Rosy Jalifi has dedicated her professional career to assisting individuals by teaching simple truths. In 2000, she applied this personal value statement to working with business owners when her executive manager asked her to start a municipal small business program. She “started and grew” a unique and highly successful government program designed to help entrepreneurs in Austin, Texas. In seven short years, she took “a blank sheet of paper” and developed various services and programs that have experienced consistent growth in usage and demand while garnering high customer satisfaction rates. Some of her initiatives have become “best practices” for other cities while receiving various awards and recognition. Visit this program at www.austinsmallbiz.com.
Rosy attributes these successes to a shared vision that she forged among her staff and managing the program “like a business within a bureaucracy”. Over time, she and her team found themselves solving many of the same problems that small business owners face – How do we find customers? What should the price point be? Will this service meet a customer need? Which individual is the best hire? How do we maintain quality customer service? What new technology should we embrace? Is this the best physical location for the program? How do I keep employees motivated when I can’t give them a raise? Are we meeting our projected financial and performance targets?
Over time, she has navigated solutions to these problems while being a good steward of the public trust.
Rosy keeps herself informed on issues and solutions by being an avid reader and amateur researcher on business and professional development topics. Time and again, she has found “nuggets” of information and has wondered to herself, “There are business owners out there that need to know. How can I tell them?” This question has become the genesis for this business blog.
