Businesspeople
A business plan is a blueprint for starting and growing a business, as well as, the gateway to opportunities.
Get insights on starting and growing your business from an expert in the areas of business strategy, leadership, marketing, sales, and finance. Paisley Demby has over 25 years of business development and finance experience working with startups to large-scale multimillion-dollar corporations
Join us for this comprehensive 10-week business planning course designed to provide an in-depth review of the components of a business plan. Learn about the different aspects of business plan development including developing growth strategies, industry research, assessing the competitive environment, identifying target markets, developing a marketing strategy, improving operations, and developing financial projections.
This year's Business Plan Boot Camp has ended. You can access session recordings, handouts, and presentation slides on the Business Plan Boot Camp site until December 31, 2024.
Session 1: Crafting Your Company Description Learn how to draft a Cover Page, Table of Contents, and Company Description section of your business plan. Learn about the resources that are available to help you complete your business plan and launch your business. Visit the Business Plan Boot Camp site to view the recording, handout, and presentation slides.
Session 2: Analyzing Your Industry Learn how to research your industry and write the Industry Analysis section of your Business Plan. Visit the Business Plan Boot Camp site to view the recording, handout, and presentation slides.
Session 3: Analyzing Your Target Market Learn how to determine who your potential customer is and how to draft the target market section of your business plan. Visit the Business Plan Boot Camp site to access the program recording, handout, and presentation slides.
Session 4: Analyzing Your Competitors Learn how to analyze your competitors and how to draft the Competitor Analysis section of your plan. Visit the Business Plan Boot Camp site to view the recording, handout, and presentation slides.
Session 5: Identifying Growth Opportunities Learn how to synthesize industry, competitor, and target market information to identify growth opportunities for your business and the possible risks. Visit the Business Plan Boot Camp site to view the recording, handout, and presentation slides.
Session 6: The 4 Ps of Marketing Learn how to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy to reach your target demographic and how to draft the Marketing section of your business plan. Visit the Business Plan Boot Camp site to view the recording, handout, and presentation slides.
Session 7: Business Operations Learn how to identify core processes in your business operations and how to draft the Operations section of your business plan. Visit the Business Plan Boot Camp site to view the recording, handout, and presentation slides.
Session 8: Developing Milestones and an Exit Plan Learn how to identify milestones achieved, target future milestones, and develop an exit plan for your business. Visit the Business Plan Boot Camp site to view the recording, handout, and presentation slides.
Session 9 Developing Financial Statements Learn how to read and build an income statement, statement of cash flow, and balance sheet. Visit the Business Plan Boot Camp site to view the recording, handout, and presentation slides.
Session 10: Creating Your Executive Summary Learn how to summarize your entire business plan in a 1-page executive summary and how to structure it to maximize the impact on a potential funder. Visit the Business Plan Boot Camp site to view the recording, handout, and presentation slides.
This program is made possible by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
► Program has ended and will be repeated in the future. Sign up for our newsletter to be notified when applications start again.
► Click here to go to the Program Overview and Application page.
***NOTE: Each accelerator has a limit of 25 people. There is no cost to participate. Minority, women, and veteran-owned businesses are highly encouraged to apply.***
If your business is in the same place that it was six or twelve months ago, or if it has seen very little growth, then this intensive strategy program is what you need to unlock your business’ success.
The New York Public Library’s Business Center, Start Small Think Big, and Moving Forward Small Business invite you to apply to the Small Biz Growth Accelerator. When you participate in this program, you'll get best practices, tips, and tricks for planning and executing your own growth strategy—tailored specifically to your business—all while catching up on the latest trends in marketing, leadership, technology, social media, customer service, finance, and sales.
In this comprehensive, 45-day accelerator, you will master the art of crafting a profitable business strategy. Your time will be spent understanding what it means to develop clear goals by breaking down objectives into achievable sub-projects, and making sure each task counts for success towards those overall objectives.
The program will also cover important topics like prioritizing tasks based upon your anticipated level of contribution or risk level; learning how to set strategic intentions without becoming bogged down in logistical details; dealing with distractions (both big and small); why simplifying can help sharpen performance, and how thinking about different ways to evaluate the success of individuals or teams (such as productivity vs. effectiveness) is the key to success.
Apply today for the Accelerator and discover:
- How to truly define your vision, values, and focus areas
- How to break down objectives into projects and tasks that support your vision
- What is a good KPI (key performance indicator) to measure for your growing business?
- How to measure alignment across the team and key stakeholders to increase growth success
- How to track your progress by developing valuable insight from your data
What you will get out of the program:
- A template structure for creating goals
- Frameworks for helping you actually decide what you want to work on
- A baseline structure of governance to help you manage and track your strategy
- Two virtual Q&A sessions to ask questions and wrap up the program
- Accountability through peer support
Your Instructor: Jimmy Newson, Founder, and CEO of Moving Forward Small Business
Jimmy Newson is the founder and CEO of Moving Forward Small Business, a membership-based, digital publishing company on a mission to save 1 million small businesses from failure by 2050, leveraging technology, innovation, and business strategy. He is also the Senior Advisor for the New York Marketing Association. He is a keynote speaker and presents workshops and training regularly across the globe for prestigious organizations in the entrepreneurial sphere, such as Start Small Think Big, The New York Public Library, SCORE, Digital Marketing World Forum, DC Start-Up Week, and multiple international SaaS companies.
Register to watch the replays below.
Click here to skip description and go to registration links.
Burnout research has long focused on hospitals and corporate structures, but entrepreneurs experience burnout in high numbers too!
The weight of wearing all the hats, having initial instability in finances, and wading through the ups and downs of differing income throughout the year are some of the external factors that can lead to burnout. Internally, the subscription to hustle culture, boundary issues, and tendencies toward people-pleasing and perfectionism can trip us up too.
If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. Join Cait Donovan, one of New York City’s leading burnout experts, for this three-part series in which we will explore How to Avoid Entrepreneurial Burnout and Thrive in Business. Cait is the host of Fried – The Burnout Podcast, and is also the author of the book The Bouncebackability Factor. She designed this series especially with today's exhausted businessperson in mind: she will guide you through what really happens with burnout and what you can do as an entrepreneur to protect yourself.
In this series, you will:
- Understand what actually happens to your body when you "burn out"
- Learn when to push through and when to rest
- Find out the best research-backed tools for increasing your resilience, both emotional and physical
- Discover the #1 emotion that can guide you to set *great* boundaries (hint: it's not what you think!)
- ... and so much more!
With the right insight, protecting yourself from burnout as an entrepreneur is an easy-to-learn skill. It helps to build sustainable businesses, it helps to keep you happy and healthy, and it helps to maintain your personal relationships as well.
The main goal of this Series is to allow you to walk away feeling like you can chase your entrepreneurial dreams and enjoy the process as you go.
PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW & REGISTER TO WATCH EACH PROGRAM SEPARATELY.
► Part 1: Are You at Risk for Burnout?
► Part 2: Resentment: How to Turn an “Unacceptable” Emotion Into Your Superpower Against Burnout
► Part 3: Setting Boundaries Will Actually Help You Be More Generous, Not Less
All programs will be on Zoom.
Elaine Pofeldt, journalist and bestselling author of The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business and Tiny Business, Big Money, will interview some of the entrepreneurs featured in her books to share how they created small business models that are not just tremendously profitable but also –very important– that can withstand any challenge.
All of the participating entrepreneurs have reached and surpassed 7 figures. They were able to pivot with agility, creativity, and ingenuity when the pandemic hit, and ended up thriving and growing their businesses in the most adverse of circumstances.
So... How do you build a small, mega-profitable business that can withstand any challenge, and do this on your terms? That is the topic of this series!
Sign up for the programs and find out how these entrepreneurs did it. Don't miss the opportunity to ask them your questions!
CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE SPECIFIC PROGRAM AND TO REGISTER.
► Building Niche Communities: Insights from 7-Figure Entrepreneurs
Discover how these entrepreneurs built communities around their brand that helped them grow beyond the million-dollar mark.
Monday, April 8, 2024, 12 - 1:30 PM | Online
Additional programs will be added as dates are near.
***SAVE ALL DATES FOR 2024! Series will run monthly, on the 2nd Monday from 12-1:30 pm ET: Jan 8, Feb 12, Mar 11, Apr 8, May 13, Jun 10, Jul 8, Aug 12, Sep 9, Oct 7, Nov 4, Dec 9 .*** (NOTE: Programs in October & November were moved to the 1st Monday since the 2nd one falls on a holiday.)
About the Moderator
Elaine Pofeldt is an independent journalist and speaker who specializes in entrepreneurship and careers. She is the author of Tiny Business, Big Money: Strategies for Creating a High-Revenue Microbusiness and The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business: Make Great Money. Work the Way You Like. Have the Life You Want, where she looks at how entrepreneurs are scaling to $1 million in revenue prior to hiring employees.
As a senior editor at Fortune Small Business magazine, she was twice nominated for the National Magazine Award for her feature stories. Her work has appeared in FORTUNE, Money, CNBC, Inc., Forbes, Crain’s New York Business, and many other business publications, and she is a contributor to the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Having built traffic for Fortune Small Business Online from a fledgling site to one with 5 million page views a month, she frequently draws on her experience to help clients improve their online presence. She founded Fortune Small Business's National Business Plan Competition and ran it for five years. She has also been a judge in the Crain's New York Business Perfect Pitch Competition at Columbia Business School and Rutger's University's business plan competition.
An experienced moderator, she has run panel discussions for New York Entrepreneurship Week and the Crain's Top Entrepreneurs and Best Places to Work competitions.
Do you speak about small business topics or entrepreneurship?
Are you looking for an opportunity to give back to the community with your speaking?
Would you like to add The New York Public Library to the list of places where you’ve spoken?
If you answered YES to any of the above, this opportunity is for you:
Interested? Read on!
The Business Center is a library dedicated solely to business and finance:
- It has premium databases, directories, and electronic resources—the same ones that Fortune 500s use—that anyone can access at no cost.
- Its helpful and friendly Librarians are available for free, one-on-one consultations to help answer patrons’ questions and find the resources and information they need for their businesses.
- It holds a Business Plan Competition every year for hundreds of competitors who are eager to learn as much as possible about how to start and grow a business, and who do their best to win the $15K Grand Prize.
Further, the Library offers weekly programs and classes and, over the years, it has developed a very engaged audience made up of entrepreneurs, small business owners and employees, freelancers, and anyone who is interested in business topics and is eager for knowledge. These events are free and open to the public.
This is where you come in: The Small Business section at the Business Center is always looking for new speakers who are experts in their specific fields of business, and who are willing to share their knowledge and expertise with the small business community. The schedule is determined 6-12 months in advance.
Here are the details:
Date & Time
TBD based on availability, but webinars are usually Mondays 12-1 pm and Wednesdays 3-4 pm.
Topic
Anything to do with small business and entrepreneurship, so long as it’s practical, actionable, and not a sales pitch for a particular service or product. E.g., Crowdfunding, Social Media for Business, How to Hire your First Employer, Pricing for Success, Five Points to Consider for a Website Audit, How to Write a Killer Bio, How to Create an Irresistible Offer, How to Deliver a Memorable Business Pitch, etc.
Platform
Virtual. Will take place via the Library’s Zoom account (webinar style, not meeting). There will be a host from the Library and support staff to assist the Speaker. All webinars are recorded and shared with the audience.
Content and Speaking Style
Recognizing that each speaker is different, the presenter has complete liberty to create the content of the presentation and to run it however he/she sees fit, after approval from the Library. For example, a presentation could take the traditional form of speaking with a slide deck followed by Q&A, or assembling a panel of experts. Or it could be a different approach, such as an "Ask-Me-Anything" session where the speaker is merely taking questions and sharing knowledge, or an "Over-the-Shoulder" tutorial of, say, helpful tools where the presenter shares the screen as he/she is explaining how to do something.
Pro bono
The presenters at the Library speak on a pro bono basis, to give back to the community.
Promotion
Programs are promoted to a database of thousands of subscribers who are small businesses, as well as to hundreds of partner organizations that work with small businesses (these organizations, in turn, serve as amplifiers of the promotion by sharing it with their membership). Certain programs are also promoted more widely, via the NYPL general newsletter, which goes out to 1 million+ subscribers. However, the Library cannot promote any program above and beyond these current promotional efforts, nor can it guarantee any minimum attendance numbers.
Still interested?
If so, please fill in this form with your information and submit it for consideration. Please note that we do not accept proposals by phone or email, and we regret that we are only able to follow up and offer feedback for proposals that fit into our program seasons.
Thanks a lot for your interest and we look forward to hearing from you!
Join the New York Public Library’s Thomas Yoseloff Business Center, in partnership with the Museum of American Finance, for this ten-part series on Retirement Planning. These programs are designed to introduce you to the many possible sources of retirement income and resources, including social security, medicare, pension options including 401ks, individual retirement accounts, and annuities, as well as the complex issues faced when planning for loved ones with wills and/or trusts. The series aims to provide participants with the information needed to help them secure their finances for the future.
The speakers include professionals from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Social Security Administration, the Health Insurance Counseling and Assistance Program, the U.S. Department of Labor (EBSA), and an Elder Law attorney to guide you through the process.
The series kicks off on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 at 12 noon with New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed financial advisor Ric Edelman and continues each Tuesday at noon through March 26, 2024.
January 23 at 12 Noon Financial Planning in the Age of Longevity Join us for this kick-off event for the Retirement A to Z series, presented by Ric Edelman, the nation’s most highly acclaimed financial advisor.
January 30 at 12 Noon The Importance of Retirement Gerri Walsh reviews the importance of compound interest and the many tax-deferred opportunities that help individuals plan for a comfortable and stress-free retirement. Presented by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
February 6 at 12 Noon What You Should Know About Your Retirement Plan Abigail Helbig from the U.S. Department of Labor helps you understand your retirement plan, explains what information you should review periodically, and where to go for help if you have questions.
February 13 at 12 Noon Individual IRAs and Employer Sponsored IRA Plans: What You Should Know
Sindy Baldayaque from the U.S. Department of Labor explains the different types of employer-sponsored individual retirement arrangements (IRAs) available.
February 20 at 12 Noon Social Security Are you retirement ready? Social Security is an integral part of everyone’s retirement plan. Learn about the future of Social Security and how to get the most from your benefits.
February 27 at 12 Noon Medicare Update Join Eric Hausman for an overview of the Medicare program and your coverage options, including Medigap/Medicare Supplement Insurance and Medicare Advantage/Medicare Health Plans.
March 5 at 12 Noon Trust In Your Trust, Part 1 - Wills and Trusts Elder Law Attorney Ronald Fatoullah, Esq., discusses the differences and advantages of Wills and Trusts.
March 12 at 12 Noon Trust in Your Trust, Part 2 - Wills and Trusts Elder Law Attorney Ronald Fatoullah, Esq., discusses the different types and purposes of trusts as well as the important documentation for long-term care planning.
March 19 at 12 Noon Self-Employed Retirement Emilie Archambeault provides information on how to plan for retirement when you are self-employed.
March 26 at 12 Noon Annuities Annuities are widely sold financial products, but they are often misunderstood. In this session, Gerri Walsh provides an overview of annuities.
Presented in partnership with the Museum of American Finance.
Book a Virtual Consultation to find out about Library Resources to help start or grow your business. Get help with your business or finance reference and research questions without leaving the comfort of home.
CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR VIRTUAL CONSULTATION
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
WHAT IS A VIRTUAL CONSULTATION WITH A LIBRARIAN?
It’s a service offered by librarians at the Thomas Yoseloff Business Center. You can get help with reference and research questions through your computer ( using Google Meet) or by phone,.without a visit to the library.
WHAT RESOURCES DO THE LIBRARIANS USE?
Based on your question, a librarian will do some prior research before the meeting and can use online information databases, library catalogs, books and referrals outside the library.
HOW WILL I GET THE ANSWERS TO MY QUESTION?
After the session, the librarian will email you a summary of the consultation, which could include instructions on how to access databases from home or attachments of industry reports.
IS THERE A LIMIT TO THE NUMBER OF CONSULTATIONS?
You can sign up for as many consultations as needed, but there are limits on the number of reports which can be sent to you.
HOW LONG DO THE SESSIONS LAST?
Sign up in advance for a thirty-minute session from 12 to 4:30 PM, Monday - Friday.
HOW CAN I MAKE THE BEST USE OF THE SERVICE?
Ask one clear question per consultation. Be on time. If you need to cancel, please do so at the earliest time and reschedule as needed. All communications are done through email.
WHO CAN USE THIS SERVICE?
All are welcome to contact us with a business research or reference question. Whether you are toying with the idea of starting some kind of business or are already an entrepreneur who has started a business but needs directions on how to proceed or are running a successful business but need information on where to take your next big idea, you can benefit from the information provided by our up-to-date reports on industries, markets, demographic trends, and many more.
WHAT OTHER ONLINE SERVICES DOES THE THOMAS YOSELOFF BUSINESS CENTER OFFER?
- Onsite access to online business and financial information at the Library is now available.
- Business Advice/Counseling/mentoring: see Business Advisory Groups.
- Personal finance, Medicare, & Credit counseling: see Financial & Credit Counseling Services.
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Join the New York Public Library's Career Services and an array of distinguished authors in the career and personal development field for a series on contemporary issues we all face as we embark on the journey of career and personal development exploration. The series aims to provide participants with a greater understanding of the current thinking and tools out there to support the readers' professional and personal development goals.
Register for each Autor Talk *** Mind Leader Series separately by going to:
October 1 at 12:00 PM Beginners: Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning
October 26 at 5:00 PM Next Job, Best Job: A Headhunter’s 11 Strategies To Get Hired Now
November 1 at 5:00 PM: Women of Color in Tech: A Blueprint for Inspiring and Mentoring the Next Generation of Technology Innovators
November 19 at 12:00 PM: Work That Matters: Create a Livelihood That Reflects Your Core Intention
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