November Entrepreneur Meetup!

November 18(Thu) 7:00PM

Location: 422 Richards Street 3rd floor Vancouver, BC V6B 2Z3  

The Network Hub (www.thenetworkhub.ca)

Where has the year gone? We are nearing the end of 2010 and this will be the last Vancouver Entrepreneur Meetup of the year! We are going out on a bang with a topic that everyone has been asking for – generating more traffic to your website! I hope to see you all at this last Vancouver Entrepreneur Meetup of the year!!!

For many years, a lot of questions have been raised about Search Engine Marketing – How do I get listed on the 1st page of Google? How can I get more targeted traffic to my website? What can I do to increase lead conversion on my website? What is this local marketing or targeted local online marketing?

It is all very dizzying to keep up and get going for entrepreneurs and small business owners. This month we are fortunate to have a leading expert in Search Marketing who will be giving practical tips that you can take and use right away. No lingo, no theory – just useful and practical tips that help you see the impact right away.

Search Marketing is very important for entrepreneurs – it’s an effective method for driving highly targeted visitors to your website. Without search marketing, your website and online store is buried deep in the thousands of results that a search engine produces.

This month, our guest speaker is Adrian Eden. Adrian has experienced a great deal of success in increasing visibility and profitability of his clients thanks to his ability to consistently deliver exceptional results.

Adrian, borned and raised in Salmon Arm is a small town boy who moved to Vancouver after many years in Costa Rica, is the founder of YaletownSEO.ca – an online search marketing company. He spent many years holding key marketing roles in Fiver Media and Riptown Media, executing results for the Bodog Brand. Right now, Adrian is one of the key people behind the Search Marketing and Social Media Strategy for Coleman Heating and Air Conditioning.

If you want to get practical tips to increase traffic to your website, increase engagement online and more importantly, increasing your online profitability – make sure you RSVP to hear Adrian Edenspeak!
The event is FREE but we do appreciate a bottle of wine to share with everyone.

Sign Up!

http://www.meetup.com/vancouver-entrepreneurs-startup-vancouver-office-space/calendar/15383841/?from=list&offset=0

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October Entrepreneur Meetup!

October Entrepreneur Meetup!  “Can social media help grow your business?”

On October 21, The Network Hub held the Vancouver Entrepreneur Meetup at the office (422 Richards Street, Vancouver).

 We had a guest speaker Yu-kai Chou and over 150 people in attendance. Yu-kai is a Serial Entrepreneur and Social Media Advisor with over 5 years of adventures in the high tech startup world. He is the Founder and CEO of Viralogy Inc., a Social Personalization and Analytics Platform for eCommerce sites. Yu-kai’s team has also run many successful social media campaigns for LG, Levi’s, Los Angeles Lakers, Activision and more.

He spoke about the importance of social media. When he asked the audience if they were using social media, almost everyone raised their hand. Social media is one of biggest marketing tools and strategies out there. So, the audience listened carefully and asked lots of questions.

The meetup was packed with energetic people! There were lots of different business ideas being discussed. I think new connections and resources for business were made!  

I enjoyed meeting, chatting, and wine-ing with cheerful and dedicated people. In addition, Goldies Pizza supplied us with a few tasty pizzas and those were gone instantly! And thank you to Lonsdale Event Rentals for sponsoring us with beautiful glasses and tables!

  The Network Hub is planning a bigger meetup in early December. Don’t miss out!

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An Arresting Experience

No, I didn’t run into any trouble. It’s just an exhibition at The Vancouver Police Museum. It’s a small museum but it collects, preserves and interprets the history of the Vancouver Police Department. Visitors can learn how to detect counterfeit bills and other crime related topics- like forensic entomology to determine the time of death from the flies’ growing speed. I also saw an autopsy room with many specimens. On top of that, I learned how to mark cards for gambling. I’ll try it when I meet with my sister!

They also have various public programs- “Halloween at the Police Museum”-“An Evening at the Morgue” and “Haunted Trolley Tours”. Or if you have small children, you can have “Birthday Parties at the Museum (for ages 4-12)”.

It will be an arresting experience!

Hours

Monday – Saturday
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Closed Sundays and Statutory Holidays

Admission

Adults: $7.00
Seniors and Students: $5.00
Family: $20.00 (two adults, two youth under 17)
Children under 6: Free
Historical Society Members: Free

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Small Business BC

There was never a business figure around me. So, I had in mind that applying at a company or working for the public was the only way to go. I always thought of business women and businessmen as strong, powerful individuals. They have to study tax law, municipal licensing requirements, think about insurance and accounting, marketing plans and publicity, etc. These issues put me in confusion!

However, I recently heard that my cousin started her own business. She is 4 years older than me and now she has her own dog grooming shop. To me, she was that strong, powerful businesswoman! She is very kind and loves running her business. She’s one of my role models. I knew that she planned this for a while and she did her research. She’s always busy but she looks happier than ever!

Learning is always interesting. Starting a new experience is a challenging treasure in life and we can have good opportunity to study about starting business at Small Business BC .

There are many seminars, for example“Start Smart- Resources and Registrations”- it covers basic small business start-up information and is designated for the client in the thinking stage of starting a business.

Wednesday, October 6th , 2010-9:00am-12:00pm

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010-5:00pm-8:00pm

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010-1:00pm-4:00pm

Thursday, December 2nd ,2010-9:00pm-12:00pm

Cost: $49.00 plus taxes

In addition, there is “Young Entrepreneurship Day-September”. It is a seminar for those between 18 and 35 and interested in business planning and financing.

To register:  http://www.smallbusinessbc.ca/seminars or visit your local office.

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Korean Pork BBQ

I can’t stop talking about how amazing Korean pork BBQ is. I’ve been eating it for the past few weekends at Westender Korean Restaurant (854 Denman St.). And the flavours deepen my love for Korean BBQ every time!  When I smell it, I keep wanting more even if I’m not hungry.

With Korean BBQ, you cook the meat yourself on the grill that’s on the table. The food isn’t as greasy as other places because you use a sloped hot plate so the excess oil is drained away. Another plus is the Korean side dishes – Kimchi, spicy soup, two kinds of salads, lettuce with mayonnaise, potato, garlic, peppers and some lettuce leaves to wrap the pork. I can finish two bowls of rice with only these side dishes! Whenever I eat there, I always make different flavours using the side dishes, so it’s always a new flavour and I get my intake of vegetables while I’m at it.

In the restaurant, you can watch Korean music videos. Their music groups on TV are always so fit. I always think “I’m very envious of her style. However, if I want to be like her, I may need to stop eating but I can’t stop eating Korean BBQ!”

I’m always talking about it so one of my Korean friends had a Korean BBQ party at her place. And she recommended a Korean grocery store – KIM’S Mart (519 E Broadway). You can get every kind of BBQ ingredients! I want this market in next to my room!

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Hungry Girl’s Guide: Toyama Sushi

After a strange long day and again forgetting to eat lunch, I was starving! I wanted ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT but I wasn’t going to wander too far from my office – The Network Hub. This was going to be a profile of a restaurant but it turned into a small business online monitoring case study.

My friend suggested we head to Toyama, an all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant on Seymour and Robson. He has never been there and I have never been there, we both passed the restaurant many times but have never stopped in. First thing he did was pull up dinehere.ca to check the review and it was mediocre! One reviewer said you are better off eating in a food court. Yikes, we were not about to eat there but I wanted to double-check with urbanspoon.com and Toyama rated much better on the site but more importantly for me, there were a lot more reviews of Toyama on urbanspoon.com versus dinehere.ca.

With a bit more confidence in the restaurant, we proceeded to Toyama. The food was fantastic, the service was superb and we were elated that we made the decision to come here for dinner. The selection was wonderful and all the food was fresh. I especially love the geoduck nigiri rolls and the beef tataki. The grill salmon belly was a nice surprise as well.

Toyama Sushi Restaurant - Downtown Vancouver

I remember telling my friend, I hope the restaurant is aware of the mediocre reviews on dinehere.ca so they can encourage their satisfied customers to review them on dinehere.ca or urbanspoon.ca. It is a shame that if we just looked at the first site and made the decision not to go, we would have missed out on a great dinner at a fantastic value.

Our very long bill! Yes we ate THAT MUCH FOOD

The restaurant owner might find it worth their while to monitor some of these sites for positive/negative review either through Google Alerts or just one day a week of going through the reviews. I understand sometimes it is heart-breaking to deal with such harsh negative feedback, it is worthwhile to try to counter it because for every 1 person that had a bad experience there are probably 9 people that had a fantastic experience but didn’t think to say anything about it. For people like me and my friend, when we have not had experience with a particular restaurant we tend to look to the online world to help us decide. Feedback/reviews are some of the ways in which a small business owner can figure out how their business is doing. While it is important to know what you are doing right, it is more important to know what you are doing wrong. I hope Toyama will ask diners to review their restaurant on dinehere.ca, urbanspoon.com and yelp.ca. I think they will be surprised that all it takes is for them to ask, “We would love your feedback on how we are doing, and we hope you will review us on the following site A-Z.”

But for now, they will get two glowing reviews from two very full and satisfied customers.

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