Helping Entrepreneurs and Businesses Grow and Succeed
Make It Personal: Using Marketing Personas and Empathy
Picture Source: Google.com

Having a target audience of "everyone" puts you in danger of appealing to no one. Even a narrowly-defined audience can contain wildly different types of people. "Female millennial college students in urban areas" can include liberal arts majors, engineers, studious homebodies, social butterflies, part-time students, and more.

There are ways to market using these personas, here are four steps to follow:

1. Ask lots (and lots) of questions
2. Look for patterns, then fill in the blanks
3. Create a journey map
4. Create an empathy map

Read Full Article Here
 
Eat Downtown Duluth Week
March 5-10

Picture Source: downtownduluth.com

From Monday, March 5th to Saturday, March 10th, the Greater Downtown Council will be celebrating fabulous local cuisine at 20 downtown waterfront restaurants. Specially crafted menus offer multi-course lunches for $10 and multi-course
dinners for $25

Participating restaurants: Bellisio's, Black Water Lounge, Boat Club, Canal Park Brewing Co.,
Cloud 9 Asian Bistro, Dubh Linn Irish Brew Pub, Grandma's Saloon, JJ Astor,
Little Angie's Cantina and Grill, Pickwick, Pizza Luce, Restaurant 301, 7 West TapHouse, Silos Restaurant,
Sir Benedict's, Sound, Toasty's Sandwich Shop, 310 Pub, Valentini's, and Zeitgeist Arts Cafe.

Save The Date: April 4th

picture source: google.com

Join us on Wednesday, April 4th for the Midwest States Small Business Forum from
9:00 am to 11:00 am.

This forum will be held via web conference, using WebEx. We are inviting you to join us
to learn more about:

1. New IRS withholding rules for employers, and resources for employees to check and
adjust their withholding

2. What business owners and independent contractors need to know about figuring and paying estimated taxes (income tax and self-employment tax)

3. The rules about independent
contractors versus employees

More information and details coming soon!

This Week's IRS Tip

How To Use The FIRE System

Some companies are required to file 1099's electronically. The system they use to file 1099's electronically is called Filing Information Returns Electronically, or FIRE.

Q: Who MUST use FIRE to file 1099's electronically?

A: Any person, including corporations, partnerships, employers, estates and trusts, who files 250 or more Forms 1097, 1042-S, 1098, 3921,3922, 5498, 8027, 8955-SSA or W2G for any calendar year must  file their
Information Returns electronically.
 
Upcoming Workshops
__________________
Excel for Beginners
3/6/18 | 9am-12pm

Excel II 
Working with "IF" Statements 
3/6/18 | 1pm-4pm

Excel III
Creating/Using Macros and Functions
3/8/18 | 9am-12pm

Excel IV
Next Level Data Using Visualization & Infographics
 3/8/18 | 1pm-4pm

QuickBooks
Accounting for Your Business
3/13/18 | 9am-4pm

Starting a Business in Minnesota
MN Workforce Center - Duluth
3/27/18 | 2pm-4pm

Writing a Business Plan in Minnesota
3/28/18 | 2pm-4pm

Microsoft Project
4/5/18 | 9am-12pm

4/10/18 | 9am-4pm


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Register today for the Regional Economic Indicators Forum

4/03/2018 
7:00am-9:30am

Did You Know? 

Picture Source: Americassbdc.org

For every $1 invested in SBDCs in 2016, $2.12 was created in federal revenue & $2.73 in state revenue!

Visit America's SBDC
Quick Links
Contact Us
UMD Center for Economic Development
218-726-7298  | www.ced.d.umn.edu  | [email protected]
11 E. Superior Street Suite 210 | Duluth, MN 
Additional Locations

Cook County | Ely | Grand Rapids | Hermantown
International Falls | Lake County | Quad Cities 
Funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration, Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development and regional support partners. All opinions, conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the program sponsors. Programs are open to the public on a nondiscriminatory basis. Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance. Contact the UMD Center for Economic Development at 218-726-7298 to make arrangements.
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