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On Nov. 5, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: NYX), Accion and Yelp will be teaming up with the Northern California Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) to bring the NYSE Big Start Up Small Business Connections workshop tour to San Francisco.
The event was created to give local entrepreneurs a leg up through their startup phase with insider tips and tricks on the effective use of social media marketing and accessing capital. San Francisco is the tenth stop of the Small Business Connections tour and the program’s West Coast debut, with Los Angeles and San Diego to follow. The free evening program will be held at the New York Stock Exchange San Francisco in the Mills Building at 220 Montgomery St., from 6 to 8 p.m.
The workshop will include presentations from industry experts, followed by an opportunity for the audience to get answers to important questions that apply to their business as well as a networking session with experts and participants. Yelp’s Manager of Local Business Outreach, Darnell Holloway, will highlight important topics marketing topics like how entrepreneurs can work with major social media platforms to engage customers online and navigate online reviews. Yelp, which was founded in San Francisco in 2004, continues to grow as a trusted resource for consumers, with a monthly average of 78 million unique visitors in the second quarter of this year and more than 30 million reviews on the site worldwide.
Continuing the conversation on to financing, an SBDC financial expert will provide an insider’s prospective on what lenders are looking for, what an entrepreneur needs to prepare before they approach a lender and how the SBDC can help.
“Working capital and securing financing are difficult for any business, but particularly for startups navigating the world of lending for the first time,” said Al Dixon, director of the San Francisco Small Business Development Center. “Our financial business advisors have been through that themselves and work one-on-one to help both new and existing small businesses navigate the process and avoid unnecessary pitfalls.”
Nationwide micro-lender Accion, the SBDC and Yelp staff will be present throughout the workshop to answer questions and offer personalized consultations to participants.
“Small Business Connections” is the first small business event tour from the NYSE Big StartUp, and was launched by Yelp, Accion and NYSE in June 2012. The Big StartUp is a nationwide job creation and business growth initiative that connects small businesses with corporations, such as Yelp and also integrates the Accion-NYSE Job Growth Fund. This program was started with a $1.5 million commitment by NYSE Euronext, to provide small businesses and startups with the capital and support they need to grow.
The Small Business Connections tour has been a high-impact resource for local small business owners. So far tour attendees have reported learning an average of three new marketing techniques and meeting an average of three other entrepreneurs who could help them expand through new channels.
