Mandarin business workshops launched in Queens

Community leaders in Flushing, NY announced a new business training program for Mandarin- and Korean-speaking entrepreneurs at One Flushing Economic Development Center, in Downtown Flushing. The program is made possible through a partnership with the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS), the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and local business owners and professionals.

New York City Chinese-American councilman Peter Koo, who started his own business Starside Drugs Pharmacy many years ago said, "Language-appropriate business assistance will be a great resource for local businesses both large and small. I congratulate the Department of Small Business Services and One Flushing for launching this summer's workshops in the languages spoken by our business community."

One Flushing founder and director Korean-American John Choe was on hand to make the announcement.

A representative from Senator Toby Ann Stavisky's office said, "One Flushing has supported these entrepreneurs with targeted training programs and guidance." Last year, Stavisky's staff worked with 13,000 constituents, she said, and "most of these cases demonstrated a huge need for language access to our community."

One Flushing will hold summer workshops in Mandarin on business taxes and legal structure on July 2 and business income and expenses and accounting on July 9. Cantonese and Mandarin classes on business risk management will be held August 6.

Naveen Naidu, a financial consultant who has worked at JP Morgan and Honeywell and is currently on sabbatical， has spent the last four months teaching an early session of workshops to small business owners in the Flushing community.

Chinese American Heidi Chen, owner of A-Photos, attended workshops given by Naidu every month. Chien used to spend a lot of money paying web designers to create and run her company website. Now with Naidu's cost effective strategy of learning the basics of marketing one’s own company on the web, Chen is able to understand what the web designers are doing do that she can more effectively spend her money on web functions that matter.

Naidu also taught a workshop on how to take advantage of free marketing strategies through sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other functions like tagging and labels.

Mary Bao, another Chinese-American jewelry business owner, managed to create an eBay store with the help of the workshops. Now she can sell her jewelry on the Internet as well. She recently sold her second pair of earrings on the Internet.

Peter Au, a financial representative at Northwestern Mutual, owned a luncheonette business in Fresh Meadows, Queens for nine years. His parents also owned their own local business. "I want to use my past experience and background to help other business owners learn about tax reduction, employee benefits and business protection strategies," said Au, who speaks Mandarin and Cantonese, as well as English.

Announced Wed, May 28, at One Flushing: Community Economic Development Center in Flushing, Queens launches business workshops for Mandarin and Korean Speaking entrepreneurs. Left: A representative from New York Senator Toby Ann Stavisky's office, Owner of Regen Acupuncture and instructor for Small Business Services (SBS) Taehoon Kim, One Flushing Director John Choe, Chinese American New York City Council Member Peter Koo and Director of Expansion at World Financial Group Naoki Okai. [Photo / Elizabeth Wu]