The City of Toronto and its partners offer year-round learning opportunities for entrepreneurs and small business owners, from regularly scheduled seminars to large networking events.

These learning opportunities are all being offered online.

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Business Planning: Get your Business Accelerating

Learn important elements of starting a business, including: business viability, writing a business plan, market research, and understanding your financials.

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Business Planning for Small Business

This webinar is aimed at entrepreneurs in the early stages of small business development who are looking at various types of business models and trying to determine where to start.

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CFIB’s Practical List for New Entrepreneurs: What Steps to Take & Avoid

Learn from CFIB’s decades of experience with their practical list of advice to create and support the development of your small business. In addition, you will be made aware of the three biggest mistakes that small business owners and entrepreneurs make and how to avoid making them yourself. By the end of this presentation, you will have a practical list of steps to take when opening your own small business.

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How to Start a Food Business: A General Overview

This webinar is for entrepreneurs thinking of starting a food business but don’t know where to start.

How to Start a Food Product Business

This webinar will show you the practical steps to take to develop your own food product business. Learn the groundwork to launch your food product business and know what to do every step of the way.

How to Start an Ethnic Food Business: Opportunities & Challenges

This webinar will show you the practical steps to take to develop your ethnic food business in the Canadian food market.

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How to Start a Grocery Business

This webinar will show you the practical steps to take to develop your own grocery business. Learn the groundwork to launch your grocery business and know what to do every step of the way.

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Insurance for Small Business

Learn about insurance and how to ensure you have the right coverage for your small business needs.

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Incubators: How Business in the Streets Can Help Your Business

Learn about incubators, like Business in the Streets (BITS), and what they can do for your small business.

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Legal Bootcamp: How to Start & Grow Your Business

Wondering whether you should incorporate your business, when you should register for HST, and if contracts are really that important? These and other questions will be addressed in this webinar for entrepreneurs considering starting a business and those who’ve launched one in the last couple of years.

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Mental Health Support for Entrepreneurs

This presentation will help you understand the challenges and benefits of taking care of your mental health from a business perspective, and provide you with some key strategies, tools, and resources so you are equipped to better understand your own mental health, as well as the mental health of your employees and what you can do to be a leader for them.

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The Trauma-Informed Entrepreneur: Resourcing Yourself to Serve Your Clients

Learn about how trauma can manifest in your business and how you can take steps to identify and manage triggers to better serve your clients & customers.

Marketing Essentials for Small Business 101

This webinar will give you an introduction to the tips and tools you need to get your marketing started on the right foot. By the end of the presentation, you will have everything you need to establish your brand, identify and reach your target audience, get your small business found by your prospects, and drive new sales through the groundwork of establishing your small business’s marketing presence.

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Sales Skills to Power Up Your Startup

A comprehensive introduction to learning sales and marketing skills as a process. The skill sets gained through this program are based on proven best practices. “If you want to be successful, you have to do what successful people do.”

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Social Media for Your Business

Learn the ropes of building an engaging and profitable social media presence for your business, from choosing the right social media platforms, to best practices for engagement, to growing your social media community using both organic and paid strategies.

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The Importance of Paid Advertising in a Digital Space

Advertising in the digital space can be complicated, especially with different ad formats, multiple platforms, budgeting, and running your own business! If you are not sure where to begin, or are confused on what kind of ad to run, this session is for you! In this webinar, the Digital Service Squad from Toronto will share key insights into Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Instagram Ads.

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Cyber Resilience: What to Do When Your Small Business is Under Attack

This webinar aims to show you what you can do as a small business owner and entrepreneur to build your cyber resilience and prepare yourself. By the end of the presentation, you will know what you can do today to mitigate your risk of an attack, as well as empowering you to know what to do if it ever happens to your small business.

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eCommerce 101: What, Why and How

More consumers than ever before are turning to online shopping for greater convenience, safety and variety. In this webinar, you will learn the basic steps to set up an online store.

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Optimizing for Search Engines – Understanding SEO Basics

Often you will hear about needing to optimize for search engines or SEO. But what is it, and how does it impact your digital presence? In this webinar, the Digital Service Squad will explain search engine optimization and the best tactics you as a business can use towards increasing your ranking in the search engine result pages.

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Staying Secure Online: e-Commerce & Cyber-Security Awareness

This webinar introduces cybersecurity to small online businesses, discusses the challenges, and shares best practices for securing your business from cyber-attacks.

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Web Presence 101: Ensuring Your Foundation Is Set

Your customers are on the web. Having a strategy for your online presence allows you to market your small business online so customers can easily find you. Learn how to build the foundation for your business’s web presence.

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Accounting for Non-Profits: Understanding Financial Statements

This financial literacy webinar will help you to understand the responsibilities of a non-profit board member in relation to the organizational finances. In addition, you will understand the financial statements of non-profit organizations by the end of the presentation.

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Financial Survival for Entrepreneurs

This financial literacy webinar will help you understand the management of growth and expansion of your small business. By the end of the presentation, you will be able to identify the key numbers to understand and monitor, as well as learning tactics for seeking out financing. Finally, you will learn effective tax strategies for your small business.

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Getting Money: What Lenders and Investors Want

This financial literacy webinar will help you to understand how a bank or investor will evaluate your small business. By the end of the presentation, you’ll have learned the steps necessary to get financial statements and business plans in order for presentation to lenders and investors.

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Growth and Expansion: How to Best Grow Your Business

This financial literacy webinar will help you determine when business expansion makes sense. It will also help you understand how to project growth and expansion for your small business. Lastly, after the presentation, you will know how to react when unexpected growth occurs.

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Maximizing Your Business: How to Manage Your Cash

This financial literacy webinar will help you to review and change your cash management practices. You will learn how to spend less cash to operate the business. By the end of the presentation, you will be able to project and analyze the cash needs of your small business.

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Small Business Accounting: “The Stress-Free Guide to Managing Your Books”

Small business accounting that will help you to manage your daily operations and make tax time less stressful. Balance your accounts with confidence.

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T1 General Small Business Tax Literacy

Presented by Canada Revenue Agency, this presentation is geared toward small unincorporated businesses and will help participants understand their tax obligations and provide them with the resources needed to navigate the tax system.

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T2 Corporation Tax Literacy

Presented by Canada Revenue Agency, this seminar is offered to owners of small corporations who need help in understanding their tax obligations. The presentation is geared towards incorporated businesses and will provide participants with the basic principles and resources needed to navigate the tax system.

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The Money Side of Business: Tools and Techniques to Manage Your Finances

This financial literacy session will enable you to be able to use financial management tools to evaluate business and make informed financial decisions for your small business.

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Understanding Financial Statements for Small Business Owners

This financial literacy webinar will help to review and understand financial statements for small businesses. You will also be able to ask informed questions of financial professionals following this presentation.

Why Financial Ratios Matter; How to Know if You’re Turning a Profit

This financial literacy webinar will show you how to calculate key financial ratios and understand the meaning of the calculations. By the end of the session, you will be able to interpret the results to become better managers of your small business.

Financing 101 with Futurpreneur Canada and BDC

Join Futurpreneur and the Business Development Bank of Canada for a presentation on financing opportunities for your small business.

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How to Do Business with the Government of Canada

The Government of Canada purchases $22 billion of goods and services each year. This webinar provides key information about how to sell to the Government of Canada. A focus of this session will be on supporting diverse and underrepresented equity deserving businesses and highlighting emerging opportunities through federal and community programs and services.

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How to Do Business with the Province of Ontario

This webinar provides key information about how to do business with the Province of Ontario. Learn if selling to the Province of Ontario is right for you and your small business and how to get started.

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Service Canada: Free Hiring Platform & Other Supports for Small Businesses

Learn how to access Service Canada to enroll in various programs, services, and the basics of Human Resources for businesses in any sizes. This presentation will also show you how to advertise for jobs via the federal government job bank.

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Service Canada: Hiring Incentives and Assistance

Learn how to access Service Canada to enroll in various programs, services, and the basics of Human Resources for businesses in any sizes. This presentation will also show you how to advertise for jobs via the federal government job bank.

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Service Canada: When an Employee is Separating from the Employer

Learn how to access Service Canada to enroll in various programs, services, and the basics of Human Resources for businesses in any sizes.

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Service Canada: Public Pensions for Disability and Retirement

Learn how to access Service Canada to enroll in various programs, services, and the basics of Human Resources for businesses in any sizes.

Service Canada: Support Measures for Businesses in Labour Adjustment

Learn how to access Service Canada to enroll in various programs, services, and the basics of Human Resources for businesses in any sizes.

WSIB: Laws & Regulations for Small Businesses

Learn from a Workplace Safety and Insurance Board consultant about how to keep your workplace healthy and safe, and in compliance with health and safety laws.

The City of Toronto’s Main Street Innovation Fund provides grant funding for innovative and creative solutions to Toronto’s main street business challenges. The mandate is to support local business communities’ recovery and rebuild through innovative activations, creative place makings, and community capacity building initiatives. Before applying, applicants are encouraged to attend a one hour information session. 

The Main Street Innovation Fund is now accepting applications until March 16.

Learn more about the Main Street Innovation Fund.

There are no information sessions currently scheduled.