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| Danelle O'Connell is pictured in the front row on the left, along with recent participants in the GrowthWheel training. |
Middlesboro, Ky. – Discover Downtown Middlesboro (DDM) is
pleased to announce that Danelle O’Connell has recently joined the partnership
between Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP),
Discover Downtown Middlesboro, and Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical
College as Selling to the World Initiative Director, currently funded through
The New York Community Trust.
"After performing a national search, Danelle was the
ideal person to lead this important initiative,” said Isaac Kremer, Discover Downtown
Middlesboro Executive Director. “She brings to the position impressive skills
and experience, as well as enthusiasm to continue our work promoting
entrepreneurship in Middlesboro. We hope everyone will give Danelle a warm
Eastern Kentucky welcome as she gets started.”
As the Director, O’Connell’s responsibilities include coordination
of the proposed new entrepreneurial mentorship and training component of
Selling to the World, which will pave a pathway for Eastern Kentucky artisans
to become successful entrepreneurs by employing a comprehensive approach that
includes education and daily, hands-on mentoring in the following areas:
entrepreneurship, business plans, Internet sales and marketing, advertising,
inventory management, production strategies, small business finance,
bookkeeping, taxes and deductions, and intellectual property protection, among
other topics.
O’Connell comes to Eastern Kentucky and DDM with over 17
years of experience coordinating community programs at a non-profit level. Her
experience started at the grassroots level while working for Tri-County Mental
Health Services as the Prevention Coordinator in Kansas City, Missouri. She
managed coalition teams to reduce underage drinking across three counties. Most
recently, O’Connell served as the Executive Director of Main Street Parkville
Association in Missouri, where she provided leadership to maintain a successful
and sustainable association closely following the National Main Street Four Point Approach® (Economic Restructuring, Design, Organization and Promotion.)
“Now that I’m on-site, I look forward to working with the
initiative partners, the Assistant to the initiative Jeannie Redmond Allen and Eastern
Kentucky’s artisans and craftspeople to start selling to the world and placing
their work in The Palace located on Cumberland Avenue in Middlesboro,” said
Danelle O’Connell, Director of Selling to the World.
Also joining the team is Jeannie Redmond Allen, a local
community member, as the Assistant to the Selling to the World Initiative. A
few of Redmond’s duties will include coordinating volunteers’ schedules at The
Palace, assisting the Director in identifying prospective participants for the
Selling to the World Initiative and responding to inquiries.
Through a Sam’s Club Shared Vision Grant, industry
leaders in Eastern Kentucky have joined forces to put together the second
annual Selling to the World Expo, scheduled for June 25-26 at the Middlesboro campus
of Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College.
With the World Wide Web, the opportunities for expanding
your small business are endless. Attend the Selling to the World Expo to learn
how to take advantage of the national and global market at your fingertips. New
for this year’s Expo, you can also learn how to build a rock-solid plan to
organize and grow your business or business idea using the GrowthWheel® model —
a unique, customizable way of focusing on the specific needs of your business,
with targeted sessions for your Business Concept, Organization, Client
Relations, and Operations. Register for the Expo at www.selling2theworldexpo.com
About Selling to
the World Initiative
Eastern Kentucky has a significant number of artisans and
craftspeople whose products are of the type and quality that could support a
business. However, most of these people do not fully realize the economic
benefits of their labor—either in terms of unit price or sales volume—because
they are unable to market their wares to a wide audience nationally and
internationally. This is often due to a lack of knowledge of business planning,
Internet sales and marketing, production strategies, bookkeeping, and other
necessary elements for small business success.
The program will help regional artists and craftspeople
come closer to realizing their tremendous potential to diversify and boost the
region’s economy by increasing exports and possibly even to grow their
businesses enough to create dependent jobs.
The physical location where this work will occur is at
The Palace, located at 2008 Cumberland Ave. in Middlesboro. This was started as
a pop-up shop by DDM in April 2014. From this location training will take place,
co-working space will be developed, and direct sales will occur. The primary
focus for sales will be through a portal website developed for the program with
micro-sites within it for each of the participants. Expert instructors from
SKCTC will work hand-in-hand, on-site with participants in this incubator-like,
co-workspace environment to guide them in all aspects of small-business
development, with the goal being their harnessing the power of the Internet to
distribute their products to statewide, national, and even global customer
bases.
About The New York
Community Trust
Through the generosity of New Yorkers and others who have
set up charitable funds, The New York Community Trust is able to make grants
for a huge range of charitable activity that is important to the well-being and
vitality of that city–and beyond. Since 1924, The New York Community Trust has
helped make donors’ charitable dreams come true by funding the nonprofits that
make communities a vital and secure place. The Trust ended 2013 with assets of
$2.4 billion in more than 2,000 charitable funds, and made grants totaling $141
million. The New York Community Trust is providing direct support to Selling to
the World—and Eastern Kentucky–through a grant from the Oakley L. and Ethel Witherspoon
Alexander Fund included in a round of grants awarded in December 2014 to 51
groups totaling $7.4 million. Visit www.nycommunitytrust.org.
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