Three hours southwest of Portland, along a scenic stretch of the Oregon coast, stands Heceta Head lighthouse. This classic lighthouse offers a spectacular view, towering two hundred feet above the ocean. It’s also a functioning lighthouse, able to project a beam of light more than twenty miles out to sea.  But after more than a century of exposure to the punishing rain and wind, the lighthouse was closed for repairs in 2011. That’s when Amy McAuley, the owner and sole employee of Oculus Fine Carpentry, became part of a small army of subcontractors hired to help restore the lighthouse to its original condition.

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. 

Performing audits on your business is one of the best ways to ensure compliance with policies and procedures. But between travel expenses, reduced productivity, miscommunication with vendors, and remote location employees, the traditional method of auditing is often costly, time consuming, and cumbersome. 

eAuditing offers a superior solution to traditional in person audits. It cuts costs, increases efficiency, and ultimately allows for more accurate and timely audits. 

An important part of owning a business is finding the right niche for your services. Just ask John Duval, an engineer and business owner based in Portland area. John owns Pavement Services, a business which is exactly what it sounds like: it’s an engineering firm that specializes in pavement.

Are you wondering how to increase foot traffic to your retail store? Winning the loyalty of customers can be challenging, but it isn’t impossible. With a strong online presence, inviting store-front appearance, and excellent customer service, your retail business can begin to see a significant increase in customers and sales. The following best practices for increasing foot traffic can help you get started.

If you own a retail business, you understand how important sales are. They literally define your bottom line. But have you sat down and considered how important your retail sales team is? Today's article is going to talk about how your sales team affects your bottom line and touch on how to find the best salespeople.

Being a project manager isn't easy. You have to keep your team motivated, and working, while ensuring they stay on schedule and on budget. It's easy to feel like you're not succeeding, or like you're the bad guy for wrangling everyone in.

In this post we're going to talk about the four things that will help you take your project management skills to the next level through concepts that sound basic, but can actually change everything.

If you're starting to plan a business, or if you've just started a business, that focuses on retail sales, you're probably trying to structure the right kind of sales environment to attract good salespeople. Of course, getting them to start working for you is the challenge. Do you know how you're going to keep them once you've hired them? In this post, we're going to discuss nine different ways to retain salespeople and ensure you've got a dedicated team for your business.

Good salespeople often have the gift of gab. It’s important for them to be able to engage with customers and speak eloquently about what their selling. But to be truly great, knowing when not to talk is just as important. In this post we’ll go over some ways to help you become a better listener, and how doing so will improve your closing rate with clients.

You've got the first two things you need to create a new business — an idea, and the will to make it happen. Shepherding that idea into a full blown reality manages to both seem easy and be incredibly intimidating. It's not as simple as throwing money at the venture, but the process isn't as nebulous as you might think it is. This article will give you the first five steps regarding how to bring your business to life.