WisBusiness: Green Bay event helps businesses take it to the next level

By MaryBeth Matzek

For WisBusiness.com

The event’s name says it all.

Ideas to Profit, a two-day event designed to help inventors, entrepreneurs and small business owners take the next step to increase revenue kicked off Thursday in Green Bay and continues today at the Tundra Lodge Convention Center.

“Sometimes you have this great idea and you know something has to be done with it, but you don’t know what. That’s where something like this comes in,” said Don Muehlbauer, an owner of several businesses who presented a breakout session on how to sell your product online. “My goal is that when people walk away, they’ll have a bunch of things they’ll want to research and follow up on — lots of good homework.”

Muehlbauer said most business owners have no idea what to do when it comes to selling their products online, but he said businesses need to stay focused on the customer. “The customer is what driving sales today. It used to be that the marketer was in control and drove the message. Today, it’s the consumer – what they are saying on social media is what matters,” he said.

As to what can be sold online, the possibilities are endless, Muehlbauer said. The key is finding the right niche, whether it’s just selling your product through Amazon.com or through a website that you drive traffic through via a focused ad campaign.

“Knowing your customer and what they want will drive your decision on what to do,” he said.

If you’re in the Green Bay area on Friday and want to check out the Ideas to Profit conference, it’s being held at the Tundra Lodge Convention Center, 865 Lombardi Ave., Green Bay. The event is sponsored by the Wisconsin Innovation Service Center, a business outreach center at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Friday’s events include:

* 7:30 a.m.: Innovation Champions Award breakfast with speaker William Sullivan of FLEXcon Inc.

* 9:30: Breakout sessions on licensing strategies, PR on a limited budget and innovation funding through federal grants.

* 10:45: Breakout sessions on prototyping, exit strategies and growth through acquisition and supporting long-term growth

* Noon: Lunch and keynote address by Deb Hess of the Minnesota Inventors Congress

For more information, visit www.ideas2profits.org.

Sponsored by the Wisconsin Innovation Service Center, Ideas to Profit features a series of breakout sessions on a variety of topics from how to legally protect your invention and getting funding for businesses to marketing and supporting long-term growth. The conference also features a trade show where businesses can showcase their products and services and provided conference rooms where people could meet to talk more about potential deals.

For many entrepreneurs, a lack of financing stalls plans to take to their business to the next step. Multiple breakout sessions focused on finding funds to fuel growth whether it’s federal grants, local revolving loan funds, microloan programs or the traditional commercial business loan.

“The No. 1 thing I hear from businesses is that they can’t find money to grow or expand. A running joke I have is that in this tough commercial lending environment Julia Child couldn’t get a bank loan to open a restaurant in downtown Sturgeon Bay,” said Sam Perlman, economic development manager for the Door County Economic Development Corporation.

As businesses struggle with traditional funding options through banks, more are turning to revolving loan funds like the one offered in Door County. State and federal government grants are the main capitalization for the revolving funds. The funds do come with several caveats, including that the business must commit to one full-time equivalent job created or retained per $20,000 loaned within three years, Perlman said. In addition, the funds can only be used in certain activities, such as land and equipment purchases or construction projects.

For businesses looking to get out of some of those requirements, a microloan might be the answer.

Last year, Advance, the economic development art of the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, teamed up with 12 area banks to launch the Advance Brown County Microloan Program. As of March – its one year anniversary of making loans – 12 loans worth $475,000 were approved, said Jessica Beckendorf of the Brown County Economic Development Department.

Microloans can be for as little as $5,000 or as much as $100,000 and can be used for machinery, equipment or working capital.

“We call these loans character loans since we’re really basing the loan on the owner’s dedication and drive to make the business succeed,” she said. “We’ve had some people come through who had poor credit and could not get a traditional loan. We are able to fill that gap.”

The Ideas to Profit event wraps up Friday with another half-day of events.