Small Business Growing

Archive for the 'Christian Small Business Ministry' Category

Entrepreneur’s Journey 2 Graduates: Congratulations!

Congratulations to the graduates of Entrepreneur’s Journey 2!

You all were fantastic, and together I think we took quite a Journey through the highways and byways of the enterprising life.

Last month a group of intrepid entrepreneurs finished the Journey program and graduated with lots of enthusiasm.

The Journey is a faith-based educational program which serves established as well as just starting small businesses. The program serves within the City Impact ministries of McLean Bible Church.  We meet on a week-day evening and work our way through a very structured curriculum of topical areas vital to the success of small business.

I have six other team members who lead the topics within their area of expertise.  The program has a practical focus.  We concentrate on how small businesses can perform with excellence.  One of the key dimensions of the program is considering how the business can be God honoring, and built on the unshakeable foundation of faith and trust in the Master.

One of the assumptions of the program is that lasting business success is premised on an integration of one’s deeply felt values into the actual practices of the business. This integration of deep values and operational practices is one to the things that makes the business real, authentic, and memorable to customers. When the business expresses our best self, lots of great things can start to happen.

We explore this intersection of faith and work in a very practical way within the Journey experience.  For a more detailed description of the program content, we invite you to visit the Journey website.

We are now forming the next Journey cohort, and will be under way about mid-April.  Let us know if you have an interest in the program.

Christian Business Ministry: The Entrepreneur’s Journey

If you are a small business owner looking to grow and improve your business, we’d like for you to know about The Entrepreneur’s Journey.

The Journey is a faith-based program that explores how to grow and operate one’s enterprise on Biblical principles.

It is a journey of discovery, learning, networking, improving the quality of your business, and exploring the “Higher Calling” of your enterprise.

We spend one evening a week, for 15 weeks, going through a very structured set of topical areas that cover major subjects and disciplines to grow and improve the business.  The current Journey cohort has started, and is full, but if you have an interest, be in contact, and we can answer any questions and let you know about the next start date.

Pre-registration is required and because we limit the number of participants, it is good to get information well before the program begins.   The next Journey program will start around March of 2012.

You can also visit the Journey’s website, and do let us know if you want to know more.

Entrepreneur’s Journey Second Cohort Starting Soon

If you are a small business owner in the Northern Virginia or DC area, and are interested in improving the quality and growth of your business, we’d like you to know about The Entrepreneur’s Journey.

I had the idea for the Journey for many years and finally acted on it about a year ago.  I wanted to help small business owners who had the interest in growing a really excellent business that is integrity-based and God honoring, and…prosperous and growing.

The Journey is a very practical program for business owners who are serious about crafting a world-class business, and are very motivated about doing it the right way.

The program is faith-based, so we freely and happily discuss the Biblical principles for building and running a thriving business. And we cover cutting edge thinking and strategies as we work our way through a structured agenda of practical business disciplines.

We are nearing the end of our first cohort, and it has been a great group of energetic entrepreneurs who are nearing “graduation” from the program.

Our second cohort is nearly filled, but if you live in the area and want to discuss participation in this or the next cohort,  start out by visiting our Journey website and if you want to know more just contact me.

Social Media Insights From Brad Hill Of Site Organic

This week, the Entrepreneur’s Journey participants heard from Brad Hill, Founder of SiteOrganic.

The Journey is a faith-based program for small business owners and entrepreneurs here in the Northern Virginia and surrounding Metro area.  During the 12-week program we hear the varied voices of our “power team” and they provide insights from their areas of expertise.  All are topics vital to the success of small business.

Brad spoke to us about the applications of Social Media strategies for small business.  It was a lively and deeply insightful evening, with an steady stream of questions from Journey participants.  Brad provided one insight after the other, and left everyone with a lot to consider.

Often, the most fundamental insights are the most useful.  We were reminded of how critically important it is to have a website design that is immediately understandable and usable to site visitors. As primary as this principle is, how often do you see it not put into play?

If you are in the design stage of your primary website, or if you are about ready to refresh your current design, don’t let this basic principle become so obvious that it gets side-stepped.  You will be rewarded many times over if you create a design that immediately communicates what you are offering and what the user can do to get to your offer.

If you want more information on what SiteOrganic is up to, by all means visit Brad’s very informative site.  And if you are a small business owner or entrepreneur in the Northern Virginia area and want to know more about The Journey, visit our City Impact web page, or drop me an email and I will be glad to answer any questions.

Christian Small Business Ministry: The Entrepreneur’s Journey

If you are a small business owner here in the Northern Virginia or surrounding area, we want you to know about The Entrepreneur’s Journey. It is a free educational ministry for small business owners.

The Journey is a very practical and hands-on program designed to help small business owners work in a systematic way to improve the quality and growth of their business by applying state-of-the-art methods and concepts in a very down-to-earth way. We also will examine the ‘higher calling” of our business life based on Biblical principles as we work through areas such as business strategy and planning, marketing, branding, social media, designing systems and processes, personal productivity, leadership, team building, finance, and related topics.

Small business owners are so busy working “in” their business that they often fail to work “on” the business.  This program is designed to help you work “on” the business in a very methodical and systematic way.

Participants in the Journey are engaged in assignments to either implement or refine business practices to help the business reach its next level.

The Journey is a 12-week program in which we meet one evening per week from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM.   Advanced registration is required, and enrollment is limited to the number of available openings we have for each 12-week cohort.  We invite you to contact us for details on dates and openings, as well as for enrollment.

If you are serious about business success and would like to learn a bit more to see if “The Journey” is right for you,  send an email and I will answer any questions and give you whatever information you need.

The Entrepreneur’s Journey is an entirely free program. It is given in the spirit of helping small business owners grow strong and healthy businesses that are prosperous, service oriented, and based on the timeless moral and ethical principles which produce world-class enterprises.

The Journey is facilitated by Fran O’Neal along with a team of other seasoned professionals covering the topics and disciplines that are the Journey’s content areas.

You can take a closer look at the topical areas we cover, and learn more about the details of the program by visiting our City Impact Ministries web page.

If the Journey looks interesting, we’d love to hear from you!