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Since the start of the pandemic, the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship pivoted their model to continue to serve rural ����ֱ�� businesses in a virtual format. The impact of COVID on small businesses has only increased the value of these workshops during this economic and health crisis.

“The entrepreneurial mindset is needed now more than ever as we navigate this crisis. Demystifying the process of bringing an idea to market and scaling an organization’s impact is key to helping our rural economies,” explains Deming’s Executive Director Erick Mueller.

Mueller expanded on this idea in a recent interview with KCRT Radio from Trinidad. Listen here.

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Celebrating five years

The Demystifying Entrepreneurship: Rural ����ֱ�� Workshop Series (RCWS) takes a pragmatic approach to entrepreneurship using a highly interactive setting and flexible, scalable sessions. The result: Small businesses, start-ups and local governments in rural ����ֱ�� gain the tools they need to solve business and organizational challenges through an entrepreneurial mindset.

Supporting entrepreneurship and fostering economic development is at the core of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship’s mission. That’s why these workshops are now in their fifth year of helping local organizations across the heartland of our beautiful state.

Since March 2015, the workshops have been offered as a progressive, five-year series program. The first two years are dedicated to “demystifying entrepreneurship” for new businesses. The next two years center on “startup to scaleup,” as the organizations grow. The final year focuses on “tightening up” business efficiencies for each participating organization.

In the workshops, two Deming faculty members lead participants through the business development process. They discuss how to discover new development opportunities that allow start-ups and existing organizations to pivot and meet changes in the marketplace—quite topical in light of the current economic challenges all business today is facing.

A change for the better

Frog Hollow Brooms, an artisan brooms maker in Weston, ����ֱ��, is a prime example of a small rural business in need of a digital upgrade to scale up, especially following the pandemic’s cancellations of all art shows in her area—the bread and butter of her business sales.

Thanks to the Demystifying workshop and mentoring from Deming, Frog Hollow Brooms is in the process of revamping their primitive website and branching their online presence out to social media, a blog and online store. and scaling up their business.

“I appreciate your commitment to Southern ����ֱ�� and to all of us newbies. I am particularly grateful for your energetic enthusiasm for what you (and we) do!”

  See a list of upcoming