When we were young our parents taught us to work together and share. Later on in life we get out into that big, bad, business world, and all those cooperation skills we learned as children start to fall to the wayside. We’re told that it’s a “dog-eat-dog” world out there, and to some it may be. But it doesn’t have to be that way for everyone. In fact, many young entrepreneurs are finding that cooperation can pay off, and for most, it in fact saves on business costs. [Read more…]
When Jeff Jucha, the self-taught founder, owner and coach of West Little Rock CrossFit, decided to take his fitness expertise from his home garage where he trained a small group of clients at no cost to a for-profit business that now boasts 125 monthly paying clients in a 6,000 sq. ft. building, he knew it would take a lot of research, a strong personal drive to succeed and an ability to overcome his fears to make it successful. And one year after opening West Little Rock CrossFit, Jucha is comfortable in his success. West Little Rock CrossFit is a fitness training facility designed to incorporate the functional movements of competitive athletes into the daily fitness routine for the general population, all in a fun environment. The facility doesn’t rely on traditional gym equipment such as stair climber and treadmill machines. Instead, clients use dumbbells, kettlebells, jump ropes and rings. [Read more…]
Everyone knows how much of an effect social media can have on how your customers view your brand, company, employees, etc. We all know how important it is to have a Facebook and LinkedIn page, a Twitter account, a blog, etc. and keep it updated. But, what’s the best way to craft these social media messages? In the article “Secrets to a Perfectly Crafted Social Media Post” on inc.com, Jeff Haden gives some tips and tricks for getting the most out of the content you post on social media. [Read more…]
The Arkansas Capital Corporation Group (ACCG) is dedicated to helping small businesses and entrepreneurs throughout Arkansas succeed. Arkansas artists are certainly entrepreneurs. In 2013, ACCG began showcasing the work of Arkansas artists in our offices and began hosting open houses open to the public to help support the artists, as well as provide our community of staff, clients and visitors with a chance to be inspired by the art and be able to network at our offices as part of downtown Little Rock’s 2nd Friday Art Night. We are continuing that successful public-artist venture with the June 12th Friday Art Night with works by Diane Harper, Dominique Simmons and Barbara Satterfield in a show titled “Southern Curiosities”. Robert Bean is the show curator.
Arkansas Capital Corporation is a donation location for THV 11’s Summer Cereal Drive to benefit the Arkansas Foodbank! Guests are encouraged to donate dry cereal (8oz or more, boxed or bagged), breakfast bars, pop tarts, oatmeal, cream of wheat at the offices of Arkansas Capital Corporation during 2nd Friday Art Night, June 12 from 5 to 8 pm. THV11’s “This Morning” and the Arkansas Foodbank have been teaming up every summer since 2000 to help those in the Foodbank’s 33-county service area have food to eat for breakfast. Since it started in 2000, more than one million boxes of cereal and other breakfast items have been collected and distributed to food pantries and feeding sites. The cereal drive is a friendly competition to see which business, organization and community can donate the most cereal during a four-week period. Help us help the Foodbank feed those in Arkansas that need help this summer!
Whether you are interested in learning more about the many lending products or just need a little visual inspiration, please stop by our offices Friday, June 12 from 5-8 p.m. Light hors d’oeuvres and drinks will be served. The artists will all be at the event to discuss their work, and all work is for sale with proceeds directly benefiting the artist. Our offices are located at 200 River Market, Avenue, Suite 400, Little Rock, AR 72201. Two nearby parking decks, as well as street parking are available. We are at Trolley Stop 10. Additional details about the trolley are available here. [Read more…]
We never know when a disaster is going to hit. Whether it is a blizzard burying Alaska, a hurricane drowning South Carolina, or a wildfire taking out buildings in California, disaster can strike without any warning. In today’s tech-savvy world, even a power outage or computer crash could leave your business in trouble. Just as it’s important to have a disaster plan for your home and family, it is also important to have a disaster plan for your business to protect all you’ve worked hard to achieve. Help minimize the risk for your business by preparing for the worst. Such websites as the SBA and Ready Business supply ample information on how to best prepare for an unknown threat. Here is the Wall Street Journal’s take on three ways you can best prepare to protect your business, should disaster strike: [Read more…]
Financial planning is an often dreaded step of starting a business, but it is necessary to start and grow your business. With such a wide variety of financing options from federal, state, and local governments, searching for the applicable ones can prove to be, well, overwhelming. Some examples of funding programs include low-interest loans, venture capital, and scientific and economic development grants. Before you get ahead of yourself applying for these grants and loans, make sure you have your finances in order. It is essential to know the details of your upcoming expenditures, including start-up costs and break-even point for your business. The U.S. Small Business Administration provides a great deal of assistance in sorting through the details of financing your business. They even highlight what sorts of details banks assess when distributing loans. [Read more…]
Arkansas Capital, through its affiliate, the Arkansas Economic Acceleration Foundation, (AEAF) is pleased to announce that Kordate Solutions, representing the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, has won the graduate division of the eighth annual Donald W. Reynolds Tri-State Collegiate Business Plan Competition. 
Here’s the fatal flaw in the retirement plan of many small business owners: after pouring a lifetime of sweat, time and capital into building their businesses, their rough-sketch exit strategy is to sell out someday for a ton of money—and then settle back and enjoy a financially secure retirement. Many business owners are so sure this will happen that they don’t bother to make any other retirement plans. And that’s a big mistake. Why? It’s an undependable fantasy that depends on a magical person who, at just the right moment, swoops in with cash in hand to buy your company–and pay a fair price. The reality: for thousands of small business owners each year, no one steps forward. Perhaps your business is too specialized or is tied too closely to the owner’s unique personality and skills. Or perhaps possible buyers equate retirement sale with distress sale and make only low-ball offers. [Read more…]
Elevator pitches are all the rage right now. Looking at the way the world works, people act like they barely have enough time to put down their cell phones or tablets long enough to do important things like eat and shower. Ask them to pay attention to something that’s not important for more than 5 minutes? That’s blasphemy! Too hard! Luckily, and I’d guess out of necessity, the entrepreneurship and venture capital world has latched on to this idea of an elevator pitch. The story goes that at some point an entrepreneur got on this mythical elevator in some massive building in some huge city. Standing next to him just happened to be a key player in an investment firm that could provide said entrepreneur with venture capital. But, alas, he would only be in this elevator with him for 60 seconds! How could he tell him everything he needed to know to secure funding from his awesome company? It’s no secret, and in the next couple paragraphs we’ll give you some tips to create a winner. [Read more…]
Small businesses come in all shapes and sizes and setup in all kinds of locations. If you don’t have a physical location for your business, it’s important to be able to take mobile payments. With the advances in technology, small businesses can now accept payments over all kinds of devices like tablets, cell phones, etc. making it extremely easy to sell your products from pretty much anywhere you have cell service or an internet connection. In an article for Inc.com, “Which Mobile Payment Service Is Best for Your Business?”, Maeghan Ouimet compares six top contenders in the industry giving you information on each so that you can make the decision on which would be suit your business’s needs. In this post we will look at a couple of the top contenders. [Read more…]
We all know how much social media has changed the way we communicate with each other. Although it may not be as prevalent, social media has also changed the way small businesses do a number of things. LinkedIn has consistently grown, now with over 135 million individual users and 7 million companies registered, it can obviously offer some value to entrepreneurs and small business owners. An article by Marla Tabaka, on Inc.com, entitled “Unlock the Secrets of LinkedIn” gives entrepreneurs and small business owners a starting point to begin using LinkedIn as a social media platform for their businesses.
In the article, Tabaka interviews Barbara Rozgonyi who suggests LinkedIn can be used to research connections and target customers for business development and gives the following tips for doing so:
