Palm Desert, C.A.- The Coachella Valley Women’s Business Center (CVWBC) has extended the application deadline one more week for “It’s Your Time: An Entrepreneurial Training Series for Women” (IYT), a program for aspiring entrepreneurs.  The deadline for applications is August 21, 2015 at 5:00 p.m.  Applications can be downloaded from the CVWBC website at www.cvwbc.org and returned electronically or mailed to our office at 77-806 Flora Road, Suite A in Palm Desert. Please call 760.345.9200 for more information.

It’s Your Time is an intense business start-up or expansion program. Participants will attend twelve workshops, work individually with a business counselor for at least two hours, and learn the fundamentals of writing a formal business plan. By participating in the program, aspiring entrepreneurs will learn essential information to start and grow a successful business.

The program is sponsored through a grant from Citi Bank and has been delivered through CVWBC since 2007, creating more than 70 businesses in the process.  In 2013 alone, 19 new businesses were created, eight were expanded or improved, and 26 jobs were created.

The program has gained momentum recently, primarily through the referral network of its past participants, who have become both its most spectacular successes and strongest advocates. An example of this is Tami Draper, owner of Sensational Hair Salon. Tami participated in the Spring 2014 IYT program and worked closely with then-director Angel Cardoz to work to set up her business in QuickBooks, preparing for the growth that has come with the business plan and counseling that IYT provided. As a result of working with CVWBC and implementing changes, Tami’s business continues to thrive, and she continues to refer women to IYT so that they can share in the same success she has experienced.

Monica Sanderson, owner and founder of SOS Energy entered the same cohort with a clear vision of forming a solar energy company that exhibited ethical standards both in business and in hiring/employment practices, and created SOS to those standards. Today, she has two full-time salespeople, three full-time installers, and two full-time administrative professionals as staff. No stranger to hard work or the world of construction (she is a licensed contractor), Monica counts herself among the workforce.

Ann Arnold represents the third generation of a wine retail business, although she has taken a modernized approach to both what she sells and how she sells it. She believes wine is in her blood and a part of her destiny, so when educating people about organic wines morphed into Organic Wine Exchange, she joined the Fall 2013 cohort of IYT to learn how to strengthen and grow her burgeoning business. Organic Wine Exchange involved education, sales, and job creation, as one of the goals of the company was to expand through direct sales. She is successfully growing her business, having raised the collective conscience of the Coachella Valley to the point where everyone from fine dining restaurants such as Wally’s to stores such as Whole Foods now offer her products.

The IYT program is full of successes, many measured in the economic impact they bring to the region, many simply in the empowerment they bring to the women who start businesses as an alternative to long-term unemployment or the beginning of a new life as a single person. Whatever the circumstance, at the core of the program is the cohort of women who learn and grow together.

The opportunity offered by It’s Your Time is not only to start or grow a business, but also to experience a period of growth in a myriad of ways. The process of writing a business plan, counseling, mentoring and the close networking with peers is a life-changing experience. For women in the Coachella Valley, opportunity is knocking.

For more information about the It’s Your Time program, please call Kim Scanlan at 760.345.9200, or visit the website for an application after June.