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How Your Seminars Can Benefit From Laptop And Tablet Rentals

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Lots of companies hold seminars for many different reasons. These seminars could be used to promote their products to potential clients or could be employee seminars where companies teach employees about new policies and procedures that will soon be implemented. Regardless of the reason, the ability for those in attendance of the seminar to interact with the presenter and the presentation is imperative. That is why a lot of companies hosting seminars find it wise that everyone in attendance have access to something like a laptop or a tablet. As a result, it’s common that businesses rent this technology in this situation. Here are a few reasons that a business would want to rent laptops or tablets for their seminars.

Essential Software Pre-Installed

When people bring their own laptops or tablets, you can run into a software problem. There might be specific types of software that your company is going to utilize during the seminar presentation. When attendees bring their own equipment, it won’t be of much use to them if they don’t have the compatible software installed. However, when you rent laptops or tablets from a professional rental company, this problem can be circumvented. When you rent the technology, the company you are renting from can ensure that every single piece of equipment that you rent from them can have the appropriate software pre-installed on them. This will guarantee that every single person at your seminar will be able to follow along with the presentation without any problems.

Perfect For Audience Members

When you rent all the technology you need for your audience members, you make things a lot easier for them. There’s no guarantee that everyone attending your seminar will have their own laptop or tablet, which is why renting them ensures that everyone at the seminar has the technology they need. In addition to that, attendees will probably be a lot happier knowing that they will not have to cart around their own laptops or tablets. It can be a real hassle taking a laptop or tablet through airport security and onto a plane and it is even worse when you pack that technology in your luggage and it gets broken in transit or your luggage is lost! Renting laptops and tablets for your seminar attendees completely eliminates these hassles and makes your attendees much happier and your seminar much more enjoyable and accessible.

The Latest Technology

Probably the best reason for renting laptops or tablets for your seminar is the fact that you are getting the latest technology currently available. Most rental companies offer the newest technology on the market for rent, meaning that you and your attendees can have cutting-edge technology right at your fingertips. This also means that if you have a specific brand or model that you want or need, you are almost guaranteed to get it. Not only will your attendees appreciate having high-end technology at their fingertips but your business will also make quite a good impression, especially if there are a lot of new and potential customers that will be in attendance.

When hosting a seminar, it is always a good idea to rent things like laptops or tablets for your attendees. Making sure everyone has the right technology to interact with the presentation, the correct software and the latest technology available, renting really is your best bet. Rentacomputer.com has a full line of laptop and tablet rentals  that are perfect for seminars. If you want the latest technology for your seminar, contact Rentacomputer.com today by calling 800-736-8772, texting 908-485-7368, or emailing rentals@rentacomputer.com today!

How To Use Twitter Cards For Your Business

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One of the major faults of Twitter is its 140 character per tweet limit. Despite it, creative small business marketers have been able to use the social media platform for years, successfully.

The latest feature Twitter has launched is its Twitter Cards, which have opened a whole new window of opportunities. I will go through the process of what Twitter Cards are and how you can use them.

The first question you may be asking yourself is “What are Twitter Cards?” Well, Twitter Cards are basically tweets on steroids. Along with your 140-character-message, you are able to attach videos, audio, download links, and images. These Twitter Cards are more appealing to users than your boring old text tweets. There are four types of Twitter Cards that are currently available.

Summary Card: The summary card is made to give your audience a preview of your content before clicking on it. The content above the card is your original tweet and in the card is a small preview of what the blog, that you linked, is.

Summary Card With Large Image: Just like before, your original tweet is shown above the card, but what gives this that special oomph is its large image. With great images comes more potential customers.

Player Card: This card is particularly cool because it allows you to upload a video and audio from within a tweet. It’s very handy and very engaging!

App Card: This last card is known as the app card, obviously aimed more towards mobile app vendors. You attach your app to your tweet and it allows users to download your app right from Twitter!

Another question you may be asking is “How do I use Twitter Cards?”

When it comes to using Twitter Cards, there are two challenges to overcome. First, they aren’t too easy to set up. Don’t let this fool you! Once you figure out how to use it and have everything in place, it will be super easy for you. Getting everything in place is just the tricky part.

Twitter provides useful documentation that can help get you started using their Cards, a simple overview for you to follow. If that isn’t helpful, then the best way to use Twitter Cards is via plugins and extensions. An example, if your website was built in WordPress, you can use the Jetpack or JM Twitter Cards plugins to start off your Twitter Cards. If this just sounds all too confusing for you, Twitter provides how-to docs, to help get you up and running using plugins and extensions.

The other challenge is, if you do not pin the tweet to the top of your Twitter newsfeed, then the card won’t be shown automatically. You want your audience to click “View Summary” on the right side of your tweet, to get the full effect. You can also guide them to click it by tweeting clever things, such as “Click the View Summary link to see what prizes we have in our giveaway!

Twitter Card Approval: Through all of those obstacles, you have one more until you are done, which is validation. According to the steps provided for you at the bottom of the page, you need to, “Run your URL against the validator tool to test. If you are working with a Player Card, request approval for whitelisting. All other Cards do not need whitelisting.”

The only way validation will be hard for you, is if you made a misstep while setting up your Twitter Card. Since Player Cards have more rules, validating them can be a bit more challenging.

If you think you can handle all of that, then you’ll be surprised at what value Twitter Cards can add to your social media efforts. Like I mentioned before, Twitter Cards can be appealing and engaging and that’s what helps boost your traffic to lead them to your marketing offers and messages.

Content originally published here

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The Importance Of Giving And Taking In Small Business Startups

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When I started my company, I was absolutely terrified of everything that could go wrong. I could already imagine huge bills for all kinds of services and a dozen lawsuits against me. Since I am not originally from this country and English is my second language, things looked even more difficult to me. What if I didn’t understand what certain laws meant and how would I know if I was breaking them?

I was torn between “taking the risk” or staying in the “safe zone”. In the scheme of things, this comparison becomes ridiculous because at any time you can get fired for doing what you don’t love so why not try doing what you do love.

With that thought, I started my journey into entrepreneurship. Being a newbie, I was naturally more inclined to take (take advice, take direction and, in general, take any help I could get). I have to say that I learned plenty by doing that, but not even close to what I have learned by giving. By sincerely giving.

You can tell by my business, RentBillow, that I am all about the sharing economy. The sharing of resources and the sharing of knowledge included. These are a few tips I have learned since launching my business that I would like to share, especially to new entrepreneurs and people in the media.

1. If you are thinking of starting your own business, try to find a startup to collaborate. You might not like the idea of not getting paid, but trust me, it will save you a lot of money and time once you make the decision to jump in.

2. Volunteer with local entrepreneur and startup events and associations. One mistake I made was not reaching out to local entrepreneurs right away. If I had met other local entrepreneurs beforehand, then asking them for help and advice after I started my own business would not have been so awkward. It’s really hard asking people for help when you don’t have a pre-existing relationship with them.

3. Be yourself. I have noticed that many entrepreneurs change for the worse as soon as they start a business. They become more serious and they stop doing things the way they had before. They don’t want to ruin their reputation as a serious owner, which is fine in a way, but remember to enjoy your pastimes. I personally continued being the same smart-alek on social media as I always was before. Why would I do this? Because if someday I become a known entrepreneur and I say something politically incorrect or offensive, people will say, “Oh yeah, she has always been like that.”

4. Never forget the people that helped you, the people that supported you, and the people that even listened to you whine about how broke you were and how your hair is falling out. These are the people that will keep your support alive.

5. If you are in the media, think about all the small fish in this humongous pond. I know it is more appealing to interview a unicorn entrepreneur, but your help can encourage an up and coming entrepreneur to be successful, and they absolutely will not forget you when they reach the level of success of billionaire entrepreneurs.

By: Anabella Watson – RentBillow

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Easy Ways To Set Small Business Goals

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Have you ever felt like you are not moving things forward in your business? If you have then it is probably because you aren’t measuring yourself against your business goals. Don’t be another small business owner who doesn’t set goals because “you’ll never end up achieving them” or just backing out on your goals altogether. If this sounds like you then you need to shift your entire way of thinking when it comes to setting goals. Taking the time to set goals and following through on them is an investment that pays off immensely in the long run. If you are wondering what it is that you can do to realistically look at your business and create goals then follow these tips.

Create A Long-Term Plan

Focusing on long-term goals in a certain time-frame is crucial. These goals have a place in your overall goal setting though you really need to focus on setting clear, attainable goals in the short-term as well. Take college, for example. When you start off as an undergrad, you set the goal of attaining your bachelor’s degree before going on to pursue a master’s. Your goal roadmap should have goals that can be achieved sooner rather than later, which will help you achieve your long-term goals. Creating these goals could also assist you in realizing your vision even better.

Stay Focused

Setting goals is great and all, but you also need to make serious efforts to attain those goals. If you’re going to be developing something like content, then you should put aside one day a week to do specifically that. Be productive. Set deadlines. It is so easy to get distracted or discouraged so it is imperative that you stay focused as much as possible. One of the best ways to keep on track is to eliminate or avoid distractions whenever and wherever possible.

Be Mindful Of Your Current Situation

Take a good, long look at where you are currently and ask yourself this: “Is this where I want to be?” Is is crucial that you are 100% clear with yourself about your current situation, especially when it comes to thinks like money, accounts payable, sales pipelines, and processes. As soon as you have established what your current situation is like, you can then look forward to the future and the goals you have set for it.

One Big Picture – Lots Of Smaller Pieces

You need to make some short-term tasks that you want to achieve for the next year. Monthly and weekly sales goals can help you move closer to your revenue goals. Set a goal for increasing things like cold calls, posts on social media, and direct outreach if you are looking to increase sales. Trying to generate more traffic to your website? Create a content development system and start an editorial calendar. Trying to get more subscribers? Develop a new, free download for your website. It will be impossible for you to achieve your goals if you don’t take any steps towards doing so.

Hard Work

There’s nothing quite like some good old-fashioned hard work. And it is this hard work that really determines your outcome. A lot of small business owners spend a lot of time working on their day-to-day activities, refusing to put enough time and resources towards achieving their professional goals. These people are the same ones surprised that their business has failed or their goals have been left behind yet again. The amount of energy you put towards a goal and the likelihood of you accomplishing that goal go hand-in-hand. Set your annual goals first, then your monthly goals, and then your weekly or daily goals. Once everything is organized you will start to see a difference in your business.

What Have We Learned?

If you’re having a hard time setting goals, or an even harder time sticking to those goals and accomplishing them, you’re not alone. But just because this is an issue with other small business owners doesn’t mean it has to be an issue with you. Look over these tips, understand them, and then put them into practice with your own small business. I promise, if you really put an effort into your goals, you will find them accomplished more often than not.

Content originally published here

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How To Speed Up Virtual Meetings

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A lot of meetings are now taking place using tools like Skype or Google Hangouts. This is really great in a lot of ways and can make your life a little bit easier. The downside, though, is that it can also be a royal pain in the butt. When meeting with multiple people in one video conference, there are going to be some technical difficulties. Someone’s microphone won’t work, someone will accidentally hit the mute button and someone’s camera won’t work. You could get 20 minutes into the meeting before you even get the chance to speak about anything important, and by that time everyone is already aggravated.

Things get even more complicated when you are meeting with people in other countries. Language barriers and cultural differences can cause even more issues.

With a little bit of planning ahead of time, you can generally make these virtual meetings a little bit more productive. You just have to make sure that everyone feels accomplished, respected, and everyone feels like you are closer as a team.

1. Be Fair When Planning Meetings

Everyone runs on a different schedule. So planning around EVERYONE can be a little tough. But, you have to understand that it isn’t exactly fair to make one teammate miss something important to them at the same time every Thursday just because that is when it is the most convenient for yourself. Get with everyone, discuss a time in advance, and make sure that no one is sacrificing any more than anyone else.

2. Discuss The Meeting Ahead Of Time

When you are scheduling a meeting, make sure everyone knows exactly what is going to be discussed, and exactly what goal you are trying to achieve at the end of the discussion. It is really easy for people to get off track, especially in groups. If everyone has a clear understanding ahead of time, this shouldn’t be an issue, and staying focused should be much easier.

3. Take Culture Into Consideration

You might want to jump on the video call and jump straight to business without thinking too much, but if you are dealing with people from other countries then you should familiarize yourself with business practices in that culture. You don’t want to accidentally offend someone, or be offended by them when you shouldn’t be. That would be a downer.

4. Set The Rules

Before the meeting takes place, you should tell all team members to avoid side conversations or doing other things during the meeting. It is also good to remind them to not speak too fast, and to speak clearly. This will make everything go so much faster.

5. Pay Attention To Body Language

It is really easy for two people to run the show during a video chat. But the last thing you want to do is to make someone feel left out or unimportant. If you can tell someone has something on their mind, but they are trying to stay polite and quiet, talk to them directly and give them a chance to be a part of the group. Just a little bit of effort can go a long way.

There are lots of ways that a virtual meeting can go wrong. But there are an equal amount of ways that they can be super helpful. If you follow these 5 steps, I know you will be able to pull off a successful business meeting from the comfort of your own home or office.

Content originally published here

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The Friendliest States And Cities To Small Businesses

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Small businesses make up the backbone of our country. They exist in every single state in America, though not ever single state is friendly to these entrepreneurs. But that isn’t the case for every city and state. Thumbtack recently released the data from their fourth annual Small Business Friendliness Survey, which ranks which states and cities are the friendliest to small businesses.

Ranking in at the number one most friendliest city to small businesses is Manchester, New Hampshire, according to the small business owners who operate there. To add even more praise to the state, New Hampshire also ranked as the number two most friendliest state to small businesses, just behind Texas.

What’s interesting is the fact that the rest of America’s Northeast was considered the most unfriendliest grouping of states in the entire country, according to the survey. Utah and Colorado join Texas and New Hampshire as being very friendly to small businesses whereas California, Connecticut, and Illinois joined the Northeast states, all receiving a score of “F”.

Chief Economist of Thumbtack Jon Lieber stated that whether a city or state is friendly or not to small businesses comes from a plethora of primary considerations. “What most influences a business owner’s perception is the presence of training programs, as well as events that allow networking,” Lieber added.

In terms of training, this usually refers how easy it is for small businesses to obtain online information that regards rules and regulations that pertain to how small businesses must operate in that city or state. “Websites matter,” Lieber says. So basically what he’s saying is that entrepreneurs and small business owners do not want stress or hassle when it comes to gathering information on how to properly file things like local taxes. In addition to that, opportunities to network are also important. This is due mainly because of the isolation felt by many of the small businesses currently operating in the United States.

One more factor that determines whether or not a state or city is friendly to small businesses is determining whether or not a city or state is the ease of regulatory compliance. A key compliance issue for small businesses was licensing. Cities and states that require certain professionals to obtain a license did not automatically make them unfriendly. However, if the licensing was not carefully monitored then there is the liability of increasing perceived unfriendliness. Licensed professionals do not really like it when an unlicensed competitor gains a competitive advantage.

Thumbtack is an online service that connects local small businesses with customers. These businesses can range from anything like plumbers and house painters to therapists, physical trainers and more. Small businesses are able to compete for customers that are interested in their services through the use of a bidding system. As for the Friendliness survey, nearly 18,000 U.S.-based small business owners participated by providing their rating of both their state and their city governments on a wide array of factors. Over a dozen different metrics were used by Thumbtack to evaluate states and cities against each other.

So, if you’re thinking of starting a small business where you live I would advise you to take a look at Thumbtack’s survey to determine how easy or hard it is going to be for you to get your startup off the ground where you live.

Content originally published here

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Top 5 Ways To Lose A Customer

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In the business world, there are too many things that can go wrong. You might as well not make things worse on yourself by not treating your customers the right way. It is really easy to be turned off as a customer, especially when there are a thousand other companies that do the same thing as you, but are a lot cooler about it. Here are my 5 favorite things that you could be doing to lose customers… So read them and stop doing them.

1. Having Inaccurate Data

As a company, customers are the most important thing for you. Without them, you actually have nothing. You can’t just call yourself a business and make money, people have to believe in you and your product. What happens when you don’t treat your customers right? Nothing. And Nothing is bad.

Your customers should always feel important. If you reach out to them with an email or something and get something simple like their name wrong, that is pretty offensive. Not only that, but it can make them feel like you don’t care enough about your company to even get simple things right. If you can’t get a name right, then how are they supposed to believe in your product or service? What about that are you going to mess up too?

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In order to run a successful business, you have to make sure every single customer feels important. Not only that, but you yourself have to know that they actually are important.

2. Not Maintaining A Relationship

Once you get done making your deal with your customer, that shouldn’t be the last you hear from them. It also shouldn’t be the last they hear from you. A lot of companies fail because of thinking that way. If you maintain a positive relationship with every new customer, that means you will always be on their mind to some extent. It is also way more likely that they will return to you for their future needs. This does, however, bring me to my next point…

3. Being Annoying

Yes, it’s important to maintain a relationship with your customers and clients. BUT… You don’t want to be the type of company who is constantly calling and trying to shove yourself down people’s throats. You can’t force people to spend money, and it’s really annoying to them to feel like they are being pressured. Nothing is wrong with giving them a little nudge in the right direction, but when that nudge becomes a push, they are going to avoid doing business with you at all.

Different age groups also prefer to be contacted and followed up with in different ways, so make sure you do a little bit of research first. It’s not hard to Google these things and find tons of studies on them. Younger customers prefer to get emails. They check them regularly and they go straight to their smartphones. Older customers probably hardly ever check their email, so sending them is just a waste of time. Instead, try sending out letters through snail mail.

4. Ignoring Them On Social Media

If you are a company, you either have a social media presence, or you’re going out of business soon. You need to either accept your client’s friend requests, follow them back, or whatever it may be that you do on that specific website. Most customers expect a response within an hour, and none of them really has any sympathy for a delayed response, even if it is a night or a weekend.

It would be silly not to do these things anyway. Social media gives you the best of everything. You get free marketing, you can always keep people updated on the latest news from your company, and you can gather very valuable information from anyone you are connected with on any social media site. Don’t be a fool, get the most out of it that you can.

5. Not Listening

It is not hard to see what people think about you, your products, your services, or anything about your company. People post online about pretty much everything. You’ll be able to see what people like, what they don’t like, anything. You can also use the internet to give surveys and gather analytics. Not listening to what your customers have to say is ridiculous. Not using negative survey feedback to your advantage is ridiculous. Instead of looking at negative comments and bad experiences as a negative thing in general that you should ignore… use it as a positive thing and give the people what they want. Your business should be alive (growing, changing, evolving) all the time. There is nothing wrong with a little bit of constructive criticism. At the end of the day, it just means more business.

Customers are the life force of any business and it is crucial that you keep these customers happy. These 5 things are surefire ways to lose valuable customers, which will certainly mean the downfall of your company. So, needless to say, avoid these things AT ALL COSTS!

Content originally published here

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Small Business Owners Have Smartphone Addiction

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Small businesses may not be the only ones marketing via mobile or fighting with how programmatic advertising works, they still need mobile to do business. Small business owners, or SBOs, seem to literally have their smartphones attached to their hips.

About 80.5% of U.S. SBOs use their mobile devices for business at least once a day, sometimes even more, according to the latest research from Manta. Almost 25.3% of those SBOs use their smartphone once an hour, 11% use them between 3 to 5 times a day, and 17.3% us their mobile devices almost 10 times a day!

eMarketer says that nearly 80% of SBOs use their mobile devices while at work right in front of their own desktops. They say that 48% of respondents claim the main reasoning for doing this is to check personal messages. Another 25% said that their email actually comes in faster on their mobile devices.

With other statistics, only 12% actually admitted to being addicted and 8% multiscreened because they claimed to prefer using their mobiles over their PCs. Finally, 7% said they were frequently distracted by their social media or gaming app alerts that came through on their mobile devices.

A good reason for why SBOs use their phones for business is to schedule appointments and communicate with customers. 55% claimed this as being why they use their phones.

Nearly 3 in 10 people used their phones for notes and to-do lists, along with monitoring their social media and participation. A quarter of people use theirs to conduct business related banking, eMarketer says. As well as saying that inventory management and expense were a lot less common, as were drafting large documents and presentations, and accounting.

Along with this, Manta’s research indicated that SBOs are frequent app users. Almost half of SBOs use mobile apps for business between 2 and 3 times daily.

It’s clear to see how important mobile devices are to small business owners. With such high percentages of SBOs on their phones constantly, mobile is quickly becoming a key facet of small business.

Content originally published here

Small Biz Dev Hackathon 2015

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Small Biz Dev Hackathon Can Help Grow Your SMBAt the Small Biz Dev Hackathon, attendees will be using their technical and design skills to come up with new ways to help small business grow to new heights. Business owners and business experts will be together discussing different obstacles and barriers that are universal throughout the industry, and developers will get a chance to show off their skills and problem-solving abilities to come up with solutions. Winners of the Hackathon will not only change the business world forever but will receive seed money and be entered into AngelHack’s HACKcelerator program.

There are many different problems that small business owners may face, and it is the attendees job to solve at least one of these problems that will be presented at the event. Problems could include anything from financing, finding new customers, managing cash flow, or anything like that.

The solution should be simple and broad enough that any business big or small should be able to take advantage of it. There will be guidance from small business owners and small business experts the whole time to ensure attendees get on the right track and stay on it in order to achieve the best possible results.

The judging criteria will be based on a range of different things. Simplicity is number one. There are 5 point’s to be had in this category. To get the full 5 points, judges will determine if the application is simple to use and if the team can explain it in three sentences or less.

Creativity is next, also worth 5 points. Judges will decide how creative the team was in developing the idea, and how challenging the solution was to come up with.

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Impact and design will also be worth 5 points each. How will the teams solution impact the industry? Is it valuable? Is the design and interface attractive looking?

First place winning teams will win up to $3500 in money and be entered into the AngelHack HACKcelerator program. This is nothing to sneeze at! If you are interested in this sort of thing and think you have what it takes, this is not only a great opportunity, but it will also probably be a fantastic time. You’ll have a chance to be surrounded by like-minded people and probably learn a million things that will stick with you for the rest of your life. The information you could obtain will last forever.

The Pre-Capital One Hackathon session is a virtual session hosted via WebEx on July 29, 2015 from 6:30 pm PST to 8:30 pm PDT at Dignita (for San Francisco event) and on Aug 5th, 2015 from 6:30 pm EST to 8:30 pm EST at 1776 (for Washington, DC event). You can register for the event here.

2015 Small Business Expo – Los Angeles

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Whether you’re in the startup phase or a long-established company, the Small Business Expo has the right resources for you. They’re the nation’s largest business-to-business expo, and they’ve made it their mission to help small business owners and entrepreneurs achieve their business dreams. Their free, one-day expo offers invaluable insights and exclusive networking opportunities with a wide range of business-critical workshops, seminars, and presentations from top industry experts. If you’re looking to drive your business forward and take the next step to success, join them this year at their Los Angeles expo location for this can’t miss event!

-Develop business leads &new customers!
-Network with peers in your industry!
-Shop for new innovative products and & services!
-Gain invaluable industry insights

Why Should You Attend?

Every year, over 50,000 small business professionals and entrepreneurs across the country attend Small Business Expo to take their business to the next level. Join us in learning from the best and the brightest in the industry as you network with like-minded business professionals and learn strategies to advance your business.

WHERE:

California Market Center
9th St A727
Los Angeles, CA 90079

WHEN:

November 5th, 2015 from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM

Are you looking attend this year’s event and searching for hotels in the Los Angeles area? The Small Business Expo site has a list of travel accommodations, including parking options for the event. The site does offer discounts as well!

If you’re looking to register for this year’s event, registration is still FREE for the Los Angeles location!