San Antonio Small Business Development Center

Workshop Descriptions - Free Online Learning

Visit our our online leaning site here. Classes are currently free of charge.

Starting a Business

Analyzing Your Business

This workshop helps you to measure your strengths against your competitors. It also offers strategies to take advantage of marketplace opportunities.

Business Planning

Taking time to create a thorough business plan provides you with insight into your business. This documentation can serve as a powerful financing proposal. The workshop guides you through the step-by-step process of developing a business plan.

Creating a Competitive Advantage

Assessing your competitors accurately plays a key role in helping you develop your edge. This workshop shows you how.

Identifying Your Target Market

Doing business without knowing your target market prevents you from reaching your goals of increased sales, market share, and brand awareness. This workshop helps…you hit the bull's eye.

Legal Structure

You may have heard the terms as corporation, sole proprietorship, or even LLC, but may not be aware of their structure or differences. This workshop explains the various legal structure options available so you can determine which one is best for you.

Maintaining an Agile Company

This lesson will help you reinvent your company's vision to more closely match changing trends and customer preferences. By doing so, you will be better equipped to satisfy customers, attract new customers, and potentially increase profits.

Market Analysis

This workshop teaches you how to leverage your market opportunities and provides you with key information on developing a personalized and detailed marketing plan.

Patent Copy Trade

While every business owns and uses intellectual property, many business owners are not aware that they can be easily misappropriated, relinquished, damaged or devalued if not properly managed. Patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets, provide significant value to your company and this workshop will teach you to manage and protect these assets.

Strategic Plan

A strategic plan address your company's marketing, sales, product development and operational and revenue goals.

Get Started in Government Contracting

Technical Proposals

Create a strong presentation of your company's capabilities. This course reviews the technical format and key proposal elements, and shows you ways to ensure you are responsive and responsible in your proposals.

Cost Proposals

Learn government requirements for allowable and non-allowable costs, materials costs, labor rates and costs, allocated costs, overhead G&A, and profit margins. Provides guidelines for collecting accurate costs.

Managing Your Finances

Assessing Financial Needs

This workshop helps you assess your current and future financing needs and what type of financing is available in today's economic climate. The workshop also addresses how to position your company now to increase your chances of raising outside capital down the road.

Balance Sheet

With a properly prepared balance sheet, you can look at a balance sheet at the end of each accounting period and know if your business has more or less value, if your debts are higher or lower, and if your working capital is higher or lower. This workshop shows you how to create a statement or balance sheet and provides you with a template to prepare your own.

Cash Budget

Properly preparing your cash budget will show how cash flows in and out of your business. Also, it may then be used in planning your short-term credit needs. In today's financials world, you are required by most financial institutions to prepare cash budgets before making capital expenditures for expansions. The cash budget determines your future ability to pay debts as well as expenses.

Cash Flow

This workshop provides a detailed look into the various sections of a cash statement and provides you with a template to prepare your own. It also describes two methods used to calculate cash flow from operating activities.

Contracts

This module will teach you the basics of creating a contract.

Partners and Investors

This workshop will assist you in deciding how to sell an equity interest in your business to investors and raise the capital you need. It discusses issues you may confront when deciding to bring in outside investors.

Profit and Loss

Ask yourself: Exactly how are my products and services affecting my business? How much money am I actually making because of those products and services? An Income Statement tells you and stockholders how your net assets have increased or decreased. This workshop shows you how to prepare a statement and provides you with a template to prepare your own.

Profitability

Learn some profitability ratios and analytical procedures that help determine your company's present and future financials standings. Identify and compare current figures to your business's historical performance and evaluate your business in relation to industry norms.

Ratios

To complete a thorough examination of your company's effectiveness, you'll want to look at more than sales, profits and total assets. You will need to read between the lines of your financial statements and make seemingly inconsequential numbers accessible and comprehensible. This workshop shows you how to analyze financial ratios and what the ratios mean.

Valuing a Business

If you're thinking of purchasing or selling an existing business, going public, or taking an investor, one of the first things you'll need to determine is how much the business is worth. Valuing a business is a tricky process and achieving fair market value should always be your top priority. This workshop will guide you through the process of valuing a business.

Foundations of Marketing

Advertising Your Business

This workshop examines the various options available to advertise your business and will help you decide which will work best for you in terms of budget and reach.

Building Your Brand

A brand offers your customers a promise and delivers on it, keeping them coming back for more. A successful brand strategy is the cornerstone for creating the perception that your offering is unique. This workshop shows you how to create a winning brand!