Among the events at this year’s QuickBooks Connect event, held by Intuit, Inc., have been a number of presentations on how entrepreneurs can develop their businesses more effectively. Among these were a joint project from Leslie Barber, small business engagement officer for Intuit QuickBooks, and Julie Gordon White, founder and CEO of The WELL for Women Entrepreneurs, discussing lessons learned from small businesses and how to grow those businesses to revenues of $1M.

After her presentation concluded, Julie Gordon White met with Jeff Frick, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, to field his questions on what she’d discussed.

Tips for business owners

One of White’s first points of recommendation for small business owners was to identify and grow sources of reoccurring revenue. For both service and product businesses, recognizing the realities of their market niches are an essential step toward establishing strong roots in the consumer base.

White also touched on the importance of being able to put together a one-page business plan clearly explaining the fundamentals. “Understand your vision, why you’re doing what you’re doing, what is your big strategy, what are you going to do to make your business successful over time … measurable objectives, and then the action steps you need,” she said.

Business difficulties

“Usually a business partnership is a partnership between money, not love, necessarily,” said White, acknowledging the difficulties of successfully bringing together two visions into a functional and revenue-generating business.

Thinking beyond the immediate state of the business and not being distracted by personal fondness for the products were among the other important conduct recommendations made.

Community and strategy

According to White, the difficulty for entrepreneurs is no longer in finding a distribution strategy, but in deciding which one best suits their needs. Luckily, the community access made possible by modern social media has, in a sense, leveled the playing field for small business owners.

With outreach enabled through videos, Facebook, and the like, finding the market is down to patience and ingenuity. As White put it, “Fish where the fish are; know where your customers are hanging out and go there!”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of QuickBooks Connect 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE