Todays Business Radio.com

What do you do if you need to create a list of prospects for your people to call on but you can’t afford to buy a list? Well, you could use Reference USA for free. Every City or County library in the State of Minnesota has a database called Reference USA which is a very good database of 14 Million U.S. businesses.Click here to access Reference USA Hennepin County Library .

The 6th Annual Minnesota Cup is a statewide business plan competition that seeks out entrepreneurs, inventors, small business people and students – in short, anyone whose dreams include creating the next breakthrough business success story in Minnesota. The competition is organized around six divisions: High Tech, Biosciences, Clean Tech and Renewable Energy, Social Entrepreneurship, Student and General. With more than $130,000 in prize money and support from the state’s leaders in finance, accounting, legal and management, there has never been a better time to enter. The entry period runs from March 29 – May 21, 2010; entries are accepted online at www.minnesotacup.org.

In this podcast, Mary Rothchild and Joe Mulford from MN State Colleges and Universities tell us about programs available at campuses all over the state of MN that are available to help businesses maintain a skilled workforce. This is done in conjunction with their customized training and continuing education departments. These are not canned programs, but are customized to help businesses with all types of issues from training programs to helping businesses ramp up for new business opportunities.

In this podcast Mr Poole tells us a bit of the history of the JJ Hill Business Reference Library. We cover the how the library was started 80 years ago and how it has been used in this community to help businesses ever since. We learn about the HillSearch tool as a way for business to access research databases and librarians through the internet. This information can be accessed in the library or on your desktop computers and is a valuable resource. We also discuss the fantastic building that houses the library and why it is one of our favorite places in the Twin Cities.