Green River Community College

Presents

12-Week Entrepreneur Course

January 16 - April 02, 2008

Wednesday afternoons , 4 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Course Topics

1) Overview of Entrepreneurship

2) Planning and Research

3) Management and Legal Structure

4) Marketing Analysis

5) Marketing Strategies and Tactics

6) Financial Records and Controls

7) Financial Budgets and Planning

8) Cash Flow Projections

9) Reading Financial Statements

10) Business Loans and Funding

11) Negotiation and Deal Making

12) Managing Growth

Training that Shows Proven Results

NxLevel Graduates have shown up to 200% increase in sales in their first year after the course. More than 600 communities in 47 states have benefited from this training.

Location:
Auburn Center - Green River Community College
110 2nd Street S.W. Suite 110 Room B
Auburn, WA 98001

Cost:
$599.00 for one person
$299.00 each additional person from the same business

What's New

Tuesday, March 6th 2007

We still have a few seats available for the class. We are lining up some great guest speakers. The participants in our last NxLevel Class are continuing to do very well and are making good progress. We hope you are able to join us for this class.

1st Class

We had a great start to our first NxLevel class. We started out with introductions and what to expect throughout the course.

We went through the easiest way to write a business plan:

1) Write out the business concept
2) Create a one page business model
3) Develop 3 year financial projections
4) Research and write the marketing plan
5) Take all of the above and narrate it into a business plan

Compared to other approaches, this approach works the easiest.

Our Guest Speaker was Corey Hansen, M.Sc.OD
Cory is a certified business advisor whose goal is to help his clients become “High Performance Entrepreneurs.” He is co-author of a process called “Best Practices of High Performance Entrepreneurs.” His process helps transform businesses making less than $1,000,000 in annual sales to achieve multimillion dollar growth, ASAP. A growing number of his clients have received local and national recognition from the Inc. Magazine “Inc 500”, Entrepreneur Magazine “Hot 100,” the Puget Sound Business Journal “Hot 100,” and Entrepreneur of the Year and Small Business of the Year awards and nominations from the SBA, Mayor of Seattle, and Ernst & Young. His top HPE clients have experienced 300% - 10,000% growth over a four or five year period.

Corey shared with the class the PowerPoint Presentation he uses to inspire entrepreneurs to make the leap to multi-million dollar revenues. We were all inspired to make the leap. Then we talked about the how to. We had a chance to ask him any questions we wanted. He quoted several interesting studies about factors of business success and survivability.

One of my biggest take aways was the idea that "the goal is more important that the process for achieving the goal." Corey shared many examples of small struggling businesses that once they caught the vision of creating a mult-million dollar business did whatever it took to achieve that level of success. Corey's concepts and online tools direct and speed up the process. Without coaching and guidence, the school of hard knocks approach takes about 20 years. Corey's clients are achieving it in 2 to 5 years.

If you attended the class and would like to add things you learned from the class please post a comment.


About next class

Guest Speakers Week 9 - Business Ferret, LLC

Week 9 – Understanding & Using Your Financial Statements.

Our guest speakers for week 9 will be Dan Cunningham & Brian Kremen of Business Ferret, LLC. They are in the business of performing detailed financial analysis for companies of all sizes. In the class, we will be learning the basic applications of reading and using financial statements. Dan and Brian will be sharing the cutting edge information they provide for companies through their specialized financial analysis. They will help you learn things about your business you never knew before.

Dan and Brian understand that one of the key reasons you are in business is to make money. However, if you don’t understand your financial statements, making money in business is like trying to find the light switch in a dark room while being strapped in a straight jacket. In other words, it is the school of hard knocks, which you want to avoid. Through financial analysis, business owners are able to see beyond the numbers into operational and financial performance and make profitable decisions. Dan and Brian will share with you entertaining and informative stories on how financial analysis is helpful to entrepreneurs. One of the most exciting features of their Business Ferret report is their use of color coding to point you to what is important. Green colors in the report signal strong performance. Yellow colors signal warning. Red colors signal danger. It is a unique feature that attracts many businesses to their reports.

We are looking forward to hearing from Dan & Brian.

If you would like to talk to them about their services before you meet them in class we highly recommend them. You can reach them at:
206.550.4836
bjkremen@comcast.net

What to Expect

What NxLevel Does For You
NxLevel is a business training seminar designed to enhance your entrepreneurial skills and knowledge for building and growing your business. Throughout the seminar you will be working on your written business growth plan. By the end of the seminar you will have a fully written and usable business plan.

3 Text Books
Included in this seminar are a course text book, a business plan workbook, and a comprehensive business reference guide. They each contain extensive information on all topics relevant to business planning and operations.

How Classes are Structured
There are 12 classes in the seminar. Each class is three hours. The first hour is the seminar information from NxLevel curriculum. It covers the basics and foundation of entrepreneurial knowledge. The second hour is a presentation from a guest speaker on the topic of the class. The purpose of the guest speaker is to bring best of the best information from the real world. The third hour is for discussion, working on your business plan, and one-on-one guidance in applying the information you learn.

Business Plan Contest & Graduation
Participants can enter their completed business plans in the business plan contest at the end of the seminar. The business plans will be judged by a panel to compete for prizes. The winners of the business plan competition will be announced at the NxLevel Graduation. The Graduation is held about one month after the seminar is completed. We get together with each other from the seminar, the guest speakers, and community leaders to recognize your accomplishments in graduating from this course.

No-Cost Business Advising During the Seminar
In addition to the seminar, text books, and guest speakers you will also have access to no-cost business advising during the course from Deanna Burnett-Keener or Kirk Davis from the Green River Community College’s Small Business Assistance Center (SBAC). The SBAC has been serving South King County since 2001 and has assisted over 2,000 business owners grow their businesses and acquire over $49 Million in funding. The SBAC advises business on the following topics:

• Business Planning
• Financing/Funding
• Marketing/Sales
• Financial Analysis
• Business Growth Strategies
• Cash Flow Management

The SBAC is publicly funded to support local economic development by assisting businesses to achieve sustainable profitable growth.

Learn it Tonight - Use it Tomorrow

Learn it tonight - Use it tomorrow!

NxLeveL™ is designed to do just that—help entrepreneurs learn the skills needed to create, develop and strengthen successful business ventures. Unlike other education programs, NxLeveL™ addresses the special needs of the entrepreneur by providing a practical, hands-on, common sense approach to developing their small business—whether just starting out or ready to grow. Learning from what people like about entrepreneurial training courses, NxLeveL™ incorporates the following:

• Experienced business educators, with prominent business leaders as guest speakers for each teaching module
• Networking and learning opportunities with local business leaders and participants
• Comprehensive textbooks, workbooks, and resource guides• One-on-one business counseling and support as needed
• Learning environment to practice creative problem solvingBy combining education, counseling and networking, NxLeveL™ helps entrepreneurs reach their next level of success.

NxLeveL™’s goal was to produce the best, most comprehensive, practical-based business training courses available, but at an affordable price.

History and Background of NxLevel

History of the NxLeveL® Training Programs

The NxLeveL™ Entrepreneurial Training Program was initially funded by a grant from the U S WEST Foundation to the University of Colorado at Denver. Housed in the Colorado Center for Community Development, NxLeveL® is the result of listening to the business training needs of business service providers throughout the United States. They said that they wanted training programs that:

1. Provided business skills training, including preparing a business plan.

2. Provided hands-on practical guidance in bookkeeping, marketing, financial projections and negotiating with lenders.

3. Provided a standardized curriculum that was cost-effective, yet flexible and focused on the community level.

NxLeveL’s mission was clear—to develop training courses that met all of the above needs. The basic premise behind developing the training courses is that the business or person who plans is the business or person who succeeds. Planning is a learned skill. For this reason, NxLeveL™ put a premium on teaching entrepreneurs better planning skills, from business concept development to the actual preparation of a comprehensive business plan. The result has been the development five turnkey training programs:

• NxLeveL™ for Business Start-ups
• NxLeveL™ for Existing Business / Entrepreneur
• NxLeveL™ for Enterprising Youth
• NxLeveL™ for Micro-Entrepreneurs
• NxLeveL™ for Agricultural Entrepreneurs

NxLeveL™ represents a growing network. Initially, NxLeveL™ was marketed under the name of the Western Entrepreneurial Network (WEN) with partners located in the 14 western states comprising U S WEST Communications corporate territory. After beta testing the NxLeveL™ materials in the Spring of 1996, WEN received numerous inquiries about NxLeveL™ and began expanding nationally. To accommodate all of its partners and to be reflective of its national scope, it was decided to change WEN to the NxLeveL Training Network. NxLeveL continues to act as the hub to not only coordinate NxLeveL, but to transfer best practices information from one state or community to another. NxLeveL accomplishes this by holding an annual meeting of all State Coordinators and encouraging the development of multi-state trainings for Instructors. The willingness of states and/or communities to share information regionally and nationally or within a particular state has been partly responsible for the growth of NxLeveL™.
NxLeveL has expanded into 47 states, over 600 communities, and 7 countries. It is now the largest entrepreneurial network in the world!

Proven Impacts from NxLevel Training

NxLeveL Has Measurable Economic Impact


A third party evaluation was commissioned to determine the economic impact of the NxLeveL courses. The University of Calgary conducted the study. The results showed that an existing business, on average experience a 32 percent increase in gross sales within one year after graduation, and create 1.3 new jobs. Graduates with smaller companies (annual gross sales less than $200,000), experience an even more dramatic success rate with an average of over 200 percent increase in sales.

With regards to business start-ups, 40 percent of participants start a business within one year after completing the course. Another 20 percent continue to work on developing their business concept. When surveyed after three years, over 93 percent of the businesses were still in operation, whereas the national average is a mere 16.5 percent for the same time period.

The survey also showed that the majority of the NxLeveL participants use the business plan created in the course to obtain financing for their business.

NxLeveL is the world’s largest most effective entrepreneurial training network. Since 1996, over 80,000 students have participated in NxLeveL training. Some 3,000 people have been certified as NxLeveL instructors. Over 2,000 trainings have been implemented in over 47 states and 600 communities. At its current pace, NEF will teach over 20,000 new participants over the next two years.
Planning is a learned skill and NxLeveL teaches entrepreneurs planning skills, from business concept development and feasibility studies to the actual preparation of a comprehensive business plan which includes; marketing, budgeting, and financial analysis.