Sbam Shorts, Your Weekly Small Business Success Tip

Michael Rogers talks with Sanju Guinn, business account manager for Consumers Energy, about improving the efficiency of your HVAC system.

There are many great reasons for entrepreneurs like you to belong to the Small Business Association of Michigan. “I have a lot now that I want to give back to small businesses. That’s what my goal with SBAM is, to help anyone else that is starting up to not go down the paths that I went down. If I can be a mentor to anybody, that’s what I want to do with my time next.” Bill Ellis is the president and owner of Innovative Computers in metro Detroit. “I really enjoy what SBAM does. And there’s a lot of good connections and the thing I even get more than business connections is advice from peers. There’s so many peers there that they’ve already been through something that you haven’t been through or vice versa and I think that’s a real big part of SBAM.” Leverage the value of your involvement with the Small Business Association of Michigan. Learn more by calling today at 800-362-5461.

Michael Rogers talks with Bill Ellis, the president and owner of Innovative Computers in metro Detroit, about the rapid advancement of office automation in the small business workplace.

There are many great reasons for entrepreneurs like you to belong to the Small Business Association of Michigan. “I was fortunate to experience the retreat summit that took place in October, and just the access to just the excellent business owners and excellent resources has been phenomenal.” Dan Conner is business development manager for Conner Insurance in Farmington Hills. “Every step of the way has just exceeded my expectations in terms of the value they provide with, you know, connecting us with anything from the Lowe Foundation to other business owners who really understand from their perspective what are their troubles, what keeps them up at night. From an insurance side of the coin that’s super important for us to understand in that type of environment what do all these other business owners care about, what matters to them most, outside of a sales pitch or anything like that. It’s a very open forum and format where people can be honest, and I think there’s a ton of value in that.” Leverage the value

Michael Rogers talks with Mike Eckert, Director of Loss Control Services for the Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, about reducing hazards for you and your small business workforce when driving this winter.

There are many great reasons for entrepreneurs like you to belong to the Small Business Association of Michigan. “I do really appreciate the opportunity to be involved with SBAM” Steve Steketee is the founder and creative director of Shutterwerks Media in Grand Rapids and just recently became a part of SBAM’s Leadership Council. “I’ve had some friends who were involved the last couple of years who really enjoyed what they were getting from it and strongly urged that I partake. As somebody who came from a theater background, not a headstrong business background, it’s been very eye opening to partake in the lessons that are given. I’ve learned quite a bit from other small businesses, the pitfalls they’ve had, the tricks they’ve used and the way they’ve gotten around some of the issues that I’m figuring out how to deal with myself.” Leverage the value of your involvement with the Small Business Association of Michigan. Learn more by calling today at 800-362-5461.

Michael Rogers talks with Steve Steketee, founder and creative director of Shutterwerks Media in Grand Rapids, about how small businesses can benefit from integrating short-form videos into their marketing and communications.

There are many great reasons for entrepreneurs like you to belong to the Small Business Association of Michigan. “I think one of the keys is I’m getting a pulse for what small business owners are concerned about, what keeps them up at night.” Longtime business consultant Tom Borg gets a lot of value from SBAM’s wide array of communication outreach tools. “For instance the magazine that comes out, the SBAM magazine, that always has great articles in there about what’s going on in the world of small business. So that’s a great resource. That’s one of the tools. Certainly these podcasts that we’ve been recording.” “Tap into that, that is free information, free knowledge that’s taken people years to accumulate and they’re sharing it with the listener that they just tune into those podcasts. That’s another great place to access SBAM for some of its resources.” Leverage the value of your involvement with the Small Business Association of Michigan. Learn more by calling today at 800-362-5461.

Michael Rogers talks about coalition building with solo entrepreneur Tom Borg, owner of Tom Borg Consulting.

There are many great reasons for entrepreneurs like you to belong to the Small Business Association of Michigan. “We’ve been members for awhile but as my role has kind of progressed here at Springfield I’ve been just in the last few months fortunate enough to get involved.” Nick Jacqmain is president of Springfield Commercial Roofing in northwest Michigan and part of SBAM’s Leadership Council. “What I treasure the most is just how helpful everybody, you know not just the SBAM employees themselves but also the other members, you know, everybody is really willing to share and help, share their experiences so hopefully we don’t all have to make the same mistakes, we can learn from each other and improve that way. I’ll use that word again I used earlier when talking about us: the collaboration I think is really great. I didn’t even expect that when we first got involved. I was just really pleasantly surprised to see how helpful everyone was with one another.” Leverage the value of your involvement with the Small

Michael Rogers talks with small business owner Nick Jacqmain of Springfield Commercial Roofing in northwest Michigan, to get his tips on creating a culture of workplace safety.

There are many great reasons for entrepreneurs like you to belong to the Small Business Association of Michigan. Michelle Klassen is the owner of LkM Solutions, a firm that focuses on energy resilience, infrastructure and resource access, and when she became part of the association’s Leadership Council, the experience was more than she expected. “I was really surprised. To me, in every good approach you gotta have a platform and you gotta have a microphone. And I think that the Leadership Council is a really healthy platform for diagnosing issues that small businesses would need support with and actually giving real solid tools to those small businesses to be able to help them along the way. So that was an honest surprise for me and I’m very happy to be a part of the Leadership Council.” Michelle says that she wasn’t expecting that the Leadership Council would consist of a group of people who are actually doing the things they are talking about. “Often we can stuck in having conferences and talking about all

Michael Rogers talks with small business owner Michelle Klassen, owner of LkM Solutions. Her firm focuses on energy resilience, infrastructure and resource access, which helps her draw a lot of parallels to the challenges small business owners face in maintaining growth and prosperity.

There are many great reasons for entrepreneurs like you to belong to the Small Business Association of Michigan. Patrick Bosworth, the president of NDLX Logistics in Detroit, gets value from SBAM seminars and presentations. “There was a workshop just recently by SBAM and it was a young lady came on and talked about the use of LinkedIn and the value of LinkedIn, how LinkedIn we may be barely scratching the surface but there’s some significant value that you can gain from that, and that was a workshop that was offered free by SBAM, and that was a great, I’ve had some great takeaways that I now am implementing.” Patrick also is benefiting from SBAM’s ability to connect him with other small business owners. “The SBAM network and the Leadership Council have really opened up my eyes a little bit bigger on being able to do a better job with networking. I’ve kind of been around in my little silo, we’ve been around for a little bit of time and I was really kind of turning my wheels a little bit and since I’ve gotten e

Michael Rogers talks with small business owner Patrick Bosworth, president of NDLX Logistics in Detroit. He describes himself as a travel agent for cargo.

Testimonial Blaire Miller There are many great reasons for entrepreneurs like you to belong to the Small Business Association of Michigan. Blaire Miller is a partner in The Hunter Group, an executive search firm based in Bloomfield Hills, and a member of SBAM’s Leadership Council and she values her participation as a tool for problem solving. “I think SBAM really provides a number of roundtables that small business owners can avail themselves of that allow you to get best practices and brainstorm for potential solutions. It can be around policy issues, it can be around payroll issues, it can be around digital marketing challenges and what I find so helpful is to brainstorm with other small business owners. Even though we’re a trusted service advisor for talent, we still have our challenges and hearing and being able to listen to others who have similar issues and challenges and how they solved it is really valuable to us. So, I think the ability for all of us as owners to be around others who have similar pr

Michael Rogers talks with Blaire Miller, a partner in The Hunter Group, an executive search firm based in Bloomfield Hills, about how you can improve your odds of getting good employees by effectively communicating what your company is all about.

There are many great reasons for entrepreneurs like you to belong to the Small Business Association of Michigan. Bob Moylan is the co-founder with his wife Sara of Shefit, a company that produces an internationally famous fully custom adjustable sports bra. He values the opportunities SBAM presents for connecting with other entrepreneurs. “Although small business owners get very very busy with the minutia of running companies a tremendous example of that is our ability to network. And when you go and you hit the other events in Leadership Council and other small business events, it’s just your ability to connect and touch with other entrepreneurs and small business owners and all the others who are struggling with the exact same problems you have.” Here’s out that SBAM connection process works: “A great example is we just met a wonderful company and she was eager to share her manufacture of laundry bags and carry bags for us. That has turned out to be a wonderful relationship actually. That specific instance

Michael Rogers talks with Sara Moylan, the co-founder of Shefit. Sara says who you have in your business makes a big difference.

There are many great reasons for entrepreneurs like you to belong to the Small Business Association of Michigan. Tobi Moore is the owner and CEO of NGage Management and a VIP member of SBAM. “I’m hoping the networking with SBAM will allow me to get back out and do some more networking and mingle with other people who are in the same shoes as I am.” Tobi’s firm is a full service multi client association management company. “I would like to network better with CEOs. I have found with the last four years I have been working in the business and not on the business because I have been working much more on moving my clients forward I’ve done strategic hires so I no longer having to service so many EDs for these associations and I’m being able to work more on the business, so I would love to gain from SBAM further relationships and expertise to help me work on the business so I would love to gain from SBAM further relationships and expertise to help me work on the business.” Leverage the value of your involvement w