Our friends at the Hampton Roads Retail Academy have six smart ways to choose from to spend $1,000 on your store: Get a Google Business View 360 Tour of your store. What it is: A stitched together collection of high-resolution photos becomes a 360-degree interactive virtual tour of your store. The photo shoot takes just a… Read more »

As a small business, it can be difficult to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the regional or national economy. Many business owners know that these issues are important to their businesses, but it can be time consuming to sift through all of the information and news to distill the important… Read more »

Jack Parker is the Business Analyst at the Alexandria SBDC and can assist Alexandria small businesses with all of their financial issues, including cash flow analysis. In this blog post, he discusses the importance of knowing your cash flow. As a business owner, I am sure that you have heard the term Cash Flow and… Read more »

At the Alexandria Small Business Development Center, we’re always looking for new ways to support Alexandria businesses. We continually seek opportunities to partner with members of the community and to identify new initiatives. We’re very excited about our newest program: the Alexandria Veterans Business Enterprise Center (AVBEC). In 2013, Alexandria veterans, government agencies, non-profits, and… Read more »

Jack Parker is the Business Analyst for the Alexandria Small Business Development Center.  He is a retired banker, and is familiar with all of the services offered by banks and the qualities that a small business owner should look for in choosing a banker.  Jack assists SBDC clients in refining their business plans to seek… Read more »

At a recent Alexandria Small Business Roundtable, business owners discussed whether they needed an attorney for their business. All businesses must deal with some legal issues when they get started including the first step of registering and licensing their business. Determining which business structure (sole proprietorship, LLC, S-Corp, etc.) will work best for your business… Read more »

Alexandria SBDC staff and speakers do our best to provide meaningful educational programs for small business owners. We hope that you are able to take advantage of these free learning opportunities to strengthen your business. Whether you’re attending one of our workshops or any kind of educational programming, here are a few tips to get the… Read more »

The last week in July was Retail Week in Northern Virginia, with many retail businesses attending pertinent Workshops throughout the area.  As a follow-up to Retail Week, we present the following list for retailers, authored by our colleague Ben F. Salomonsky, Director of the Retail Academy at Hampton Roads SBDC. You will be solicited for… Read more »

Deciding to throw your hat into the government contracting ring can be a little bit intimidating. John Boulware, the Alexandria Small Business Development Center’s resident government contracting expert, has a few tips on how to develop Federal business: Know what you do well that the “Feds” buy and stick to your sweet spot Develop, maintain, and grow a… Read more »

In honor of Alexandria’s Year of the Veteran, our newest partner program, the Alexandria Veterans Business Enterprise Center (AVBEC), has been conducting a “Veteran of the Month” interview series. We sat down with Brendan O’Toole, the 25-year-old Alexandria native and Marine veteran who ran across the country from 2012 to 2013 and raised over $500K for veteran service… Read more »