Every day, government agencies and large corporations spend billions on goods and services from small businesses. The Rutgers Newark SBDC wants to ensure that businesses owned by minorities, veterans and women are at the forefront of success. This workshop will help you to position your businesses so that you can compete for business opportunities with the City, State and Private Sector companies.

This workshop will educate prospective New Jersey applicants on how to submit a successful Registration or Certification Application (WBE/MBE/SBE/VOB) with the state of New Jersey. The training will provide helpful tips and information to complete a winning application

• Learn which requests are relevant to your organizational structure
• Review the applications to determine how to present your responses
• Learn how to write a winning resume to reflect your work experience and the firm’s niche market to ensure that it reflects your business
• Review the importance of your firm’s services overview

This all day training course will provide small business participants with an in-depth understanding of government contracting and the federal procurement process. The overview will include how the procurement process works including commonly utilized FAR clauses, how to conduct thorough market research to find opportunities, SBA small business certification programs available as well as how to effectively leverage certifications to win contracts. Prior to leaving this class, you will know how to sell to the government.

This training course will also help existing small businesses, who currently do business with the federal government or those who mostly do work in the commercial sector but want to branch into federal market, better understand the basics about contracting with government agencies and ways to compete in the government contracting arena. This will be accomplished through dynamic lectures and interaction with other small business participants as well as through interactive exercises where we provide hands on learning to show you techniques and strategies to market more efficiently and effectively to win federal business.

In today’s market, harnessing the power of social media is a must if you want to grow your business and your brand and the same goes for your website. It is vital to position yourself online with a strong internet presence that reassures and strengthens the consumers trust and motivates them to engage more with your business. This workshop will provide tools and actionable strategies to optimize your website and social media so you can promote and grow your business.

TOPICS INCLUDE:

• Creating a website strategy for your business
• SEO – Increasing your website’s visibility in the search engines
• Keyword research to build out your website content strategically;
• Building your website’s reputation via blogs and social media;
• Measuring the effectiveness of your web design and strategies;
• Integrating social media into your business and marketing strategy;
• Understanding each social media platforms and how to select the best ones for your business;
• Using social media for lead generation;
• Third party tools to help manage your social media marketing efforts;
• Using analytics and measuring success.

In today’s digital marketing space, it’s all about targeting correctly through multiple touch points to Acquire, Engage and Retain the Customer, eventually turning them into loyal advocates. Attracting the right customers is critical to the success of any small business and will save you money in the long run! The RNSBDC Integrated Digital Marketing Series’ learning objective is to coach small businesses in honing their skills for digital marketing via social media and apps.

This hands on course helps you the business owner or marketing specialist to create a profile of your ideal customer; develop an effective engagement strategy; boost your marketing by emphasizing the value through the language and get your potential customers to pay attention; know the target ideal customer who wants to buy your product or service and how much demand there is for what you sell and much more!

WORKSHOP TOPICS INCLUDE:

• Introduction to Digital Marketing
• What are you selling: Knowing what you are selling to engage the right customer?
• Lead Generation Methods & Tactics
• Understanding the Online Buyer /Customer Journey
• Online Customer Targeting Methods & Tactics
• Online Customer Engagement Strategies/Programs
• Targeting via Social Media platforms & Apps

The RNSBDC Integrated Digital Marketing Series learning objectives are to teach small businesses how to create an integrated marketing campaign/program across multiple platforms. These campaigns would ensure that the business is targeting their ideal customer through multiple touch points to Acquire, Engage, Retain Customers, eventually turning them into loyal advocates.

Take your digital marketing efforts to the next level and ensure that your marketing campaign is more effective. Learn how to implement different digital marketing strategies to create a complete, result-driven marketing campaign that will capture the attention of your customers.

WORKSHOP TOPICS INCLUDE:

• Determining your target audience: Who are you interested in attracting?
• Setting specific goals and metrics (KPIs): What do you want to accomplish with your campaign and how will you measure performance?
• Crafting your offer: What incentive will get the attention of your target audience?
• Identifying your channels: What media channels will you use to promote your offer?
• Websites / Social Media / Email / Mobile / Video etc.
• Determining your campaign budget
• Creating clear, consistent and optimized content: How will you get the visitor to take action?
• Defining your lead nurturing strategy: How to help your visitors along their buying journey?
• Tracking and measuring results: How will you measure success?

It is critical to make investments to grow your business, but it can seem almost impossible to obtain financing to do it. Most business owners are turned down for financing because they are not prepared and do not understand what needs to be done.

Learn about strategies for significantly increasing your likelihood of success in obtaining financing for your business.

This course covers the following topics:

• Determining How Much Money You Need
• The Universe of Business Financing Alternatives (Pros and Cons of Each)
• What Goes into a Good Financing Proposal
• How to Increase Your Chances of Obtaining Financing

Participants in this training will:

• Know how to figure out how much money they will need and determine the best type of financing for their situation
• Understand what information is needed and what lenders / investors require to approve financing for a business
• Receive a copy of the presentation and a booklet with useful information about obtaining financing

Based on this knowledge it will be easier to:

• Put together a financing plan for your business
• Know what type of financing you need and who provides it
• Avoid common pitfalls that will derail the financing process
• Obtain the financing you need quicker and easier

Keep precise financial records using easily available accounting software (Quickbooks) for small businesses. You will learn how to create accurate financial statements and how to interpret them. We’ll look at the key numbers and ratios that can help you understand your financial results, and how to use these ratios to plan effectively and manage cash flow properly. This workshop is intended for current business owners and managers and for anyone thinking about opening a business.

TOPICS INCLUDED:

• Understanding Accounting/Bookkeeping Practices for a Small Business
• Bookkeeping Basics
• Your “Bean Team” & Their Roles
• Accounting Softwares
• Understanding Financial Statements
• Key Financial Ratios
• Problem solving – Case Studies to provide a greater understanding of the topics discussed

The Rutgers-Newark SBDC has developed a Small Business Cyber Security Program to provide management teams of established small businesses with Cyber Security awareness. The goal of the program is for attendees to understand the importance of implementing a consistent, and continuously improving Cyber Security posture for their organization.

Our Cyber Security Program goes beyond intrusion detection and reactive remediation. We provide insight on how to prevent cyber criminals from compromising the integrity of your business critical assets and information on a daily basis. The program also provides a number of best practices and helpful tips to educate end-users who access your company’s information systems.
If cyber security for your small businesses is still an afterthought, keep in mind that for your customers, suppliers, and partners it is still a very important concern!

1. WHAT IS CYBER SECURITY
   a. Security & Privacy
   b. Laws & Regulations
2. SECURITY AUTHENTICATION & PRIVILEGED USER BEHAVIOR
   a. Single-Factor vs. Multi-Factor Authentication
   b. Solutions to Single-Facgtor Authentication
   c. Privileges User Authentications Best Practices
   d. Privileged Access Management Best Practices
3. SMALL BUSINESS CYBER SECURITY ASSESSMENT & MEASUREMENT
   a. Organization & Knowledge Management Assessment Tool
   b. Workforce Management Assessment Tool
   c. Cyber Operations Management Assessment Tool
   d. Cyber Measurement Management Assessment Tool