Is 2023 the year you... Make your hobby a side hustle? Start your own business? Or work on taking your business to the next level?
The "Small Business and Side Hustles" newsletter connects you to Library and community resources and programs to help you start or build your business! Read it here on the library website or sign up for the newsletter on our Library U enrollment page!
This month is all about building and leading a diverse team and harnessing the strengths of being an outsider. We asked a local business owner a few questions. Plus, we've highlighted some books and other resources to help you out!
Q&A with a Local Business Owner:
Cantrece Jones is the owner of Aura Plant Studio. Aura Plant Studio is Cantrece’s side hustle. By day, Cantrece runs Acuity Design Group (ADG), a public involvement and community relations firm serving organizations that rely on public support to achieve their goals.
What book you would recommend or which book do you wish you had when you started your business? Minority Leader/Lead from the Outside by Stacey Abram
What advice would you give someone starting a business in Jacksonville? Make sure it’s your passion! You have to love what you’re doing; it will show to your customers.
What advice do you have on marketing, staffing, or running a small business?
- Marketing: It is imperative to create marketing materials that display what you actually do. Be careful with abbreviations or “creative” names as people may not be able to find you based on the odd spelling of your company name.
- Staffing: Hire people you feel you can trust. Hire personalities that mesh well with yours. Be a leader in hiring the right people and allow your staff to share their ideas, thoughts and feelings.
- Running a small business is extremely rewarding. Growing a small business is where things can get tough. Growing too quickly can yield failure. Be authentic, pay attention, display what makes you different and believe that YOU can do it! You only limit yourself with your own thoughts.
Featured Digital Resource
Try out LinkedIn Learning, a leading online learning platform that helps anyone learn business, software, technology, and creative skills to achieve their goals. All you need is your library card and PIN to enjoy unlimited FREE access to 16,000+ on-demand courses.
Using the LinkedIn Learning mobile app? The Library ID (case sensitive) is: jaxpubliclibrary.
Courses We Recommend
Developing a Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Program with Dr. Stephanie Johnson
Learn how to develop a DIB program to create diverse, inclusive environments where everyone feels like they belong. Diversity, inclusion, and belonging (DIB) isn’t just a buzzword. DIB programs can have a real impact on employees’ productivity and welfare. Think about the best group you ever belonged to—where you felt like everyone cared about you, understood you, and valued you as a part of the group. That is the kind of environment that promotes sharing, innovation, and growth. In this course, you will learn how to create a strategy for your organization and start integrating DIBs into core HR activities, such as recruitment, training, performance evaluations, and promotions.
Leading with Vision with Bonnie Hagemann
Become a leader who motivates and inspires. Learn how to lead with vision. The world needs leaders who can create a compelling vision and engage others around it. Visionary leaders are able to communicate what lies beyond the horizon and inspire confidence. They attract talent to the organization and motivate team members to make more effective decisions. In this course, CEO Bonnie Hagemann shows corporate and community leaders how to lead with vision, breaking visionary leadership down into steps that anyone can follow. Discover why it's needed, why it's lacking, and how you can fill the gap. Then find out how to build your personal vision and gain the skills and tools to build a vision for your organization, division, department, team, community cause, or nonprofit.
Leadership: Practical Skills with Chris Croft
Get practical leadership skills you can use every day. Explore the qualities of a great leader, theories of motivation, leadership styles, and delegation techniques. This course provides leaders and managers of all levels with an introduction to the basic skills they need to lead their teams to success. Based on theories instructor Chris Croft has acquired over 20 years of teaching, it explores the qualities of a great leader, theories of motivation, leadership styles, and core proficiencies like connecting with your team and effectively delegating work.
Books We Recommend
Leadership is hard. Convincing others―and often yourself―that you possess the answers and are capable of world-affecting change requires confidence, insight, and sheer bravado. Stacey Abrams's Minority Leader is the handbook for outsiders, written with the awareness of the experiences and challenges that hinder anyone who exists beyond the structure of traditional white male power―women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and millennials ready to make a difference.
Humans have two basic desires: to stand out and to fit in. Companies respond by creating groups that tend to the extreme—where everyone fits in and no one stands out, or where everyone stands out and no one fits in. How do we find that happy medium where workers can demonstrate their individuality while also feeling they belong?
In this groundbreaking guide, a management expert outlines the transformative leadership skill of tomorrow—one that can make it possible to build truly diverse and inclusive teams which value employees' need to belong while being themselves
He was born the mixed-race son of a negligent, drug-dealing pimp father and a struggling single mother. He was raised in the slums of Dayton, Ohio, suffered incredible abuse and racism, and had multiple stints in the juvenile justice system. He barely graduated high school and has no college degree. No one expected him to succeed. But succeed he did.
