We often hear from small business owners that they wish they heard from their accountants throughout the year. This year, we invite you to make a meeting with us for a mid-year check-in. Here are eight topics we can chat about. Don't wait - book an appointment with us today!
In this issue:
An inside look at ATBX, a small business accelerator, with Empowerment Inc's Shelley Hayes.
Cybersecurity training for your small business from KnowBe4.
Mount Royal's lineup of continuing education for small business owners.
And finally, some tips for those looking to beat those Stampede hangovers
An Inside look at ATBX with Shelley Hayes
Shelley Hayes started her company, Empowerment Inc, to train women and teen girls in leadership skills like negotiating, communications, and self-advocacy. She soon learned that running a growing business is tough, which set her searching for some small business coaching or mentoring. That's when she discovered ATBX - a free accelerator program that helps small businesses scale. Shelley gives us an inside look at the program by sharing key takeaways and how she applied them to her business.
People are your biggest cyber security threat; weak passwords, insecure wifi, and clicking bad links. Smart people fail these simply because they aren't aware of the danger. After a security audit with our managed IT provider, Proactis Solutions, we made the choice to train our staff using an online security training program called KnowBe4. One of the training programs involves sending phishing emails to your people, trying to trick them into clicking a bad link. If they fail the test, they'll be notified, and optionally directed to a required short online training course. KnowBe4 offers all kinds of cybersecurity tools, so we got Proactis to set it all up for us. Then its just a monthly subscription to keep your business up to date on the latest security threats!
Continuing education for small business owners
For some, summer can be a great time to learn a skill or take a course on a subject you always wished you knew more about. Mt Royal University offers tons of summer courses in areas ranging from cannabis to cybersecurity to leadership development to social media. They even have courses on accounting software. The course I took last summer was Tuesdays and Thursdays 6-9:30pm for two weeks. Check out their line up of business continuing-education courses here.
It's Stampede: what's your favourite hangover cure?
Morning Coca-Cola Classic, Pedialyte, pickle juice, a run, Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Nuun, CBD, an IV bag, charcoal supplements, sex, and Pho, are a few of the favourites from Reddit. Rumour has it that real cowboys used to drink rabbit pellet tea to ward off hangovers out on the range. Now just go have fun this Stampede, trying some of these hot tips. And if you don't buy into any of these, there's always the hair of the dog.
