Small Business Help and Free Resources at Your Library

Thursday, April 25, 2024

April 2024 Small Business and Side Hustles

Spring is the time to grow new ideas! Are you ready to start a new side hustle or grow your existing business? The "Small Business and Side Hustles" Library U newsletter connects you to Library and community resources and programs to help you get started! 

Pro Tip: City of Jacksonville Office of Economic Development Small Business webpage is a great resource for local small businesses. Resources for Business Assistance, Small Business Incubator, and Financial Incentives to Support Small Business can all be found on the website.

 

# Upcoming Library Programs


Life Lit are free workshops offered by trained professionals and volunteers that focus on improving your day-to-day life. These programs cover a wide range of workshops from gardening to small business needs. No need to bring anything but yourself to participate!

Entrepreneurship Long Hand with EY 

Life Lit logo

Are you ready to become an entrepreneur? Do you want to measure your entrepreneurial mindset? This one-hour workshop will cover the basics of entrepreneurship and help you activate your inner entrepreneur. Bridging the digital divide is an EY commitment. They're building a better working world by supporting all people with the opportunity to fully participate in modern education, the economy, and society.

Tuesday, April 30, 6:30-7:45 PM, University Park Branch

 

# Free, On-Demand Learning


hoopla logo

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


Growing Your Small Business with LinkedIn

Learn how to harness the power of LinkedIn to grow your small business. In this course, small business owners Jess Stratton and George Maestri show you how to establish a strong presence for your company, find and hire employees, and leverage LI for new business prospecting. Whether you’re a sole proprietorship or a small business with 100 employees - whether you sell globally or locally - there are free tools on LinkedIn that can help you grow your business. 

Get Funded to Grow Your Business

Learn proven ways to grow your business from a financial and business perspective. Obtaining a funding round is a logical step for any business, from start-ups to those preparing to go public. In this course, funding expert and CEO Promise Phelon reviews her methods for obtaining funding with the goal of business growth in mind. Using her expertise, Promise shares the obstacles business owners face, common objections you might hear from an investor, and networking secrets to get your foot in the door. 

 Five Ways to Grow Your Brand's Audience

Get practical advice on how to build a loyal community of fans and customers. For entrepreneurs and creators, building great products is only half the battle. Getting people to actually care about their products is the other half. In this course, Jack Kramer and Nick Martell draw on their experiences in growing a side hustle into one of today’s top business podcasts. Find out how to generate buzz through word of mouth, get the press to write about your biz, form partnerships with other companies in your space, build referral programs, and scale your efforts with paid marketing.

Developing Business Acumen by Mike Figliuolo

Having business acumen means understanding how your business operates. In this course, leadership expert Mike Figliuolo explains the most common business topics and terms you need to be familiar with—business models, financials, strategy, sales and marketing, R&D, P&L, EBITDA, and other key concepts. He leads you through a series of questions that will help you understand your business better: What's your market and who is your competition? What are your pricing and growth strategies? How do you measure performance? With the answers in hand, you can rest assured you'll have the knowledge needed to make the best decisions for your business.

# Books We Recommend


SYSTEMology by David Jenyns

Create time, reduce errors, and scale your profits with proven business systems! Are you constantly repeating yourself, fixing errors, and trying to hold things together? SYSTEMology draws on 20+ years of business experience and real-life case studies. This proven, step-by-step business systemization framework is designed so that even the busiest business owner can deploy it. Discover the path to complete business reliability!

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell

New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestseller for May 2022! Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone, and Nest Learning Thermostat and learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure, and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia. So that's what this book is. An advice encyclopedia. A mentor in a box. Written for anyone who wants to grow at work—from young grads navigating their first jobs to CEOs deciding whether to sell their company. 


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