Economic Development
Companies, communities and even states are taking a new look at economic development today. Even though these entities have always concerned themselves with developing their economies for the logical reasons of increasing both tax revenue and individual incomes, the new reality is that the old economic development model doesn't really work anymore.
Historically, communities and states would recruit big business to come to their location and build a facility. The communities would provide economic subsidies to the company in order to be chosen. This competition has become so intense that communities are no longer gaining revenues in this type of process because, in order to entice the large employer, the community had to give away more and more of the economic and tax-related benefits.
The emphasis today is moving away from recruiting the giant company and toward advancing homegrown businesses that have a real opportunity to improve the economic picture in their own community. This section will provide a selection of courses that help communities understand and deal with the process of economic development.
Index of topics in "Economic Development"
New Strategies for Economic Development
Creating, Educating and Inspiring Local Angel Investors
Creating, Educating and Inspiring Local Angel Investors to Invest as a Team
An Introduction to Strategic Planning (McGraw-Hill Professional Education Series)
- Leaders and Leading (McGraw-Hill Professional Education Series)
- Managing in Times of Change (McGraw-Hill Professional Education Series)
Planning and Project Management (McGraw-Hill Professional Education Series)
- Stimulating Thinking and Innovation at Work
- Corporate Entrepreneurship - Can it Help Your Company?
Is New Venturing Right For You?
Finding an Angel Investor in a Day
Build a Better Business Plan
Ideas to Assets: A Practical Guide to Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks
Starting a Business: A Practical Guide to Choosing a Business Entity, Adopting a Trademark, and Understanding Business Contracts
Confidentiality and Non-Compete Agreements
New Strategies for Economic Development
(Half day)
The world of economic development is rapidly evolving. For years, seemingly unlimited dollars were chasing business relocation opportunities. Today, those business relocation opportunities have become very expensive, very competitive to attract, and are very few in number. The tide of economic development needs to refocus upon homegrown opportunities and regional collaborations. This seminar will offer strategies applicable to rural and urban communities alike. Learn how to evolve your strategic mission, capitalize upon and enhance existing resources and regional strengths, and ultimately, change the economic footprint of your development area.
This session is geared primarily toward the economic developers, strategic partners, and the economic development boards. A recent form of this presentation was overwhelmingly received at the Mid-South Economic Development Conference held annually in Little Rock. It not only serves to educate and garner support from key decision-makers but could also be the first step in the evolution of your economic development strategic plan.
Creating, Educating, and Inspiring Local Angel Investors
(Full Day)
This session is used to encourage, identify and educate local high net worth individuals in the art angel investing. Angel investors are high net worth individuals that invest in early stage companies. Most angel investors like to invest within a half a day’s drive of their permanent residence. Many angel investors are motivated to help their local economies and improve the local quality of life. This session will include:
• Where angel investors are currently positioned
• How and where to find the best deals
• The process of due diligence
• Valuation and negotiating the deal
• Mentoring and investing as a team
This session is presented by the nationally renowned author of “Finding an Angel Investor in a Day Get It Done Right Get It Done Now”, Joseph R. Bell, JD/MBA. Joe formerly served as chief operating officer for a 75 member angel network where each member was pre-qualified at $5 million plus in net worth, exclusive of their primary residence.
Creating, Educating, and Inspiring Local Angel Investors to Invest as a Team
(Half Day)
Individual angel investors can have a significant impact on the viability of the local economy. Imagine the opportunity of bringing together a number of angel investors and capitalizing upon their collective wisdom and wealth. Angel networks have the opportunity to change the economic footprint of an entire region. In this half day session you will learn:
• What differentiates team investing from individual angels
• How various angel networks operate
• Inputs and outcomes
• Sustainability
This session is presented by the nationally renowned author of “Finding an Angel Investor in a Day Get It Done Right Get It Done Now”, Joseph R. Bell, JD/MBA. Joe formerly served as chief operating officer for a 75 member angel investor network where each member was pre-qualified at $5 million plus in net worth, exclusive of their primary residence.
An Introduction to Strategic Planning (McGraw-Hill Professional Education Series)
(Full Day)
Successful corporate strategy must be strong enough to meet the needs of the marketplace, yet flexible enough to quickly adapt when that marketplace changes. This course outlines a field-proven framework you can follow to design and implement such a strategy and strengthen your organization's competitive advantage while ensuring buy-in and implementation by every worker, at every level. Encompassing every stage of the strategic process, this tactic-filled seminar tells you what you need to do to:
• Define your businesses
• Understand your opportunities and threats
• Set feasible goals and objectives
• Create the strategies to achieve your objectives
• Communicate the strategy and obtain commitment
• Integrate across functions
• And more
Leaders and Leading (McGraw-Hill Professional Education Series)
(Full Day)
"What makes a great leader?" Thousands of workers in both North America and Europe were asked that one simple question. Their top responses were compiled into this course. The ability to lead is far more than just a natural gift. Study after study shows that leadership is a concrete and learnable skill, one that can be acquired and honed by studying and applying specific proficiencies, attitudes, and habits. In this seminar, you will be provided with competencies and guidelines identified time and again as essential for becoming an effective and extraordinary leader, including:
• Focus on results
• Cultivate interpersonal skills
• Lead organizational change
• Learn from mistakes
• Develop your people
• Be open to new ideas
• Build strengths
• Fix fatal flaws
• Be accountable
• And more
Managing in Times of Change (McGraw-Hill Professional Education Series)
(Half Day)
While change is essential to your organization’s survival, it can also breed instability, stress, and even anger in your workforce. This seminar shows you how to help managers and employees understand the benefits of change and accept and perform within their new environment and responsibilities. You will learn lessons detailing strategies to:
• Communicate and personify the benefits of change
• Isolate and clarify areas of impact
• Measure and acknowledge progress
• Get team members involved
• Empathize without always agreeing
• And more
Planning and Project Management (McGraw-Hill Professional Education Series)
(Full Day)
You've been given a project to manage--now what? Effective project management isn't easy. The payoff, however, is huge, both for your organization and your career. This course is designed for managers working in an organization without formal project management practices in place who want to learn to use some of the tools and techniques from the field of project management. Many of these tools can benefit them in their daily work planning. It is not specific to any industry or project management software platform. It will be most useful to those who have not had a formal introduction to project management. Topics covered will include:
• Projects, Project Management and The Project Life Cycle
• Project Initiation and Charter Development
• Scope Definition and Management
• Schedule Development
• Communications Management
• Training Options, Examples of PM Methodologies
Stimulating Thinking and Innovation at Work
(Half Day)
Are creativity and innovation necessary evils in today’s business world or should management embrace them? Do you have trouble getting creative solutions from your team? Creativity and innovation are the drivers of change and adaptability in organizations. Without them, we would not have the tools to be able to adapt to a competitive landscape that is constantly moving and changing. This seminar will show you how to generate new ideas and find ways to break out of the analytical ruts that even the best people get into. The end result will be an ability to improve individual and organizational performance, stimulate innovation and creativity and get world-class results from your organization and its people. You will learn:
• The obstacles to creativity and innovation in your organization
• How to apply creative thinking techniques to improve innovation
• How to encourage your employees to use creativity in solving problems
• Brainstorming techniques to foster creative thinking and generate innovative solutions
• Powerful tools to reward innovation in your organization
• And more
Corporate Entrepreneurship – Can It Help Your Company?
(Full Day) - Also available as sustained coaching
Referred to as Corporate Entrepreneurship, Corporate Venturing, or even Intrapreneurship is the practice of entrepreneurial skills and approaches by or within a company. Employees, perhaps engaged in a special project within a larger firm are supposed to behave as entrepreneurs, capitalizing upon the resources and capabilities of the larger firm possesses. Capturing a little of the dynamic nature of entrepreneurial management can be quite valuable in otherwise static organizations. Coverage will include:
• Defining Corporate Entrepreneurship
• Building the culture
• Building the structure
• Resource allocation
• Identification, implementation and success models
Is New Venturing Right For You?
(Half Day)
Entrepreneurship came calling and found you at home! Now you have the new venture fever. You’re ready for your new firm to set the business world alight! Or are you? The sobering facts about the high failure rates of new ventures are enough to give anyone pause. Get the information you need to make a better decision. Topics covered will include:
• The Facts about Business Births and Business Deaths
• A Visionary, or Overconfident?
• Go It Alone or Form a Team
• Know All Aspects of Your Business
• The Dynamics of Business Births
• The Dynamics of Business Deaths
• The Local Policy Environment
Finding an Angel Investor in a Day
(Full Day)
Joe Bell, the author of the best-selling “Finding an Angel Investor in a Day; Get it done right, get it done fast!”™, and former COO of a 75-member Angel Investor network offers to guide you through the process of making your venture attractive to private investors, how to find those investors, and how to close the deal. Businesses need capital to thrive or grow whether it is $25,000, or a few million, the Finding an Angel Investor in a Day process could well work for you! Coverage will include:
• What an Angel will do for you
• How to find an Angel Investor
• Make yourself a good catch
• The pitch
• Valuation
• The term sheet
• Due diligence
• After the deal
Build a Better Business Plan
(Full Day)
Every business needs a plan. However, if you have never written a business plan before, it can be a daunting thing to take on without help. Did you know that who you are writing your plan for is a big consideration in how the plan is written? This seminar is designed to help you understand the basics of a business plan so that you can write the document that you need to define your concept, evaluate the competition, determine risks, and estimate costs. Specific topics covered will include:
• Business plan sections and what goes in them
• How to do a basic environmental analysis for your industry
• Financial statements for your business plan
• Writing the plan for your specific target audience
• And more
Ideas to Assets: A Practical Guide to Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks
(Half Day)
In today’s competitive business environment, innovations in business operations and in products or services often distinguish one competitor from the rest. Obtaining exclusive rights to such innovations is the most important step in achieving valuable competitive advantages. Even if such rights are not yet considered necessary, steering clear of a competitor’s exclusive rights is just as important. This seminar will provide a thorough overview of the three primary forms of intellectual property … patents, copyrights and trademarks. Participants will learn what types of subject matter qualify for each form of intellectual property protection; for example, participants will be able to understand what innovations are patentable, and appreciate the legal rights that a patent gives the owner. Besides learning what preliminary actions will best preserve the ability to obtain the exclusive rights, participants will learn the procedures and costs for pursuing each form of intellectual property protection. Topics include:
• Overview of types of protection of intellectual property – Different strokes for different folks
• Costs for pursuing intellectual property protection
• Federal registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
• Violations of intellectual property rights
• Trade Secret protection
• And more
Starting a Business: A Practical Guide to Choosing a Business Entity, Adopting a Trademark, and Understanding Business Contracts
(Half Day)
Before opening for business, make sure that the business is on the most firm legal footing possible. Different circumstances dictate different choices between the traditional business entities … corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies. This seminar will provide a pragmatic comparison of those business entities, and then teach the basics for adopting a business name that will be protectable without encroaching upon a competitor’s trade name. Participants will also receive a thorough overview of basic business contract law. Topics will include:
• Corporate entities
• Limited Liability entities
• Partnership entities
• Protecting your good name
• Basics of Contract Law
Confidentiality and Non-Compete Agreements
(Half Day)
Business success and competition today rely heavily upon the acquisition and upgrading of both technology and competent personnel. Simply put, both are valuable assets of a business, which demand maintenance and protection. The departure of either, especially to a competitor, may deal a double-fisted blow to a business enterprise. As a preventive measure, it is important to engage in advance planning to devise and implement measures to coordinate the timing and amount of exposure of particular employees to sensitive business assets such as trade secrets (or other proprietary information or technology), and to prevent their departure along with the departure of such personnel.
Agreements containing confidentiality and non-competition provisions should be executed by employees at the commencement of employment, especially if an employee may eventually have access to sensitive business information. Moreover, means must be in place to monitor compliance with the confidentiality measures. This short course will discuss the value of Confidentiality and Non-Compete Agreements and identify the situations in which they should be considered in your business.