The Entrepreneur's Journey - About Us

What is “The Entrepreneur’s Journey?”
Are you open to the possibility that the purpose of your business is far greater than you may have initially thought?

If so, read on to learn about a unique opportunity for small business owners.

The Entrepreneur’s Journey is an educational ministry for small business owners who want to improve the quality, productivity, and overall success of their business while considering how their enterprise fits God’s “Higher Calling” in their life.

The ministry is based on the belief that we each have a God-ordained purpose and that our business is one important expression of that calling. Participants are challenged to discover how their business can operate more fully in tune with God’s unique and individual calling in their life.

The program is highly practical and focused on tangible improvements in the business. We work through a structured series of concepts, methods, and practical strategies to enhance business performance.

 

What is the program’s content?
The content covers many of the prime areas of small business operation. Most major sections of the program have application assignments where participants apply the concepts to their own businesses.

Our classroom time includes presentations, exercises, discussion of assignments, and lots of dialogue and participation.

Here is an outline of the main areas we work through. Please note that we also integrate additional topics based on our research and the various guest speakers who are part of the Journey’s team.

FOUNDATIONS
- What is the “Higher Calling” of your business?
- “Co-operation with God” in your enterprise
- The Four Levels of Effective Leadership for any small business

STRATEGY
- 7 MUST DO guidelines for effective strategy
- Vision, Purpose, Values, Strategies
- How to define the right strategic objectives
- Defining or refining your plan
- First draft of working strategy (or enhancement of existing strategy)

MARKETING – PART 1
- The 7 prime elements of your Brand
- Your Story….why it must be known
- Crafting or Re-crafting the Brand – A simple start

SUSTAINING SUCCESS – SYSTEMS & PROCESS
- Stages of business growth – establishing your current context
- Pitfalls & pathways to sustainable success
- Simple models to establish prime systems
- Defining process & building repeatable results

PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY
- God’s orchard, your fruitfulness: Getting grounded
- Productivity’s imperative: determining the “What?,” “Why?” and “How?”
- Significantly Enhanced Productivity (SEP): Phases & Steps – HOW TO DO IT
- The role of physical environment: The strategic value of extreme organization

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
- Three dimensions of customer experience
- How customers judge: the experience pathway
- Customer conversations: hearing & responding
- The Customer-Centric focus: starting in one place
- Connecting: Strategy, Brand, Promises, Customer Experience

LEADERSHIP
- Leadership & your Higher Calling – The 5% Leader
- The 4 Levels of Small Business Leadership
- Human nature: a Biblical perspective
- Motivation: The 6 Motivators we must understand
- The art of 1-to-1 leadership: A working process

MARKETING – PART 2
- Social media as foundational – understanding the shift
- Practical strategies – 10 sites to know
- Blogging: as a strategic element
- Connecting: Strategy, Brand, Social Media strategy

TEAMS
- Small business “Groups” vs “Teams”
- What “team work” requires – why it is the exception
- Common dysfunctions & solutions
- Productive team meetings: the basics & beyond
- Behaviors that work in team meetings

FINANCE, LEGAL ISSUES, & OTHER
- We typically cover additional areas with the help of subject matter experts who
are part of the Entrepreneur’s Journey ministry team.

 

Who presents the program?

The Entrepreneur’s Journey was started and is led by Dr. Fran O’Neal. Fran is a small business owner with over 30 years of practical experience. His own “Journey” has included starting and running several small businesses, along with several decades of management consulting, coaching, researching, and writing about organizations ranging from the world’s largest bureaucracies to one person businesses.

Fran “lives and breathes” in the world of small business and has special empathy and respect for those working in this arena. He started “The Entrepreneur’s Journey” as a way to help small business owners discover the not always apparent “Higher Calling” and Providential “story” contained in the life and times of their business, and…..to help small business owners do well by applying methods and strategies that correlate with business growth and success.

This program is an invitation to discover more about God’s plan for your business, while you are improving the performance of the enterprise.

Details: Who, Where, When, and How

• The Entrepreneur’s Journey has no tuition charge. It is given freely.
• The program is open to small business owners, but enrollment is limited. The program runs in a 12-week cycle, and once the class is filled and closed for the current cycle, enrollees will be on the schedule for the next available opening.

• We meet once weekly for 12 weeks, at McLean Bible Church on Thursday evenings from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM. Exact room location is provided upon enrollment.

• To get more information, and to find out availability for the next start time, please contact us.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
To find out more please email us at smallbusiness@mcleanbible.org or call Fran O’Neal at 703 378-1525.

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