The Plato Group Calls for More Graduates for their Business Development Program

Miami, Florida based outsourced sales and marketing firm The Plato Group invites graduates to get involved with their business development opportunities. 

The Plato Group offers a business development program which provides contractors trading with their business the opportunity to pursue a business education with a focus on the issues involved in both starting a business and fostering innovation in a corporate setting.

Individuals that take part develop an entrepreneurial perspective through incorporating concepts from management, marketing, and finance to explore the creation, growth, and success of new enterprises. The Plato Group provides regular workshops on areas critical to business growth and success, including team management, managing budgets, sales skills, and planning. Managing director Steve Dongo says: “Research indicates that some of the main reasons new businesses fail in the first few years are lack of planning, poor fiscal management, and insufficient people management. We feel that this is due to a lack of practice in core business skills, so we have created our business development program to cover the essentials needed to succeed in a competitive marketplace. Our goal is to contribute towards a higher new business survival rate in the Miami area.” The Small Business Administration reports that on average 70% of new businesses survive their first two years, while 51% last for at least five. This is a higher rate than the commonly-held belief that 50% survive the first year, and just 5% last for five years or more. However The Plato Group’s Steve Dongo hopes to raise the success rates in Miami through educating would-be business owners. “Even raising the success rates by 2 or 3% would be a massive achievement,” says Dongo.

Miami is the ideal location for The Plato Group because of the city’s thriving entrepreneurial scene. Florida is one of the four states in the US that has no state income tax, making the Sunshine State an attractive start-up location. The US Chamber of Commerce reported last year that Florida has the highest business start-up rate in the country, as well as a high proportion of self-employed individuals. Between 2002 and 2013 the state acquired an additional 59,000 personal finance advisers, 39,000 property managers and 38,000 securities and financial services individuals, all working on an independent basis. WalletHub has rated Miami the 57th best place in the US to do business, with three other Florida cities – Pembroke Pines, Fort Lauderdale and Hialeah – coming in the top 150. The criteria included the five-year new business survival rate, affordability of office space, educational background and the local labor force.

The Plato Group recently launched in Miami, Florida and the firm is on the lookout for ambitious graduates with an entrepreneurial flair. The firm specializes in four key areas: direct marketing, lead generation, campaign management and competitor analysis. “We find graduates are particularly suited to entrepreneurship due to their ability to multitask, think laterally, and come up with creative solutions. The main difficulty faced by graduates is their lack of real-world experience, and this is where The Plato Group can step in by providing advice and skills development from successful business owners,” says managing director Steve Dongo.