Biz Resource Center @ the Brighton District Library

The Library has partnered with the Michigan Small Business & Technology
Development Center at Livingston County MI-SBTDC to establish a business
information center at the library to provide:

• Training and individual consultation for anyone interested in starting a small business. Topics include: business planning, financing your business, legal issues, marketing and sales strategies, managing cash flow, building your team, and more.

• Assistance for existing businesses including: planning for and managing growth, understanding financial statements, strategic planning, marketing, and more.
  

• Consultation for early-stage, technology-based companies, such as alternative energy, life sciences, homeland security and advanced manufacturing.

For more information, contact:

Nancy Johnson, Director
MI-SBTDC - Brighton
Greater Brighton Area Chamber of Commerce
(810) 227-5086

OR

Call the Library's Information Desk to make a one-on-one appointment with a SCORE business counselor.  Appointments are scheduled in one hour blocks, between 5pm and 8pm, the second Tuesday of each month.  810-229-6571 x227.

• How to Learn About an Industry or a Specific Company - Steps and resources to research an industry or company for starting a company.

• Reference USA - Residential - Primarily used for creating marketing lists. Contains median income of a particular household, names of the adults in a household, value of a households in the area, and latitude and longitude of a specific place.

• Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center - Provides quality counseling, training and market research at low-or no-cost. Great resource!

• Michigan Chambers of Commerce - Find Chamber of Commerce in your area.

• Michigan Guide to Starting a Business

• Michigan Retailer's Association - "A monthly gauge of key retail activity in Michigan." Also provides services such as merchant credit card services.

• Michigan Service Corps Of Retired Executives (SCORE) - provides free business counseling.

• General Business File ASAP - Analyze company performance and activity, industry events and trends as well as the latest in management, economics and politics. Provides access to a combination of broker research reports, trade publications, newspapers, journals and company directory listings with full text and images available.

• Economic Indicators  - Regularly released national statistics such as gross domestic product, new residential construction, personal income and much more!

• NAICS Business Patterns - Data on the total number of establishments, employment and payroll for 1998-2001 by zip code, county, state, or metropolitan area.

• Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) - creates statistics such as community profiles, monthly population estimates, employment estimates, number of approved building permits, regional forecasts, nonresidential development, land use, manufactured housing, and traffic counts.

• Reference USA Business - Detailed information on more than 14 million U.S. businesses and 100 million U.S. residents. Information updated monthly. Can download/print 50 records per search.

• Annual Reports - find current annual reports of thousands of publicly-traded companies. Annual reports typically include: letter from the chairman (or CEO) to the shareholders; financial highlights; balance sheets; profit and loss statements; new business; year in review; projections; outstanding shares of stock and list of board members.

• Thomas Register - main purpose is to find manufacturing companies. Can also be used to find privately held manufacturing companies.

• International Trade Administration  - Export trade information, assistance, forms and trade statistics

• U.S. Customs and Border Protection - NAFTA info.

• World Chambers of Commerce - Find Chamber of Commerce in other countries. Many have information about starting a business in that country/city.

• BigCharts.com - get current and historical stock quotes with interacting charts. Good for finding the original value of a stock on a certain date.

• Value Line - get stock reports and detailed information on particular stocks. Available at the reference desk and online (with a limited number of concurrent logins).

• Consumer.gov - Run by the Federal Trad Commisssion, a one-stop shop for consumers looking for information on money management, credit, loans and debt, scams, ID threats, and more. 

• Money 101 - an interactive course on CNN's site to lean how to manage money and investments.

• Motley Fool - Entertaining and informative site.

• Learn That Online Courses - courses with exercise an worksheets on topics such as making ends meet, avoiding an audit, how to shop online.

• Yahoo Finance - can look up current stocks and company news. Create a portfolio to track your own stocks.

• Insurance Company Ratings - the Insurance Institute of Michigan, "Michigan's Insurance Information Hotline"