CMBA Meeting Notes

The March 8 meeting of the Cedar Mill Business Association began with introductions and announcements from some of CMBA's committees about their activities.

The Membership Committee has produced customized name stickers to identify meeting attendees, and they were very well received. Delaram Adyani of the Virtues Project was the greeter, helping visitors get oriented and making sure everyone signs in and gets a nametag. She will rotate this duty with other Membership Committee members.

Secretary Tim Kober encouraged all members to get "LinkedIn" with the CMBA group at linkedin.com.

The Downtown Beautification Committee will once again provide flower baskets for Cornell. They have some cash donations to cover the expense, but they're working on a better system to equalize costs among the membership and the businesses along Cornell.

Liz Baer is a Transition teacher at Sunset High. Her job involves getting students ready to move from school to work and college. She discussed some of the programs that need business involvement, including job-shadowing, mock interviews, internships, and the student job board. Any business interested in working with Sunset students is invited to contact her at Liz_Baer@beavton.k12.or.us

Terry Taylor, CMBA President and Principle at Dancing With Cows Marketing, presented the main program on Marketing Strategies for Small Business. He recommended that businesses envision their ideal client and target their efforts to reaching more of them. He explained that, "If you try to be something to everybody, you'll be nothing to nobody." He offered several low-cost and free methods to stay in touch with customers.

The next meeting will be April 12, 11:45-1pm at Leedy Grange Hall, 835 NW Saltzman. The guest speaker will be Steve Blanton, a local resident who is the chairman of SCORE's Portland chapter, which offers more than 80 volunteers to advise small-business owners, and those who would like to be, on the intricacies of starting and running a small business. He'll discuss the resources that organization can offer us.

Our Ten Minutes of Fame segment will feature Miller Paint. Be sure to bring a business card so you can be entered in the drawing for the May meeting.

NEWS HOME