Chicago Community Ventures Blog

CCV heart Small Business: Food Edition-Success!

This past Tuesday night, Mr. Brown's Lounge was packed, not only with people there for the game but with a room of food business owners and service providers.

Our expert panelists Cleetus Friedman of City Provisions, Darius Williams of Cupcake Gallery and Uptown Pie Company, and Dominic Melone of Frontera Foods shared their experiences (a few of which were pretty crazy) and gave practical tips to small business owners on different aspects of their businesses.

Attendees (both business owners and service providers) were able to make connections with one another over some incredible jerk chicken and patties.

Much thanks to all who participated and made the event a success! Special thanks to our panelists for sharing their knowledge. Thanks to our exhibitors and service providers; take some time and check them out below.

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Interesting reads: news and resources for small business

A round up of interesting news and articles giving tips for small businesses. We want to post resources which are helpful to you, so comment and let us know what topics are interesting to you!

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Better business plan can lead to more customers. Read more.

Five bookkeeping tips for business owners. Read more.

Philanthropy as business model? Read more.

How to use video to market your business. Read more.

Facebook and Amex offering business makeovers. Read more.

 

Interesting reads: news and resources for small business

A round up of interesting news and articles giving tips for small businesses. We want to post resources which are helpful to you, so comment and let us know what topics are interesting to you!

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According to American Express Small Business Monitor, the current landscape of small business: Read more.

31 ways to update your small business online marketing: Read more.

7 things to avoid when making your sales pitch: Read more.

Pursuing angel investors--what you need to know: Read more.

Interesting reads: news and resources for small business

Don't need to overhaul your website to boost sales--tweaks can do the trick. Read more.

Outsourcing your paperwork problem. Read more.

Banks are not doing enough to protect small businesses. Read more.

Are you ready to put a price tag on your business? Read more.

Consider this before you settle on a brick-and-mortar location. Read more.

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A round up of interesting news and articles giving tips for small businesses. We want to post resources which are helpful to you, so comment and let us know what topics are interesting to you.

Top 10 Local Search Sites

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Courtesy of Websalad 

Since Yellow Pages are going the way of the great thunder lizards, its in your best interest to utilize online search. Here is a list of the top 10, as it appears on Hubspot's blog. Thanks to Eric Vreeland, the author of the original post, for being so thoughtful.

Filling out the forms over and over again can be a big pain, so here's a link to an Auto-Fill add-on for Firefox that should help prevent carpal tunnel.

1. Google
2. Bing
3. Yahoo!
4. Yelp
5. Merchant Circle
6. LinkedIn
7. YellowPages.com
9. Whitepages
10. Supermedia

 

That's just the tip of the iceberg. We didn't want you to be overwhelmed, but if you are feeling adventurous, visit the origial post to see all 50 listings.