In anticipation of opening the new commercial kitchen, which will be a Kitchen Incubator at the Enterprise Center, one might ask “What is a Kitchen Incubator?” With the explosion of the specialty food industry, it is a way to break into that market. Retail sales of specialty foods are generating revenues of more than $48 billion a year and averaging annual growth of more than 8 percent. To some, this means great opportunity – along with a formidable challenge.

I am very excited and fortunate to be in on the ground floor of this endeavor and to learn and grow with our new kitchen clients. How to prepare for the opportunity and challenge of taking your food product to the appropriate store shelf will be the goal of the incubator. New products can be tested in the commercial kitchen without the tremendous initial investment required for new food startups.

Suppose you have just completed a successful church bazaar where your homemade jelly or salsa or some product has sold out and your friends and neighbors are urging you to start producing and selling, using your family recipe that has been handed down through the years. You haven’t the foggiest idea where to begin! That is where the Kitchen Incubator comes in.

In addition to having access to a shared use kitchen, you will get assistance in licensing, packaging, labeling, pricing, storage, shipping, and how to advertise, promote, sell and market your product. All of these aspects are part of what is required to be successful in the marketplace.

At the Enterprise Center Kitchen Incubator, food manufacturers can transform a hobby and a talent into a business and turn food ideas into an profitable endeavor. Come check out our new challenging world of specialty food production and marketing!

When you are growing a business, the critical and key element for that growth always comes back to people. The people on your team and the culture you develop can make or break your growth. The people determine the rate of growth and to what level. So many owners and managers think that a product or service can sell itself. But even if it can virtually sell itself, a product can’t support all that it takes to run a business. We are in the process of hiring a key member of our team. One of the most critical wheels that keeps our machine running is our client service coordinator. Without this person to support our coaches, to support our stakeholders and to ultimately make it easy for people to do business with us, incubation would not work. This process brought up a good question today and that is the question “What does Customer Service mean to you?”

Now that seems like a simple question, especially for a customer service position. But I was really amazed at the perspectives and meanings that the term customer service has for different people. When discussed among our team members, the answers were as diverse as those given by the people wanting to join our team.

If you lead a business or own a business, ask your customers, ask your team, and ask your colleagues what customer service really means to them. To grow a business, you have to serve people inside your organization and outside of your organization. What does your understanding of customer service mean in the context of your business?  I don’t think I have come up with a new magic concept. What I was reminded of is a need to consistently recheck how we define customer service, how we communicate within our team and support what we have defined our customer service to be. Most importantly, we have to check how we educate our community of entrepreneurs, service providers, and future team members what customer service means to us and our clients. What does customer service mean to you?

I have a strange confession to make. . .

I love local commercials.

It is kinda a guilty pleasure of mine. I especially love cheesy car commercials. And yes, I can say that Bobby Duby sold it to me. There are many reasons why I like them, but the main one is simple. I like them because they accomplish their goal. They are memorable.

One day I stumbled across a couple of guys that take local commercials to the next level. Rhett & Link.
Below is my personal favorite. I highly recommend going to their website. www.ilovelocalcommercials.com

Having reserves in every area of our lives offers us less stress, less worry; the ability to be present with the people that are important to us; the opportunity to live life according to our priorities, using time for what is important rather than what is urgent.

What will it take for you to operate from “reserves” rather than on “empty”?

Alliance Auction & Realty combines award winning Amarillo auctioneers and marketing professionals, with uncompromising ethics, to provide exceptional client centered marketing services.

For more information visit www.allianceauctioneers.com

Written by Brian Whipple, Program Coordinator of the WT Enterprise Center. For more information about the WT Enterprise Center visit www.IncubationWorks.com.

There are probably thousands of blog posts claiming that there are indeed steps to innovation. And I, by no means, can verify the accuracy of any of them. Nor do I want to claim that I know the steps. But I have been in a unique position to see lots of innovative ideas while working at the Enterprise Center. It seems like ideas flock to this place. And I, personally, have seen a pattern with the truly innovative ideas. And I can usually (not always) spot the difference between an average idea and a truly innovative idea. It usually happens in three steps.

1. Chance favors the prepared mind – Usually innovation happens around people that are very well educated in a particular area. Whether it is their profession, passion, or hobby, it almost always seems like innovation happens around folks that know their stuff.

2. Communicate the idea – It seems like to me that the truly innovative ideas are the ones that can be communicated well. If an entrepreneur can make a 3rd grader understand, then it has the makings of a good idea. If the idea is too complicated for the average joe to understand, then that person is a scientist, not an innovative entrepreneur.

3. Make it happen – An idea is pretty useless unless someone can make it happen. It becomes innovative when it is implemented and it comes to fruition.

The reality is that everyone understands these three points. They are not hard to get. But they are extremely hard to do. The exciting thing is that all of our clients are doing these three things, and we get to help. It is my personal opinion that we get to work with the most innovative companies in the region. And that is awesome.

Later Debra became the marketing director for Cellular One, Patient Advocate for Northwest Texas Hospital, Administrative Assistant for Physicians Surgical Hospital, and Public Relations officer for Texas Tech School of Medicine. Currently Debra McCartt is working at B&W Pantex as their Government Relations Officer.

Over the years, Debra has served on many non profit boards. It was through her board work with the Economic Development Corporation that Debra has come to appreciate the importance of a strong community and it’s economic growth. Over the last ten years, Debra served on the Amarillo City Commission and then as the Mayor of Amarillo.

Being an entrepreneur means moving fast, being passionate about moving faster than others, and for most entrepreneurs, success. What is success exactly? I think most entrepreneurs and even clients of mine would say that success is not easily defined and that it changes.

As an entrepreneur, I am constantly looking for improvement and more efficient ways of doing things. Do what I do better, do what I do faster, do what I do MORE. How do you live an entrepreneurial lifestyle and still have a life? I think the answer lies in passion- not passion for a product or a service, but passion for Life, People, and Growth.

I recently read an article about “10 Questions That Create Success” (By Geoffrey James | @Sales_Source | Jan 23, 2012). As I read the article, I thought (and I know some of my clients and fellow entrepreneurs also think) “who can realistically ask themselves these 10 questions daily, I don’t even have time to read the article much less consider the questions.” But something I realized in asking myself this question is that I, like most entrepreneurs, don’t take time to celebrate success or even acknowledge success. I am an optimist at heart and I will always see opportunity, but something I do struggle with is acknowledging how I personally take advantage of (and help others take advantage of) all the opportunities for success that are presented me every day.

The first key to being able to define success for your future is being able to acknowledge and recognize success in your present.

I challenge every entrepreneur that reads this to take 10 minutes every day to consider these 10 questions and to recognize the success they achieve daily. Success builds upon itself and I truly believe that if you focus on the success you have in the present, you will have life long success in your future.

1. Have I made certain that those I love feel loved?

2. Have I done something today that improved the world?

3. Have I conditioned my body to be more strong flexible and resilient?

4. Have I reviewed and honed my plans for the future?

5. Have I acted in private with the same integrity I exhibit in public?

6. Have I avoided unkind words and deeds?

7. Have I accomplished something worthwhile?

8. Have I helped someone less fortunate?

9. Have I collected some wonderful memories?

10. Have I felt grateful for the incredible gift of being alive?

Written by Jeff Reid, Associate Director of the WT Enterprise Center. For more information about the WT Enterprise Center visit www.IncubationWorks.com.

A while back I read an article entitled, “What is The Stuff of an Entrepreneur?” by Jim Hatch and Jeffrey Zweig.  The article outlined five characteristics that seem to be common with successful entrepreneurs.  Interviews were conducted and data collected from 50 rapidly growing firms in the greater Chicago area. It was observed that the majority came from middle to upper middle class families.  Although some of those interviewed became entrepreneurial at an early age others pursued their business ideas at various other life stages.  Many of the entrepreneurs interviewed were somewhat average in other aspects of their life such as sports and academics.  Most, if not all, exhibited the following five personal traits which motivated them to incur personal risk in order to start their own business.

1. Risk Tolerance – The founders were not adverse to risk as many of them “maxed-out” their credit cards and incurred other personal debt in order to start the business.  In some cases the founders appeared to enjoy the risk they were taking and somewhat lost interest when things were stable.

2. Desire for Control – The desire to control their own destiny and be the decision maker appeared to motivate many of those interviewed.  Many had worked for other companies and were not happy when having to answer to others.  In general they had strong personalities and a high degree of self-confidence.

3. Ambition/Desire to Succeed – This trait was present in most of the founders but did not appear to be important to all of the entrepreneurs.  The success of their business was taken very personally.  Many were relentless in the pursuit of success and were constantly thinking of ways to improve the business.

4. Perseverance – In the face of setbacks most displayed a strong will to succeed.  This may be best illustrated by those that started businesses that either failed or were not very successful, but started again.

5. Decisiveness – A willingness to make decisions was exhibited, even when they needed to be made quickly and often times alone.  Mistakes when made were not dwelt upon but rather energies were spent on moving on.

Do you have the Stuff of an Entrepreneur?  Possession of these five characteristics is not a guarantee for a successful venture but the lack of them will make success very difficult to achieve.

For more information visit http://www.murfsystems.com