Arlington County Government, VA Up Close, 21 Jul 2011

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From YouTube: BizLaunch

Description

BizLaunch offers nearly 40 workshops and seminars every year, all aimed at helping local small business owners plan, develop, and grow their businesses. On the day AVN visited, BizLaunch was hosting an event aimed at helping entrepreneurs hone the perfect pitch.

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One of the most important elements that community needs to really thrive is a healthy and successful local business class. But in today's economy, getting a small business off the ground is especially difficult here in Arlington, small business owners have a great resource at Arlington economic development that can help them through the bumps and turbulence of takeoff is called biz Lodge.

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Arlington needs small business to succeed. We need new enterprises to be able to establish themselves and established firms to flourish and.

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Here at arlington economic development, one of the county's best resources to help small businesses is a ten-year-old initiative called biz launch. This.

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Launch is a arlington county government program that people can come to entrepreneurs, small business owners and learn everything that they need to know about starting a business. We offer workshops, programs, one-on-one consultations.

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We help people with their business plans, so any aspect of starting your business to being in business to growing your business is what we do well.

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The day we visited, biz launch was hosting an event aimed at helping entrepreneurs find their perfect pitch. The.

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Perfect pitch event was an event that I really got excited about. We realized that business owners really didn't know their value proposition. So when they're meeting with other people out of the community, they really didn't know how to pitch themselves.

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You know the old adage that it's six seconds to make an impression on anyone when you first meet them and it's that lasting impression to figure what better way than to practice it in a safe environment where you don't have to worry about not getting business, but we would have secret judges that will be located throughout the room that would be listening to these pitches and evaluating them.

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So the person that had the best pitch or a top five would be able to get up and do the presentation in front of the whole room which, if you think about it, they're marketing themselves to 50 other people in the room. We.

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Handle the details you enjoy the memories when I got the email and I saw that we were focusing on pitch. That was awesome because I thought that was an area that I was struggling in I, mean I, really wanted to see what others had to say that something back and really figure out how I could take my pitch and make it better. I'm, literally just getting started, and so I have blown my pitch around in my it a few times, but I was just really like when I got here.

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Just came out, I didn't had in fact, is it or anything I'm.

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Andy macias, president of candies tailgate cruiser. We rent tailgate equipment in the stadium parking lot on game day, so we make tailgating simple for sports fans by providing them the chairs, the grills, the tables, the tents all the hardware they need to have a tailgate before going to into a game.

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I participated a lot of their events, and this one was really compelling to me because I find myself routinely having to talk to people short notice, and now they have a few minutes to pitch my idea to them, and so I think this kind of training is incredibly valuable for a small business owner at a very niche business, a unique idea. This is incredibly helpful. What.

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We wanted to do was to create a comfortable environment, a learning environment, but also an opportunity for people to be able to network with resource providers with other businesses with like businesses to talk about best practices, so that, when you left away from this event, you met 20 potential customers, clients or resources. I'm.

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Amid some good contacts, because I found that in that room there were some people that I'm actually interested in working with um that I think it really helped take my business to the next level. It was also great hearing the feedback from you know: I pitched it in them or after you know, I came in second place. I had a lot of people coming up to me. You know telling me great things, so that was awesome. Hopefully.

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This event will be the start of new mentoring relationships, as biz launch helps more local entrepreneurs bring their business visions to life when.

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We look at this as a win-win situation for the business owners and a win-win situation for our community. The healthier the businesses are within your community, then the better your community is so it behooves us to make sure that our businesses are located in arlington are doing well, are healthy and are hiring people, because overall, that really benefits.

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If you've got an idea for a business but you're not quite sure what to do next, kalb is launched at 70 3228 0808. You can make an appointment directly with a one-on-one business counselor or you can start by going to some of their workshops and seminars. They host nearly 40 events a year, so you're sure to find one that will help. You develop your perfect pitch.