, a course in the Certificate in Small Business Management. 

For 20 years, Berman-Rubera was the small business owner of a lifestyle and fitness company called Professional Fitness by Shelly. For the past 16 years, she has focused on personalized, boutique-style business coaching. Berman-Rubera’s practice is founded on her “SBR Signature System,” including her 6 Steps to Small Business Results.

Your employees will look to management for guidance on how they are expected to accomplish given goals. You will be called upon to decide the order or priority of tasks, the individuals responsible for completing them, the manner in which they are to be performed, and the tools that will be used to measure progress.

Managers must consider a number of factors when setting schedules and assigning work tasks, including the skill levels and experience of workers and how well a given set of employees work together. Flexibility is key when dealing with unanticipated scheduling problems.

Dax Grantham is a small business attorney and the owner of Grantham Law in Woburn, MA. Skye Learning is thrilled to feature Grantham as a subject matter expert in Law for Small Businesses.

Grantham provides legal services to business and individuals across eastern Massachusetts, primarily offering general counsel services to emerging small businesses. He also practices in the areas of business/corporate law, personal and business bankruptcy, and business litigation. He has practiced law for nearly twenty years.

This week, Skye Learning is spotlighting Kim Dawson, a business strategist, management consultant, and virtual CFO for small businesses. Dawson’s expert commentary is featured in Skye’s Introduction to Small Business Management.

Dawson has significant experience in the field as former Business Owner of The Wellness company, a fitness studio and consulting practice. She was also Co-Owner of Atalasoft, a software company providing high-performance imaging libraries. Now, through K.Dawson Company, she helps small business owners set financial goals, increase revenue, improve sustainability, and more.

Dani Whitestone is an accomplished entrepreneur and business coach with more than 20 years experience managing small businesses and mentoring small business owners. She was President and Founder of Musical Resources as well as Co-Founder and Director of Sales and Marketing for TurboLaw Software.

In 2018, Whitestone founded the Women’s Small Business & Leadership Network, where she serves as a small business mentor. This community offers support and mentorship for women small business owners; women interested in participating can join now on Facebook.

In the digital age, small businesses have limitless choices in how to market to their target audiences. Small businesses can use a variety of social media platforms, from Linkedin to YouTube. They can announce new product lines and directly respond to customer questions on Twitter for everyone to see. They can use geofilters on Snapchat to transform a person's face into a cyborg, dog, superhero, or taco. These marketing options are available even for businesses with limited budgets, and the possibilities are limited only by the marketer’s creativity.

Of course, it’s difficult to make a noticeable splash in a large body of water, and the internet is a virtual ocean. To be successful, a social media marketing campaign must be crafted and delivered strategically.

When starting a new venture or business, there is a sequential process that you can follow to help you stay on course. This process can be broken down into eight stages, starting with discovery and ending with implementation.   

Much of the entrepreneurial process is focused on developing a product or service and planning how to successfully introduce it into the marketplace. To do this successfully, you need strong leadership in place. Leadership is particularly central to Stage Four: Strategic Planning, in which the vision for the venture is established.

There is a difference between being an entrepreneur and running and owning a small business. While it is true that most successful businesses start small, the approach that an entrepreneur takes differs from that of a small business owner.

The following infographic summarizes some of those key differences.