ECONOMIC SOUL
September 22, 2008 - vol. XVII
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Where and How to Get Money for your Business:  A working conference to help “connect-the-dots”

An ongoing problem that many of us face as a start-up or existing small minority- owned  business is one of money for business operations.  Although most of us have heard about the Small Business Administration and other agencies that are in place to help start-up and small businesses, we find it impossible to “connect the dots.”  

On November 14, 2008  the St. Louis Black Leadership Roundtable Group - in association with the Center for the Acceleration of African-American Business - will host a conference that is certain to break through the information barriers that prevent us from gaining access to the resources we need.  The event will be held at The University of Missouri at St. Louis in the Millennium Student Center between 5:00 - 8:00 pm.

We Care Worldwide is working with the St. Louis organization to produce this event, and other events in the series that will take place during 2009. 

We will post additional  conference  details in the Events calendar at www.ebizglobal.org as soon as we receive it. 

The Black Hair Project:  Co-op Advertising and Group Economics

In an effort to move more business to  Black Beauty Supply Stores, Devin Robinson, author of Taking it Back Black and also a colleague of all of us who are trying to make a difference in this industry, has struck a deal that can help each of us.

Devin has been in direct contact with Sister to Sister, Black Hair and Hype Hair magazines regarding getting exposure for the Black Beauty Supply stores. Although the price of a decent sized ad in any one of these publications is out of the reach of most of us, Devin has devised a plan that can get us exposure for a very little money.

We Care is working in concert with Devin to make it happen in a meaningful way to everybody.  Get details here. http://blackhairproject.com/co-op-ad.htm

E-Biz Global

E-Biz Global (www.ebizglobal.org)  is an  online business community similar to MySpace and Facebook.  Help us expand and  can get free advertising for your business.

We’ve created the framework, now we are inviting you to add you business to this community.  With your input, we are developing a place where all of our businesses can be showcased.  As importantly, we can begin to more easily do business with each other because we can clearly see what we offer the marketplace.  We’ll advertise the site across a broad spectrum of media, so you’ll automatically get noticed throughout the Internet community.  Let’s face it:  when the world takes notice, people in our local neighborhood also pay attention. 

During our earlier communications with Black Hair Industry businesses, we discovered that many do not have a website presence.  This keeps potential new customers out of your reach.  Now each business can have a presence on the Internet.  You can have your own World Wide Web address for free within 3 minutes - while the promotion lasts.    There is no excuse – you don’t need any kind of website-building know-how to do  this.

Here’s how to add your business:

Make sure you have an email address.  If you don’t go to www.yahoo.com or www.hotmail.com and sign up for free.  Write down your new email address and your password.

Make sure you have a digital picture (jpg, gif, or tif format) of your business logo of one of your products.  You’re going to need this to showcase your business. 

We encourage you to use your business name for this exercise.  If you don’t have one, this is a great time to get one.  You can always change it later on.

Go to www.ebizglobal.org.  Use your new yahoo or hotmail email address to create an account.  

When the system prompts you for a “Name”,  enter your business name.  When it prompts you for a photo, browse your hard drive and find  your business logo or a picture of one of your products.   The system will create your page.  

When your page is created, the system will prompt you to enter your own text in a white text box with “Edit” in the right hand side.  This is where you will add a short statement about your business, such as “Best home cooked meals in Memphis”.  In the text box below the headline, add some more information that describes your business – from the perspective of benefits to your customers (makes them beautiful, wise, rich, wise, etc.).  If you already have a website, link to it from this space.  There is a small icon at the top of the box that makes your link “live”.

Save your work and you’re done. 

Congratulations, thank you for helping us build this Community of Black Businesses with a Black Hair Industry focus, and welcome.

If you need help signing up, go to www.beyondbeautiful.biz/ebizglobal.htm and click on instructions at the bottom of the page.