Our Rise and Restore Summit kicked off with a wonderful and inspiring keynote speaker, the owner of Canty Boots, Nikki Edmundson. Nikki talked about never taking no for an answer and knowing where your product is best suited to reach the right market.
We also heard from a panel of local entrepreneurs; Mariah Carpenter, owner of Black Dog Coffee, Josh Toenyes, owner of Cardsetter and Becky Salyer, owner of Bumps N’ Bundles. They talked about the ups and downs of owning a business, how they handle work-life balance, how they funded their businesses and more! Josh had a great insight for calculating how much you should borrow, double or even triple what you think you need. Becky and Mariah touched on the importance of a great staff (family is how I believe they stated it.) Without a great staff, you can’t really have a work-life balance. You have to trust they are taking care of the store when you are not around.
Not only did our attendees hear from Ethan Kanning discussing Human Resources for Small Businesses and Jamie Beeson on your marketing messaging, but we also had a private screening of the Edge of the Plains Documentary and two of the films featured Entrepreneurs, Jim Markel with Red Oxx and Veronnaka Evenson with Swanky Roots around to answer questions from the audience.
This fun jam-packed day of networking and learning was ended with tours to Swanky Roots and Red Oxx and some very competitive BINGO. We had great prize donations from local businesses and wonderful appetizers from Kitchen Man.
We are incredibly grateful for everyone who attended and presented. This event was so fun and informative, and we can’t wait to do it again. A big thanks to the Montana Department of Transportation and the sponsorship from their DBE Program.
~Your SBDC Team
Lorene, Kayla and Tereza