NxLeveL^® Guide To Growing Your Business

The NxLeveL Guide To Growing Your Business can be presented in six or 10 weeks to growth-oriented startups, existing entrepreneurs or a mixture of both. This highly flexible approach will ensure that all students get the individualized help they need while also completing a professional business plan within a short but realistic timeframe. It will not only help students to take advantage of new and emerging business opportunities, but will also make the course easier for instructors to customize for individual classes.

Learning Objectives

Session One

• Understand the course curriculum and expectations.
• Understand the traits of successful entrepreneurs.
• Understand the concept of market segmentation, demographics, psychographics and niche markets.
• Understand how to create a simple customer profile.
• Understand how to prepare a personal financial statement.

Session Two

• Understand the business planning process, feasibility studies, and the internal and external uses of a formal business plan.
• Understand the components and organization of business plans.
• Understand why, how, where and when to do market research.
• Understand how to collect primary and secondary market data.
• Begin market research by identifying industry data and resources.

Session Three

• Understand how to select the right legal structure.
• Understand where to get help with legal issues.
• Understand business insurance, continuity planning and other risk management needs.
• Identify internal and external management team members.
• Understand employee motivation and team-building.
• Understand basic supply chain concepts.

Session Four

• Understand common market research methods.
• Understand how to describe product features and benefits.
• Understand the importance of gathering primary data when conducting customer research.
• Distinguish between direct and indirect competition.
• Learn how to use customer and competition profiles to calculate and analyze market potential.

Session Five

• Understand the importance of the marketing mix.
• Understand how product life cycle affects marketing decisions.
• Understand the basics product positioning.
• Understand pricing objectives and strategies.
• Understand the basics of break-even analysis.
• Understand common promotional tools, and select the most effective mix for your business.

Session Six

• Understand the importance of having an online security plan.
• Understand the basic issues involved in website design.
• Think about the pros and cons of building or buying a site.
• Think about how e-commerce and social media affect your business plan, and update the relevant sections and cost.
• Understand basic methods of direct selling, customer service and customer management.

Session Seven

• Understand the purpose and importance of accounting, recordkeeping and internal controls.
• Explore how budgets provide performance feedback.
• Understand how to prepare common budgets, including Sales Forecast and Cost of Projected Product Units Sold.
• Understand how to prepare cash flow projections.
• Understand ways of managing the cash flow cycle.

Session Eight

• Prepare the Monthly Projected Income Statement and understand how it differs from the Cash Flow Projection.
• Develop a Projected Balance Sheet and compare it with the Beginning Balance Sheet.
• Understand managerial uses of financial statements.
• Become aware of sources of debt and equity capital.
• Understand how to produce and submit a financing proposal.

Session Nine

• Understand the importance of negotiating and contract management in the business world.
• Consider ways to save money, save energy, improve efficiency and avoid regulations by managing resources.
• Gain a deeper understanding of budgeting, ratio analysis and benchmarking.
• Understand the basics of project management.

Session Ten

• Recognize and prepare for the risks and opportunities of business expansion.
• Recognize and prepare for barriers and pitfalls that often arise during periods of rapid growth.
• Discuss plan implementation decisions and next steps.
• Evaluate students’ NxLeveL learning experience.