“The training may be online”. If the training is online and is self-directed, it should be made available free to anyone who wants it.

BTW, just because a business employess 5+ people does not mean they do not require training.

Curious minds want to know what the training is all about.

I agree, gus. Also, many micro-businesses would have a great deal of difficulty, even with training in business financing, etc., to ever get to “the next level”, (where they supposedly employ more people). If they even wanted to. A lot of people in those kinds of businesses have fallen in love with that particular business, not business in general. That’s often why they are able to have any business at all ~ because they provide a product or service in which they have a certain pride or satisfaction excelling at. Some of those businesses simply can’t be ‘grown’, they’re going to get to a certain level beyond which any further growth is apt to become counter-productive, and even endanger their continued ability to do what they’d previously been successful at.

Bang on socredible.

So the first part of the training, I would think, should be to take stock of how well you are doing, where you may need some improvement and, if you do, who in your business needs to be included with that “traininig”, and what that training sould consist of. Of course, I assume not all would require any training or the same training.

I am hoping that the effort of this entire effort is not to be able to hang some credential on the wall but to deal with knowledge/skill transfer.

Finally, this is like a core services review for a small business enterprise and can certainly be conducted internally with some guidance, but would best be conducted with a real live person who has run or may still be running a successful business.

As one thought leads to another, I now wonder why Chambers of Commerce across the province are not set up to run something like that or some of the specialty industrial associations that would be more knowledgeable about their industries and the small business owners.

Then again, not enough information is given about the method of attack, so that may be the way the initiative will be implemented.

It may be of some help to those types of small business ~ the ones that manage to move beyond the owner-operator stage and take on employees, too ~ but I rather suspect what will be offered will be somewhat repetitious of what’s already being offered elsewhere.

Many of the banks, for instance, offer substantial financial information relating to business management in line with what they’d require to provide financing. As does the Business Development Bank of Canada.

Which even had a form of ‘mentoring’ program, where an experienced business advisor could be made available to take an independent look at whether the business stood a chance if it tried to grow, or what changes might be necessary first to give it a chance.

None of these things will guarantee success. Anyone who takes on employees in any business nowadays has entered a whole different world than what he’s been in as a one-man, show. In fact, if most business people who do that were fully conscious of what they were actually getting into, aside from what they are potentially getting into, I think many would have second thoughts. Often the financial ‘rewards’ are woefully inadquate to assume the ‘risks’ involved.

Many things that governments have done with the best of intentions have never been thoroughly thought through in regards to their effects on businesses, particularly small businesses.

Well since the federal conservatives came to power 6-years ago the number of small business enterprises and the people they employ has declined every single year across the nation including BC. They are monopoly capitalists and not free enterprise capitalists.

I think with a provincial election around the corner the BC liberals want to insulate themselves a little from this glaring statistic into the state of the jobs market, because most new jobs after all are created by small business.

“Anyone who takes on employees in any business nowadays has entered a whole different world than what he’s been in as a one-man, show.”

There are some organizations that work in a “virtual” office of independent contractors. Quite easy to do if people have skills and knowledge at a more mature level. I think if people are prepared to do that, that gives one the opportunity to test the market of the business.

Front office type of services are available to provide a contact address, phone service, bookkeeping, other organization requirements, meeting spaces, etc.

People can be in different cities, provinces and countries. Various experts can be brought in as needed based on the projects undertaken.

Primarily for “knowledge workers”, although one could say that there are many large manufacturing industries these days which are set up on a cluster basis with parts coming from all over the country and world while final assembly and central distribution is located in one or more market hubs.

http://www.skyrme.com/kmbriefings/2virtorg.htm

I wouldn’t solely blame the Federal Conservatives for the decline in small business start-ups, Eagle. Though there is no doubt they are following the same policy of ‘monopoly capitalism’ that the BC Liberals have followed here in BC.

But that policy would also have been followed if the Federal Liberals had formed government, or even the Federal NDP. In that latter instance it would likely be more of a monopoly ‘State’ capitalism, but regardless, actual control would still be in the hands of ‘Finance’. As it is now. As governments everywhere have moved to make ‘Finance’ as unfettered and ‘global’ as possible in their utterly futile quest for ‘full employment’ through the capture of external markets.

I’m afraid it will be this way until the general public learns to separate the three reasons why any economy exists ~ 1. to provide needed and wanted goods and services to the consuming public in the most efficient manner possible, as, when, and where required or desired; 2. to provide employment; and, 3. to provide a financial return ~ and get their priorities straight on which of those three is the MOST important.

And that the other two, in the overall scheme of things, are only ‘means’ to that ‘end’, not an ‘end’ overall in themselves. So far that hasn’t happened. And so we have a mis-directed Left/Right divide that is really fruitless in accomplishing what should be the only sane priority. Which is NEITHER numbers 2. or 3. !

In such a climate genuine ‘free-enterprise’ ~ where the Consumer gives the orders on what should be produced, and the Producer obeys them, or goes out of business cannot flourish. Neither can genuine ‘socialism’ ~ where an all powerful bureaucracy decides what should be produced, and how much each person should have of it. Instead we get a ‘global capitalism’ ~ where an all powerful clique rules the roost everywhere, financially punishing and rewarding as serves ITS purposes.

The Federal Conservatives, despite their present compliance, may yet turn out to be our last best chance to reverse this course.

Maybe the folks in charge of this “skills training exercise” song and dance should have constructed it in a way that would make it like a video war game. i.e. You are in a battle to create something viable and you have four enemies to “destroy” or at least get them to submit and change sides before you reach your goal. Those four enemies? Your bank and three levels of government working their hardest to make sure you don’t succeed. And if you do succeed, they will never leave you alone. The real way to start a small business it to buy a big business, then let the government help you run it. Governments can exist with debt and deficits. Businesses can’t.