Northern Illinois SCORE serves Rockford and the Stateline Area with Expert Small Business Mentoring and Informative, Educational Small Business Workshops!

About SCORE Workshops

Workshops are designed to educate on topics that are major areas of concern for a new business, or for an existing business trying to expand.

SCORE teaches how to start your business, market your products or services, set up accounting practices, establish legal counseling, obtain bank financing, adopt technology, and more.

Workshops are presented by SCORE volunteers or business partners in cooperation with Rock Valley College, the Small Business Development Center, and EIGERlab.

e-Business Now; Help Solve Your Business Challenges With Technology

The goal of the e-Business Now program is to help small business owners with little to basic digital literacy learn about technology tools to help solve their business challenges and grow their businesses. The program consists of a series of five (5) stand-alone workshops and accompanying resources, each focusing on a particular business issue and the technology solutions that are available to small businesses.

The e-Business Now program was developed thanks to the generous support of the Broadband Consortium and its Founding Partners, ATT, Best Buy, Cisco Systems, Constant Contact, The Federal Communications Commission, Google, HP, Intuit, Microsoft, The Small Business Administration, The SCORE Foundation, Skype, Time Warner Cable Business Class. Workshop content is based on a series of focus groups of small business owners around the country. The small business owners who participated in the focus groups had businesses with either no websites or only static informational websites.

Much of the content has been enhanced by local SCORE volunteers and business partners.

ADOPTION: Technology Made Simple: Boosting Your Business Using Technology
ROADMAP: Technology Made Simple: Creating a Technology Plan for Your Small Business
BUILD YOUR SITE: Technology Made Simple: Building an Effective Website for Your Small Business
SALES & TECHNOLOGY: Technology Made Simple: Applying Technology to Jumpstart Your Sales
CASH FLOW: Tech Made Simple: Using Technology to Improve Your Cash Flow

Next eBusiness Now Session is "Building An Effective Web Presence" beginning mid-September 2012. See Details Below.

Workshop	Workshop Title (See list above)	Cost	Date Scheduled
#1	ADOPTION :	FREE	September 12, 2012
#2	ROADMAP:	$35	September 26, 2012
#3	BUILD YOUR SITE:	$35	October 10, 2012
#4	SALES & TECHNOLOGY	$35	October 24, 2012
#5	CASH FLOW & TECHNOLOGY	$35	November 7, 2012
Time:	All workshops are held from 5:30 pm to approximately 8:30 pm on the date listed
Where:	EIGERLab Auditorium at 605 Fulton Ave., Rockford, IL Location
Requirements	Pre-registration is required for Workshop #1. Registration closes on September 10, 2012 at midnight. Pre-payment times for workshops #2-#5 is by noon on the day of the workshop.

Who Should Attend?

Small business owners, marketing managers, businesses rebuildingg their web sites, social media content developers, and others responsible for generating leads and growing sales. New businesses developing their first site will find these workshops immensely helpful!.

Workshop Content; What You Will Learn
Session #1 Adoption	In Session #1 we examine the pace of technology, and recent trends in technology. We examine traditional marketing methods (push marketing or broadcast marketing) vs. inbound marketing (or attraction marketing). We examine common myths and realities of using technology. We look at how small businesses have used technology to dispel those myths. We examine case studies of successful implementation using www.hubspot.com. We provide resources on how to measure the effectiveness of your current site, and look at local search results as a place to be listed. We introduce you to the Goals vs. Desired Results vs. Methods of assessing your technology needs. We provide next steps to begin your assessment journey.
Session #2 Roadmap	Session #2 is going to be a working session where you will begin to formulate a technology roadmap for your own small business. In this session, we will: 1) Conduct a technology inventory audit; 2) Identify business and technology Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (or SWOT); 3) Examine a small business case study using a SWOT Analysis; 4) Select and prioritize technology solutions for your small business by conducting a SWOT Analysis for your business; 5) Complete a technology feasibility audit by ranking the prioritization of technology solutions for your own business, and 5) Align technology solutions to goals within the Business Plan strategy for your business.
Session #3 Building Your Site	In Session #3 we will examine: 1) The importance and benefits of a Web presence for your small business; 2) Strategies for integrating web technologies into your business; 3) Elements of effective website design; 4) Website development options; 5) The process of web development; 6) How to work with your web design person; 7) Domain names and hosting; and 8) We will begin to introduce you to marketing your site after it is launched. We will not be covering the topics of social media, blogging, or SEO (search engine optimization). Those topics will be covered in the Session #4 workshop - Using Technology to Generate More Sales. This session is presented from a business owner's perspective. It is not a workshop on how to do web site coding or programming. The presentation is for non-technical business people.
Session #4 Using Technology to Generate More Sales	In Session #4 we take a deeper look at how to market your web site, how to get traffic to your site, and the process of converting traffic into leads or sales. We will cover: 1) Internet Marketing (online marketing) - what it is and isn't; 2) Online advertising and banner ads (Google Adwords, Google AdSense, Facebook Advertising; 3) The 5 components of web traffic (direct traffic, social traffic, advertising traffic, referral traffic, natural search or organic traffic; 4) Social media engagement pages as traffic sources; 5) SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and why it is an integral part of web design and lead generation; 6) Using the AIDA Marketing Model Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) to create leads and sales.
Session #5 Using Technology to Improve Cash Flow	Managing cash flow is a key component to being successful and is a direct result of a business owner's actions. There is a clear correlation between a high-performing company and the business owner or manager's understanding of cash flow. In Session #5, we will discuss how an understanding of technology can help small businesses manage cash flow by: 1) Creating new types of cash flow; 2) Accelerating cash inflow, and; 3) Decelerating cash outflow. 4) We will examine Google Analytics as a tool to measure and monitor performance of your Internet presence in attracting, retaining, and converting traffic and leads to sales and cash.

Register for Sessions #2 Thru #5
Attend the eBusiness Now Technology workshops individually, or sign-up for all 4 workshops. A discount is applicable if all 4 workshops are paid in advance.
Sessions #2	Sessions #3	Session #4	Session #5
EIGERlab Classroom West 605 Fulton Ave., Rockford, IL Location	EIGERlab Classroom West 605 Fulton Ave., Rockford, IL Location	EIGERlab Classroom West 605 Fulton Ave., Rockford, IL Location	EIGERlab Classroom West 605 Fulton Ave., Rockford, IL Location
September 26, 2012 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm Completed	October 10, 2012 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm	October 24, 2012, 2012 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm	November 7, 2012 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm
	Pre-pay by noon February 29	Pre-pay by noon March 7	Pre-pay by noon March 14
$35	$35	$35	$35

Or, Register for All 4 Sessions #2 thru #5
$125 for 4 Sessions

Thanks for Supporting Northern Illinois SCORE!

2009-2012 SCORE Chapter 574

Last Updated March 27, 2012