Moving passed the registration and other info desks — thanks to my badge being available for print online –, the well positioned staff pointed me up the escalator to the exhibit hall. SME staff was everywhere, whether to give directions, answer questions, or just provide a smile and some small talk.

The Pavillion was an assortment of enclaves that were inter-connected for easy traffic flow, but also gave one a more intimate feel about the space. I went left and immediately stumbled upon the Cyber Cafe, hosted by GoDaddy.com, where they provided chairs and tables to relax, eat, drink and/or network, and also five tables with laptops for attendees to use.

There was an ongoing presence of roaming giveaways throughout the exhibit hall, including vitamin water and 5-hour energy drink, for example, in addition to all the expected booth giveaways — ranging from simple candy to products and services. And I enjoyed my first Jamba Juice near the Cyber Cafe.

This was a very well planned and executed expo.  It consisted of the (a) Exhibit Hall, (B) Cyber & Networking Lounge, (C ) Six different Speed Networking Sessions, (D) Taste of New NYC Business Catering Pavillion, (E) Workshops/ Seminars, and a (F) Networking After Party.

It was a full immersion event to stimulate attendee engagement, and it produced a great turnout, stimulated engaged attendees, had a wide variety of resources and opportunities, and it was FREE! I can’t imagine why anyone in business wouldn’t attend this each year.

People attend business expo’s for many reasons, searching for different things. However, serendipity can often play a part in the success of a business. And events like these can provide the circumstance to make a great connection with another attendee or exhibitor, and/or stumble upon a service you hadn’t thought of seeking out.  The Small Business Expo successfully created an easy, comfortable environment that seemed to stimulated an almost browsing, relaxed and non-rushed feel.

Jacqueline Edwards (Business Pipeline) might say it was initiative that created her meeting up with another attendee following the Q & A of the seminar “How To Ask For & Earn Your Customer’s Business.” And that might be true enough, but it was also caused by serendipitous environment of the expo. While many events bring people together, the one’s done well create an environment where people want to be engaged and connected. And I believe that the intimate spacing, lighting and exhbitot floor layout all contributed to the success of this expo.
In a well-rounded program, there were twenty-plus workshop/ seminars, including the Featured Business Owners Luncheon with NYC commissioner (dept of business services) Robert Walsh, and the Featured Keynote presentation “The 3 Keys to Building Your Million Dollar Business,” presented by Bill Walsh.

While some exhibitors expressed initial reservations that attendees might be pulled away from the floor to attend the seminars, they later said that that never happened; “traffic and engagement has been really great,” Bray at BidSynchtold me. “We didn’t know what to expect at this event. It’s our first time exhibiting here, but I’m very pleased thus far,” he said, echoing at least ten others that I questioned about it.  In fact, some seemed almost giddy with delight.
In the cyber cafe, I was checking email when Nadja Galloway (of Time Equities Inc, an executive suite service 212-206-6017) asked to share my table. Of course she gave me her card, a smile, and a 15-second intro of her business as she ate her pizza.  When I asked her opinion — as an exhibitor — of the expo, she said: “they did a better job this year in the exhibitor layout.”

So I began to wander the floor, and when I saw the U.P.S. rep I approached and challenged her to “tell me something I don’t already know about U.P.S. in 15-seconds or less.” Jeanene didn’t miss a beat: “did you know that with My Choice you can get notified of when to expect delivery, and be able to postpone or reroute that delivery on the fly?”  Did you know that Big Brown was greener than the competition?” I didn’t, admitting defeat with a smile.

All the name-brand exhibitors were there, including FedEx, U.P.S., Intuit, 3M, AT&T, Verizon, CLEAR, various banks,MetLife and other finance and insurance services. But there were also many products and services represented that I have never before heard of, including narrow-niche health care services, new online entries, and FREE government resources.

So here are some tips to consider:

1. Bad Deals Don’t Get Better.  If it’s not right at the start, stop and fix it, or walk away. (read a case study here)

2. Work It Out On Paper.  Before you start spinning your wheels, work up a good business plan, and then talk to investors to get input.  (read How to write a business plan)

3. According to Victor Hugo (1852) “Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots”

4. 6 Tips by Jason Freedman , who is now launching his third company. shared several rules he lives by on his blog; I thought these were excellant:

a) It’s not the amount of money you riase, it’s who you raise it from.

b) If you’re worried about protecting your great business idea form potential competitors, you’re not getting the feedback you need to have a chance at making it work.

c) When no one has succeeded in a market, its because everyone has missed something.  Figure it out and you’ve got a great business.

d) If you’re idea is really unique, you’re doomed.  The market is eiteher too far behind you, or its too small.

e) If you’re not getting feedback from customers, its because they don’t like you and you’re going to die.

f) Don’t close deals. Build relationships.

When you concieve an idea, it becomes the baby you’re carrying.  And the promise of funding is like the day the doctor lets you hear its heartbeat for the first time: you can close your eyes and witness the bith that hasn’t yet occured.

It’s a hectic time; you’re making plans — budgets and timelines for the project/business–, while your deal-maker (the guy raising the money) is concentrating on the overall structure of the deal — the vehicle the investors will invest into.

In your excitement, as I did, you might be tempted to move fast; especially if your project is time sensative as one of mine was.

The vehicle for this deal was to be a reverse-merger into a public shell. When a publicly-traded company ceases operations, the entity that remains is the “shell.”

Usually the parties to such a deal include a deal-maker, investors and a stock-promoter. Many of the stock promoters involved in pink-sheet and/or Over-The-Counter stocks are based in New York City, and many of those are what my former C.F.O. referred to as “bottom-feeders.”

While a lot of paperwork had already been completed — a reverse-merger between my company and a public shell (the vehicle), the naming of me and my team to C.E.O, C.F.O etc. — there were a lot of things that weren’t.

In public company situations, many times a deal-maker will underwrite a company’s immediate cashflow until he can secure the funds required from thrid-party investors, and then recoup himself plus profit (either in cash or stock).

It is all too easy to get emotionally involved in a deal.  And that was the error I made.  By the time the reverse-merger was complete, the deal-maker had invested about $20,000 and counting, as an advance against the $300,000 the investment group he had lined up would provide.

When delays began, mostly from the investment group that was requesting certain things to be accomplished before they released funds, my deal-maker kept us barely on schedule with investments from his own pocket of $5 – $7,000 per month.

Thus, I surmized that he wouldn’t provide said money if (A) he didn’t believe in the project, and/or (B) he wasn’t sure that the investment group would deliver.  As a result, I took the early money and plotted a course based on the full-investment balance arriving.

But then the delays began.  First, the investors wanted the company’s new trading symbol to become active; then the Offering Circular (REG-A) to be filed, followed by a litany of other things month after month, not the least of which was the actual clearance by the S.E.C. of the REG-A (Offering Circular) I am my C.F.O were writing.

The Huffington Post columnist Jon Ward wants us to believe that the president is engaging in shameless politicizing.  Hmm, seems a bit hypocritical to me.

Their guy gets us in debt blowing billions on a BS war, so they now claim we need to be fiscally responsible; their guy oversees the second worst financial meltdown in our history, and they blame Obama for not fixing their mess fast enough; their guy fails to get bin Laden (and they blast Obama in ’08 as not having the mettle to take on bin Laden) and when he proves them wrong and reminds them of it they lash out and cry foul.

This year seemed to be a smaller-than expected crowd; the $25 entry fee seemed to dissuade many of the casual browsers that packed the hall last year. And though some of the exhibitors were less than enthused, it turned out to be a value-add for attendees that did show up: there was room to move about without feeling cramped, and easy face-time with exhibitors — to not only learn about available products and services, but also to get information relating directly to an attendees specific needs.

There were more exhibitors than I can list in this article, so below I will list some of them — and the services they provide - (see bottom of article; some outside events beginning tomorrow), and will post other articles during the next week … including one about the coolest new product launch of the show! Do you have an iPad?  Well, check my next article because you won’t want to miss this!

In the seminar rooms, there were thirty-three  topics presented; in the areas of advertising, sales, marketing, business

Pay Anywhere Booth

ownership, business development,  and best practices. “The Power of Social Media: Best Practices to Drive Sales & Boost Lead Generation” featured three panelists: Ric Dragon (president of DragonSearch), Basil C. Puglisi, MBA (Executive Director of Digital Brand Marketing Education & Interactives (dbmei.org), and Mardy Sitzer (President of Bumblebee Design & Marketing LLC), with author/columnist/commentator Ellis Henican serving as moderator.  It was an interactive session centered on the use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogs, and the different uses and tools available for each, with a robust Q & A.  The moderator did a terrific job at extracting the questions most attendees were pondering, and corralling the panelists to provide short and concise answers with value.

In another room was “The 30-Minute Marketing Plan — How To Market Your Company in the New Economy,”  presented with excellence by Eric Keiles, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Square 2, and author of the book “Reality Marketing Revolution.” He provided an easy-to-understand strategy to develop and outline your goals — and methods to achieve them –, with practical examples through case studies.

The quality of these and other seminars were stellar and useful.

The Applegate Group organized the 24-hour Small Biz Makeover Contest worth $20,000. Allie Sports Bar won, and Christine Procaro explained that Allie would receive services from fourteen experts in their respective fields — i’d say Allie’s pretty happy that she spent the $25 entry fee!

Check upcoming articles to watch the makeover documented on video.

If you’re thinking of starting a business, or growing an existing one, the seminars alone are worth the XPO price of entry ($25.00),and I highly recommend that you attend the last day, May 3rd.

As I noted above, during the next week I will be providing a list of products and services that were represented at the XPO, including girl-power groups, telecommunications, insurance, turn-key IT solutions, Cloud services, and more. But to get you started, find below some of the government services and nonprofit organizations.

If you have questions. comments or suggestions, please post them below, or Facebook, Google + , Twitter or my NY Start Up Business column at Examiner.

AT THE SHOW 

Renaissance Economic Development Corporation (212-964-6022) offers FREE professional one-on-one accounting, legal and insurance counseling for small businesses, as well business loads up to $100,000.

Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (www.umez.org) created BRISC (Business Resource & Investment Service Center) to offer low-interest startup and/or expansion loans from $50,000 – $100,000 to entrepreneurs in upper manhattan.

SCORE (www.newyorkcity.score.org), sponsored by the Small Business Association, offers FREE advice and counseling by volunteer professionals — in person, or through a new initiative with SIBL (Science, Industry and Business Library) via Skype, and also hosts a series of  workshops (for a fee).

Empire State Development offers the Small Business Resource Center, which has downloadable Start-up resources at nyfirst.ny.gov, and a host of workshops,  the first of which begin in Long Island May 3rd, and other NY boroughs from July – August (see list and contacts at the bottom of this article.

WIBO (Workshop in Business Opportunities www.wibo.org) offers a 16-week workshop [in nine sites in Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Harlem, Yonkers and Manhattan] that takes you through the full cycle of how to build and grow a profitable business.

Lawline (www.lawline.com/boxseries) offers single courses ($19) to a multiple packaged series ($49) dealing with all legal aspects of settingup, running and selling of a business.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Small Busienss Outreach Inititive (RSVP Required)

May 3rd (8:30 am) Western Suffolk BOCES Conference Center Wheatley Hts, NY
smallbusinessRSVP-Suffolk@exec.ny.gov

May 3rd (6:00 pm) Hofstra University. 1000 Fulton Ave, Hempstead, NY
smallbusinessRSVP-Nassau@exec.ny.gov

July 11 (8:30 am) Pace University Schimmel Center for Arts/ Multi-purpose Room 3 Spruce St.
smallbusinessRSVP-Manhattan@exec.ny.gov

July 11 (6:30 pm) Hutch Metro Center 1200 Waters Place Bronx, NY
smallbusinessRSVP-Brooklyn@exec.ny.gov

August 7 (8:30 am) Brooklyn College 2900 BEdford Ave, Brooklyn, NY
smallbusinessRSVP-Brooklyn@exec.ny.gov

August 7 (6:30 pm) City College of NY 160 Convent Ave, New Yok, NY
smallbusinessRSVP-Manhattan@exec.ny.gov

August 8 (6:30 pm) JCC of Staten Island, 1466 Manor Rd. Staten Island, NY
smallbusinessRSVP-StatenIsland@exec.ny.gov

August 22 (8:30 am) Flushing YMCA 138-46 Northern Blvd. Flushing, NY
smallbusinessRSVP-Queens@exec.ny.gov