December Workshops at Maui Business Resource Center

Maui County business workshop. Image courtesy County of Maui.

The County of Maui Mayor’s Office of Economic Development hosts a series of free workshops for the month of December. Workshops are presented at the Maui County Business Resource Center, a County of Maui facility, located in the Maui Mall across Pizza Hut, in Suite B-9.

Seating for all workshops is limited, and all workshops are subject to change or cancellation. Workshops are free unless noted otherwise. To reserve a seat, call the Maui County Business Resource Center at (808) 270-5770. The following workshops are available:

Grow Your Email List and Grow Your Sales All Year Long
Instructor: Mckenna Hallett
Monday, Dec. 4, 2017 – Noon to 1 p.m. (Q&A til 1:30)

How’s your email list? Is it growing steadily, or a bit stagnant? And when’s the last time you actually contacted them? Email marketing is still the number one tool. It’s still (at least) 40 times more effective at gaining customers than Facebook, and Twitter combined. This workshop will help you identify how to gather contacts, plus provide tips, technologies, and tactics for keeping your contacts organized and segmented for easier, more effective targeted marketing. Participants will learn how to get started with gathering email contacts; establish an organized contact segmentation process; grow your email lists online and in person; and keep your subscribers interested and engaged after they sign up. Join Hallett for this in-person gathering. She is a wordsmith, copywriter, and marketing professional who has over 50 years in sales and marketing – include 25 years with a successful career as a small business owner. Learn more here.

Understanding and Supporting Your Child’s Sensory Needs
Instructor: Susan Varsames, M.A. Ed.
Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017 – Noon to 2 p.m.

This is a workshop for parents, teachers and child care providers to understand how to support sensory needs. Varsames will teach the three step process of sensory integration, review the multiple sensory channels and discuss the over and under reactive child. With expanded understanding of how your children and students are managing sensory stimuli, she will then review strategies for support for home, school and community integration. Susan Varsames’ bio can be read at www.HolisticLC.com. Varsames is the founder of the Holistic Learning Center in New York and on Maui. She is one of the lead experts on early intervention, has taught for 37 years with 17 of those years at graduate level on subjects such as Early Childhood Assessment and Understanding the Learner with Processing Disorders. Child Care providers can use this course to register their continuing education credits through PATCH.

If You Don’t “Lock Your Barn after the Horse is Stolen,” You Will See That Grass is Greener on the Other Side
Instructor: Dr. Saul Larner
Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017 – Noon to 1:30 p.m.

Learn how to enhance pride of ownership of farmlands with the conservation land trust. Maintain control of decisions of your farm over several voting family members with the Hawaiian Asset Protection Trust. Shield your assets against a future potential divorce and structure how future family members will continue the farm. This seminar applies to all forms of businesses. Dr. Larner, a foremost mediator will reveal how to use integrated mediation effectively with family and other partners. He is the founding director of Dispute Resolution Collaborative in the Maui Research and Technology Park. He grew up in an agricultural environment in Vermont and was the mediator related to the $50 million Robert Taylor Ranch. He is a member of the Hawaiʻi Farmers Union United.

Business in the Think Tank with MBB Members (Free)
Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017 – Noon to 2 p.m.

Maui Business Brainstormers invites guests to bring business challenge to their Brainstorming Segment or if participants want to feature their business (or business concept) in the “Think Tank” segment, submit a form on the MBB meetup site. Participants may also attend to brainstorm and be showered with ideas. You are qualified if you are an MBB member and have a business concept fully researched and planned but with questions or obstacles remaining, or if you are a business already in operation with sales, but facing challenges to achieve further growth. To be featured in the 20-minute case-study “Think Tank,” fill out and submit the online form describing your business challenge. On the day of the meeting, the candidate chosen presents a 5-min overview of the business, including the current challenges. The audience then brainstorms on ideas to address the problem area with the “build it, measure it, learn from it, improve it” spirit. To attend, RSVP here. Non-members need first to join the free membership of MBB.

Free counseling sessions with experienced SCORE and Small Business Development Corp. counselors: Thursday afternoons 1 to 3:30 p.m. and Friday mornings 9 to 11:30 a.m.