Check Out These Small Biz Awards and Contests, Today |  |
- Check Out These Small Biz Awards and Contests, Today
- Workable: A Hiring Tool That May Improve Your Hiring Process
- Read “Tipping Sacred Cows” to Uncover Behaviors that Hold You Back
| Check Out These Small Biz Awards and Contests, Today Posted: 09 Mar 2013 02:00 PM PST A small biz award can make your business stand out from competitors. Winning a contest can lead to monetary prizes and prize packages consisting of valuable goods. Check out our hand-picked list just right for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. It’s fun to enter, too — challenge yourself and your team and see if you can win a small business award of some kind. ****
Finding it hard to come up with content ideas for your business? Enter to get content ideas for your industry, and for a chance to win a free of the book being written by Matt Mansfield. To enter, answer the following question on the contest entry form: “If you could get tons of online content topics for a specific industry or business type, which would it be (e.g. real estate, physical training, etc.)?“. The industry types with the most entries will be selected for section 7 of the book – the one that focuses on online content ideas that can be used by specific business types. In addition, 5 people will be selected at random to receive 1 free copy of the book when it is published in September.
Crain’s New York is seeking successful businesspeople for its annual Top Entrepreneurs feature to run in May. Companies must be located in New York City, been in business for at least three years, and have revenue of less than $100 million. See website for entry form and eligibility rules.
Known as the Termans after Frederick Terman the widely credited father of Silicon Valley, the awards are the only national "Best Of" for technology products and services across the technology industry. Awarded on the basis of a thorough evaluation by industry experts and technology leaders, the Termans are presented at the Technology and Government Dinner in Washington, D.C.
The awards program recognizes the year's most outstanding achievements by business leaders, entrepreneurs and developers in advancing mobile technology to benefit business and society. Award winners will be announced at the annual BlackBerry Live conference in Orlando, Florida in May 2013. App of the Year
Capital One Bank has partnered with the Mid City Redevelopment Alliance of Baton Rouge to host the Grow Mid City Small Business Growth Plan Competition, an initiative to help small businesses in the Mid City area to grow and to create jobs. The Grow Mid City Small Business Growth Plan Competition is a part of Capital One Bank's commitment to investing in their communities.
Open to participants from around the country, the Business Plan Contest encourages would-be entrepreneurs to grow their ideas into start-up and early-stage To win, entrants should write a one-page business plan executive summary and send it to The Company Corporation no later than March 31, 2013. Entries will be judged by a panel of The Company Corporation’s Small Business Specialists. The contestant who submits the most thought-provoking and well-reasoned business plan executive summary will bring home a $1,000 cash award.
The SCORE Awards is an annual event that celebrates the outstanding achievements of America's small businesses. It recognizes the people and companies that have demonstrated unique vision, innovation and achievement in support of America's economy and small business community. The awards ceremony will take place in August 2013. Net revenues from the event help support The SCORE Foundation and its programs, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit. All nominees must agree to come to the SCORE Awards to be eligible.
The spirit of the Small Business Awards is to recognize individuals and businesses that make a positive impact on the Huntsville/Madison metro community through their products, services and outstanding attributes. The 2013 Small Business Awards will consist of 7 categories, listed on the event website.
Dell has launched a $100 million Innovators Credit Fund, with the purpose of helping entrepreneurs "maximize potential for innovation, speed to market and job creation." The credit fund will offer both funding and technology resources with IT support, depending on what each start-up needs. To be eligible, you must have already received some angel funding or venture capital before you can apply. Start-ups can get up to 10% of its current funding or up to $150,000 with limited credit terms. See website for details and application. To find more small business events, contests and awards, visit our Small Business Events Calendar. If you are putting on a small business contest, award or competition, and want to get the word out to the community, please submit it through our Small Business Event and Contests Form (it’s free). This list of awards and competitions is brought to you by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com. Please note: The descriptions provided here are for convenience only and are NOT the official rules. ALWAYS read official rules carefully at the site holding the competition, contest or award.
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| Workable: A Hiring Tool That May Improve Your Hiring Process Posted: 09 Mar 2013 10:00 AM PST Online hiring startup Workable recently secured about $780,000 (600,000 Euros) in a seed-funding round led by Openfund. The funding means potential improvements for the cloud-based hiring tool. Workable gives businesses a way to manage the hiring process all in one place, rather than having to go back and forth between emails, LinkedIn, online job boards, PDF resumes and other HR tools. But perhaps more importantly, the tool collects information from an applicant's full online presence. So rather than putting all the emphasis on resumes, Workable combs through social media profiles and other sites to find information about an applicant's past employment, education and expertise. If you are the hiring manager, it presumably saves you time. You won’t have to search for such information all over the Web and collect it manually. The site requires users to sign in with a LinkedIn account. It also allows applicants to apply for open positions with their LinkedIn account in place of an actual resume. The photo above shows a Workable dashboard for an open position. You can see how many candidates have applied for the position. You also can see how many have been rejected or shortlisted at this point in the process. There are places for reviewing candidates, discussing among your team members, and viewing candidates' LinkedIn profiles and other details. Companies can use the tool to set up custom screening requirements for their open positions. For instance, a company could require applicants to have at least three years' experience in marketing to even be considered for an open position. If applicants don’t select that as one of their qualifications when applying, you can see that right away. Then you can immediately move onto the next applicant. You needn’t waste time reading through an entire resume to determine that for yourself. Once candidates are shortlisted, you can assign interviews to your team member. Or you can let others know when you have set up interviews or phone calls with certain applicants. The premise behind the tool is one that may be a time-saver for small businesses. However, it's not a completely new idea. Other Web-based hiring systems like SmartRecruiters and JobVite offer similar ways for businesses to post jobs and sort through candidates. Workable, a Greece-based startup, first launched its beta version in October of 2012. The company has already added features like custom application forms and automatic job postings to sites like Indeed.com. The post Workable: A Hiring Tool That May Improve Your Hiring Process appeared first on Small Business Trends.     |
| Read “Tipping Sacred Cows” to Uncover Behaviors that Hold You Back Posted: 09 Mar 2013 06:15 AM PST
But did you know that these virtues can easily turn into vices that hold your business back from everything you're envisioning? This is exactly what Jake Breeden says in his new book Tipping Sacred Cows. I received an advance review copy and was so taken by the topic, that I started reading right away. You have to admit that the premise is rather intriguing: our best intentions turn out to be vices that actually get in the way of our business success. If you're a business book junkie like I am, this book is going to spin your head around. I mean, don’t we all want balance in our business and our life? What about working with others and collaborating? How can any of these be bad? How do these aspirational virtues transform themselves into vices that hold us back? And how can I make sure that I don't end up in the mix? Anything Taken to its Extreme Becomes its OppositeThere is an ancient philosophy that says anything taken to its extreme becomes its opposite. Tipping Sacred Cows is a study in how this phenomenon plays out in the world of business. It's not that balance or collaboration are bad per se. The problem arises when business owners and employees make these default behaviors and they become automatic. Then they magically morph into behaviors that can ultimately hold you back and work against you. I really like the examples and case studies that Breeden uses. They are all the types of people that we know at all levels of business — CEOs, sales people and managers. As you read their stories, you'll see elements of yourself in each one. One that resonated with me especially was the story of Anne. Anne worked at a bank and believed in balance. She divided her time equally between clients and prospects. Her boss applauded her balance. Yet, at an event where both clients and prospects attended, her co-worker, Darren, put all his focus on prospects for the event. In the end, he was rewarded with a promotion. The lesson: Balance is great — but you have to pay attention to how to distribute that balance. Balance your time, but know when you need to tilt the scales to achieve an objective. Throughout the book, you'll find exactly these kinds of lessons:
Jake Breeden Has Seen Sacred Cows in ActionBreeden teaches on the faculty of Duke Corporate Education, the world's top rated provider of executive education. He's taught leaders in 27 countries for some of the world's leading companies. I would imagine with that kind of broad and extensive exposure to executives and their strengths and foibles, you can take what he says seriously. Why Read Tipping Sacred Cows?Chances are, you're already focused on being the best business owner or manager or leader that you can be. And you might think that Tipping Sacred Cows is going to trash everything you ever thought you knew about how to be successful. It won't. Reading Tipping Sacred Cows will expose you to those areas where you might be living inside of a default behavior. It will open your eyes to blind spots that may be holding you back from real success. Have you ever found yourself asking the question, "Why isn't this working, when I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing?" Then Tipping Sacred Cows might have the answers you're looking for. The post Read “Tipping Sacred Cows” to Uncover Behaviors that Hold You Back appeared first on Small Business Trends.     |
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