As a food entrepreneur (even an aspiring one) you already know that you belong to a creative group that's always looking for new flavors to love, restaurants ready with a fresh take on favorites, and the best sources to provide only the best ingredients. Foodies are resourceful and innovative, and food entrepreneurs have a can-do attitude and a devotion to sharing delectable experiences, great and small, that are practically contagious. Unfortunately, being good with food and having the bold desire to bring your food to the marketplace isn't enough to translate into a successful business.

Fortunately, PCC Small Business Development Center offers a 14-week intensive program to help you do just that—Getting Your Recipe to Market. In today's post, we'll explore an important part of how to grow your food business, which you'll learn about as a part of the course's market readiness training: horizontal and vertical growth strategies. Both are valuable methods for growing a business through the development of brands, products, production and distribution channels, and business partnerships, but we generally recommend one over the other when first starting your business.

As a business owner, you’re constantly monitoring different metrics and figures to see how your operations are performing, and what you can improve upon.

But did you know there is one number that virtually every business should know if they want to be successful? No matter what kind of products or services you provide, cost of goods sold (“COGS” for short) is the one number that you need to pay attention to. Your COGS basically tells you how much you are spending to produce each unit of whatever it is you sell.

Aside from offering quality products and services, your business undoubtedly relies heavily on customer service. Ensuring customer satisfaction through the sales process is one thing, but as you already know, customer service can't end there. You need to ensure that all the communication channels provide stellar customer service. Email may not seem like the “go-to” customer service option, especially in the face of Live Chat assistance options. However, it remains a primary form of customer service communication — in point of fact, 72% of adults prefer to interact with brands and retailers through email.

In today's post, we'll be discussing five ways you can improve customer service with better emails.

Updated Dec. 22, 2022

The PCC CLIMB Center is a proud sponsor of Portland Radio Project's Biz503 show - the new Portland-centric startup and small business talk show on PRP.fm. 

Updated June 8, 2022

There's something especially rewarding about careers that allow you not just to make a living, but help people as well. That’s the precise reason why many people choose to work in healthcare. But you don’t have to work as a doctor, there are plenty of other jobs in healthcare where you can make a difference.

There are a wide variety of technicians and support staff that work hard day-in and day-out to support their fellow medical professionals. Here we’ll take a look at a day in the life of a sterile processing technician as one example of an important healthcare career that you may not be familiar with.

Whether you're looking to add value to your business, your position or you're looking for a way to alter the direction of your career, becoming a quality management professional offers the skills and opportunities to take your work to the next level. After all, quality is what keeps a business running smoothly and what keeps customers and clients coming back for your products and services.

In today's post, we'll talk about five reasons becoming a quality professional can boost your career.

Starting out and developing a small business is no easy task, especially when it comes to developing your presence online. More than likely you’ve already designed a website and started to generate some traffic, perhaps even some sales.

But as your journey continues, you’ll want to be updating and upgrading your digital storefront on a regular basis. And that’s why we’re here, to provide some tips and tricks that business owners like you can apply to your website that will not only make your brand look and feel more attractive, but will also increase online sales. Ready to get started?

The PCC CLIMB Center is a proud sponsor of Portland Radio Project's Biz503 show - the new Portland-centric startup and small business talk show on PRP.fm.