Something Ventured: An Entrepreneurial Approach to Small Business Management

Description:
Something Ventured: An Entrepreneurial Approach To Small Business Management is a business telecourse designed to provide aspiring entrepreneurs, and those already involved in a small business venture, with the tools needed to enhance their potential for success. In this telecourse, students are afforded a unique opportunity to observe a variety of small businesses in operation-in both rural and suburban communities, as well as large metropolitan areas-to get an "over-the-shoulder," first-hand look of what it is like to start and operate a small business. The documentary footage is then analyzed and assessed by a council of leading experts in the small business arena. Each of the major modules-Investigating Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Establishing the Firm, Marketing Your Product or Service, Managing Operations, and Financial Management of the Small Business-concludes with a program that profiles a single small business. These more in-depth case studies bring life and dimension to the course of study by allowing students to apply the information they are learning to a real-life situation. Something Ventured: An Entrepreneurial Approach To Small Business Management is part of the Business Connection-a series of television-based courses designed to enhance a student's career potential in business.

Goals and Objectives

Something Ventured serves as a comprehensive primer on business success by showing prospective entrepreneurs:

• how to investigate and evaluate business opportunities
• how to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to establish a new firm
• how to market products and services
• how to manage the human and fiscal demands of a business operation
• and how to meet the organization's social responsibility to its community

Program Descriptions

MODULE I: THE NATURE OF SMALL BUSINESS

101) Small Business in a Big World
This introductory program illustrates the impact of small businesses in today's society. In rural, suburban, and metropolitan settings, we see small retail, service, manufacturing, professional, high tech, wholesale and warehousing operations in action.

102) On Your Own?
This lesson provides an introspective into small business ownership, with owners themselves commenting on the difficulties of start-up, and the knowledge, tools, and commitment required. Entrepreneurs featured represent different businesses, backgrounds, and areas.

103) Finding A Niche: Determining Business Potential
Potential entrepreneurs attempt to evaluate the feasibility of a business idea. Is the market in which they are interested already crowded? What will it actually cost to offer the proposed product or service? Is there really a need, and if there is, can potential customers afford to buy what is being offered?

104) New or Used? Buying a Firm or Starting Your Own
This segment concentrates on the advantages and disadvantages of buying an ongoing business vs. starting a new enterprise, and follows the experiences of potential business owners attempting to determine what existing businesses are worth.

105) The Ties that Bind: Franchising Opportunities
In considering small business ownership, is it better to gamble with the unique, or bet on something that is more sure, the turnkey type of operation provided by a franchise? This program explores the advantages and disadvantages of buying and owning a franchise.

106) A Different Look: The Nicole Miller Story
This program features an individual case study of a small business (a clothing designer) that focuses on investigating entrepreneurial opportunities.

MODULE III: ESTABLISHING THE FIRM  The Business Plan: Preparing for Ownership of a Small Business (no video)
Students will read Chapter 6 in the text, and meet with their instructor in small groups, or individually, to discuss the development of a business plan as part of course requirements. 

107) Taking Aim: The Marketing Plan
This program concentrates on the various types of market segmentation strategies small businesses employ, and chronicles the experiences of beginning service- and product-related businesses as they develop their individual marketing strategies and seek to develop an appropriate marketing mix.

108) Where to Hang the Sign
Selecting the location for a new business should not be random or coincidental. This lesson looks at factors new business owners consider in selecting a region, city or town in which to establish a business. In examining specific products or services, we join prospective business owners as they work through the decisions necessary to choose a site for a new business or evaluate the site of an existing business.

109) The Buck Starts Here: Startup Capital
This program focuses on how much capital a small business needs and where to get it. In interviews with potential business owners seeking financial support, we become aware of the process involved in determining the financial requirements for a new business. As we add the dimension of those who have the money, we compare sources of start-up capital for a new business.

110) Making It Legal
This lesson compares the advantages and disadvantages of proprietorships, partnerships and corporations. It is a documentary that looks at these various forms of ownership and explores what it means to share responsibility for and control of a small business. Through the experiences of current and former small business owners, students will recognize that it is easy to organize, but difficult to get out of business arrangements.

111) From the Ground Up
The establishment of an actual small business (an architectural firm) is documented in this episode.

MODULE IV: MARKETING YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE

112) The Right Mix: Product/Service Strategies
This episode focuses on strategies small businesses employ in introducing new products and/or services. The idea of the life cycle of a product or service is examined.

113) What the Market Will Bear: Pricing Products & Services
How do cost, demand, and competitive factors influence the price a small business owner can charge for a product or service? This program examines the experiences small businesses have encountered, and talks to professionals in the field of marketing to answer this question and learn some techniques that can be used to develop an appropriate pricing structure.

114) Out From the Crowd: Promotional Strategies
This program looks at a variety of small businesses in the process of determining an appropriate promotional mix for their goods or services. The examples used will show approaches that do not achieve the desired results, as well as more successful campaigns.

115) Going Places: Distribution Channels & International Marketing
Using case studies as the basis for comparison, this video segment looks at various channels of distribution that are available to small business owners, as well as factors that should be considered in selecting one over another. The potential for foreign distribution -- a possibility that is of great interest to many small business owners--examined.

116) A Vintage Blend
This episode profiles how an actual small business (a winery) implements marketing.

MODULE V: MANAGING OPERATIONS 117) Making the Pieces Fit: Managing a Small Business
As we watch small business managers at work, a realistic picture of what it means to be the manager of a small business emerges. Although the basic functions of management are the same, whatever the size of the business, the small business manager often juggles the managerial aspects of the operation by him/herself. As the program depicts, life in the managerial seat requires a very different set of skills than that which is necessary to be a successful entrepreneur.

118) The Human Factor
The quality of personnel, and the relationship between and among the manager and his/her employees, is critical to any business. But in a small business, where the numbers are few, the importance of each employee becomes even greater. This episode looks at a challenging aspect of small business management: the recruitment, training, and maintaining of its employee base.

119) Taking Stock: Purchasing and Inventory Control
Purchasing and inventory control, as the case studies in this video program depict, are essential to the successful management of a small business. Not only do these aspects of operation influence the financial health of the business, but the ability of the business to respond to customer needs.

120) The Play's the Thing: Oregon Shakespeare Festival
This case study depicts the managing operations of an actual small business (the Oregon Shakespeare festival).

MODULE VI: FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF THE SMALL BUSINESS 121) Keeping Track: Financial Accounting
Developing available financial accounting system, and knowing how to use the information it produces, is the difference between survival and failure for many small businesses. Managers of small businesses and financial consultants offer sound financial advice regarding financial tools and tax issues.

Computers in the Small Business (no video)
In addition to reading Chapter 22 in the text, students will meet with their instructor in small groups at a computer lab on campus or at a local commercial establishment for hands-on demonstrations of applications packages that are particularly valuable for managers of small businesses.

122) The Money Flow: Management of Working Capital
Small businesses are no strangers to financial problems. It is often difficult to maintain cash flow, secure funds for expansion, or maintain a balance between receivables and payables. This program looks at a series of strategies a small business can use to strengthen its cash position and maintain a sound financial footing.

123) Risky Business: Risk Management
This segment explores the variety of risks small businesses commonly face, and the ways in which they can cope with them.

124) Publish or Perish: The Sun Publications Story
Financial management is explored in this case study of a small newspaper business.

MODULE VII: SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SMALL BUSINESS

125) For Everyone's Good: Social Responsibility
In their struggle to survive, small businesses may be as vulnerable to pressures to act unethically as their much larger counterparts. What is a small firm's responsibility to its community? What does society expect from privately-owned firms? We hear from small business owners themselves in this program that explores the roles small businesses play in the area of ethics and social responsibility.

126) It's the Law
This final program examines the major federal, state, and local regulations that affect small businesses, and the legal agreements and relationships that are a part of most small business operations.

Producer: INTELECOM