Plenty of small business owners have never heard of Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs), and that’s a shame! These vital resources can provide small business owners with the skills, knowledge, and resources they need to make a mark in the marketplace. SBDCs are organizations that provide services to small businesses to help them grow and succeed.
There are nearly 1000 of these across the U.S., and they help small firms with everything from finance to marketing.
The network of SBDCs is overseen by the U.S. Small Business Administration, and they work with state economic development agencies, private partners, and local governments.
- In 2020, they helped their clients start 20,374 new businesses.
- Their advising led to over 91,000 jobs in 2020.
SBDCs are a community resource for entrepreneurs and small business owners. They offer one-on-one counseling as well as classes and workshops on a variety of business-related topics.
SBDCs exist to help small businesses learn what they need to know to thrive. This could mean anything from learning the basics of getting started to more complex topics like business financing, accounting and managing growth.
Sudershan Shaunak, the director of the North San Diego Small Business Development Center, said the counselors help people take their business to the next level.
SBDCs serve both people just starting out as well as established owners who want to grow.
Each center is tailored to fit the individual community. They’re run with local governments and work with other business resources in the area.
SBDCs are staffed by locals who know the community. The counselors are paid employees, though some centers also use volunteers from local banks and trade groups or SCORE (the Service Corps of Retired Executives).
This local approach to small business aid means more of the help goes to those who could most use it.
Expert-led Training
Running a small business means wearing a lot of different hats at the same time. Most owners aren’t experts in all the many jobs their businesses require, and they may lack the specific skill set required to tackle some key tasks.
That’s where SBDCs come in. They can get a small business owner expert-led training in all those areas where they aren’t experts, including:
- Marketing strategies to put a small business on the map
- How to get business financing
- Hiring practices that build a good team
- Production basics
- How technology can help your business
- Small business taxes: what you need to know and how to file
- How owners can be better organized
Client Annual Sales Grew by $7 Billion
Research from America’s SBDC shows that in 2020, client annual sales grew by $7 billion. That’s a growth rate of almost 18 percent, which is more than four times the national average.
That year, SBDC-advised clients created more than 91,767 jobs.
Overall, SBDCs served 510,707 clients. That’s 51% women, 27.5% minorities and 5% veterans. The SBDCs in San Diego and Imperial counties served almost 4,400 clients last year. There, the region’s SBDC helped to facilitate $103 million in disaster capital, and officials estimate online-only advising also helped local businesses get more than $200 million through programs like Meet the Buyers.
Some SBDCs also target women, veterans, and people of color, providing the same services of counseling, workshops and classes.
In times of emergency, SBDCs partner with FEMA and state agencies to set up Business Recovery Centers in the most affected communities.
SBDCs also organize special events on hot topics in small business.
Most SBDC services are free, and where they’re not, they’re usually pretty low-priced. In a recent lineup of classes in Los Angeles and San Diego County, only the business plan writing, pitching and website design classes carried a fee, usually $10.
You can use an online SBDC locator to find the closest center.
Say you are an entrepreneur with a good idea, but perhaps you lack the wherewithal to put together a complete business plan. That’s where SBDCs can help you get the plan together so it will be ready for a SBA loan. The SBA stands behind small business loans that a traditional bank might otherwise not make.
About Delancey Street
Delancey Street is a premier, and award winning, business debt settlement company that helps business owners nationwide. Our goal is simple: help you escape debt in a safe and legal manner. Based out of New York, we can help in 49 of 50 states. We tell you how it is; because your business and future is on the line.
