A Process for Small Business Innovation

To help your small business grow sales and profits, Conder Business Solutions has developed a unique small business innovation process. Innovate simply means to challenge the status quo and make changes. Challenges can be made to current products, services and processes. The Innovation Process What Areas of Your Business Need Innovation? Start by determining what…

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Why Small Business Corporate Books Are Important

You remember your corporate books, don’t you? That was the “book” created when you started your business. Items like articles of incorporation, by-laws, operating agreements, shareholders, unit holders, buy-sell agreements and meeting minutes are in there. It is very common for these records to just sit after a business start. However, the corporate book should…

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Tips for Marketing Engineering and Technical Firms

Often, engineers and other technical professionals struggle with understanding marketing. One of the main reasons is that, in the world of marketing, there are no equations with predictable outcomes like we are used to in our world of sciences. There are no guarantees; only generalizations, probabilities and possibilities. This lack of predictability can cause angst…

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Why Team Member Diversity is Important to Innovation

When your business is considering change or innovation, it is helpful to have more than one person doing the thinking and generating ideas. In our experience, the best ideas start with an individual, but are shaped and developed by a team. All individuals have the capacity to have great ideas. The reason team member diversity…

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Growth by Acquisition: Pure Stroke Golf

Growth by acquisition or buying another business is a possible strategy for small businesses.  In this case, Pure Stroke Golf, a formerly Florida-based maker of putting training aids, was purchased by C&C Machine, Inc., an Oklahoma-based machine shop. Why C&C Machine Chose to Grow by Acquisition Like many Oklahoma machine shops and fabricators, C&C Machine’s…

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Takeaways from the Book “How to Fly a Horse”

How to Fly a Horse was written by Kevin Ashton. He is credited with coining the phrase “internet of things” and was instrumental in the development of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology. The book is about creativity, invention and discovery. The book has many takeaways for the small business owner. Takeaways for Business Owners First,…

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4 Growth Strategies for Oklahoma Small Businesses

Many Oklahoma small businesses would like to grow.  Below, we discuss four strategies for you to consider. Increase Marketing and Promotional Efforts This strategy could mean anything from updating your website, social media, old fashioned direct mail campaigns, networking, contacting customers that you haven’t heard from in a while and more.  We have found this…

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The Small Business Arena

Theodore Roosevelt’s, “The Man in the Arena”, is an excerpt from the speech “Citizenship in a Republic” delivered in Paris on April 23, 1910.  I have modified the excerpt to be non-gender specific.  Is the small business owner in “The Arena”?   The Person in the Arena It is not the critic that counts; not…

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Merry Christmas

One of the joys of being a small business consultant is sharing and learning with small business owners.  We certainly work together to solve business problems, but we also work together to help each other through life. I have had many business-related blessings thus far in 2017.  However, I think from time to time it…

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Junior Achievement of Oklahoma 2017

Recently, I participated in a Junior Achievement (JA) event called the JA Investor Challenge.  JA is an organization that teaches young people skills in work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy. The JA Investor Challenge is designed for high school students to learn about the stock market through an exciting “hands-on” simulation.  This gives them a…

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