Rob:  Now, if any of today’s stories have piqued your interest in becoming your own boss, a conference coming up early next year can tell you just how to do it.  Joining me now from Oklahoma’s Department of Commerce is the event’s organizer, Shelli Todd, and the director of OkStartUp.com.  First of all, tell me what O K Startup is.
Shelli Todd:  Well, O K Startup is a place to go and help you get started, like the name connotates.  We do have a web presence, so you can go out to OkStartUp.com; you can find good useful information out there, one of which is a business licensing system which is probably our most popular feature.  You can go out there and find out what permits, licenses that you need; or, you can get contact information to get in touch with us, either by phone or e-mail, and we can help answer questions if you’re not finding whatever else it is that you’re looking for.
Rob:  Yeah, I was looking through the web site earlier and what I was impressed with is, not only did it answer some questions that I had, it probably gave me some answers to questions I didn’t even know about.
Todd:  Yes, there are a few of those out there as well; good information about whether you want to be an LLC or do you want to be an S Corp or C Corp; there’s a lot of structural entity questions even that get answered out there that you might not have thought about until you got into it.
Rob:  Yeah.  Now another good place to learn more about starting your own business is going to be the conference that comes up in late February.
Todd:  Yes, February 23rd and 24th.  It will be at the Embassy Suites in Norman.  And it’ll be a very good experiential learning process.  We’ll have, we have it set up so that no matter where you are in the process, and no matter what your focus is, we’ll hit on all the basics that you would need to know as you start and grow your entrepreneurial business.
Rob:  And again, it’s a good opportunity for someone to kind of meet with like-minded people.
Todd:  Absolutely.  We will have plenty of opportunity for networking.  I believe very, very firmly that as an entrepreneur some of the best learning you get is from sitting and talking to someone who does what you do, or has already gone through that process and tell you how they overcame obstacles and how they got past some of the obvious challenge points in starting a business.
Rob:  Yeah.  How important is marketing when it comes to starting your own business.
Todd:  Marketing can very well be the thing that makes or breaks any startup venture for the simple reason people have to find you.  They have to know you’re there.  And you have to get the word out about, who you are, and what you do, your services, and why people would want that.  So, that is absolutely one of our biggest focuses this year that was also supported in some surveys that we did, that it was very much a point of interest to entrepreneurs trying to figure out new media, social media, online advertising, you know, what works, when to use what, how to get into it; those kinds of things were a real big question for entrepreneurs.
Rob:  Yeah, if someone wants to learn more about the conference or OkStartUp, just go to the web site.
Todd:  Absolutely, OkStartUp.com; there is a little place on that section of the web site about the conference, and then of course you can always get in touch with me directly and I’ll give you all the information you could possibly want.
Rob:  Alright, as always we appreciate your help.
Todd:  Thank you.