Small Business Development Center gets early Christmas present
Maria Ly
Staff Writer
The Small Business Development Center at Minnesota State University, Mankato was recently awarded a two-year grant for $274,000.
The SBDC was one of the 13 nonprofit groups awarded by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development who offer grants to groups who provide services and technical assistance to businesses and entrepreneurs in Minnesota.
The grant awarded to the SBDC was part of the Business Development Competitive Grant program that provides funding to groups that offer business assistance to targeted demographics such as women, minorities, rural residents, etc.
Mike Hanh, the regional director of the SBDC, said, “We were able to receive a fairly large award from it and what that does, it kind of signifies and really recognizes our region as being a hotbed for entrepreneurship. And it provides us an ability to continue to offer those free services that we offer to many communities within our region.”
The SBDC is hosted by the University and is part of Strategic Partnerships at MNSU who match the skills, talents, and expertise of MNSU students, faculty and staff to the needs of business, education and communities.
The SBDC who is funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration and regional support partners, offers free one-on-one confidential consulting or low cost classes to people who are currently in business or ones who are considering an entrepreneurial venture.
Hanh said, “We help folks with basically everything from a business plan to learning about new marketing techniques, to doing such things in regard to securing capital for a business venture. Essentially we provide the business community with free and sometimes low cost technical services and technical advisors.”
Some of the services include start-up assistance, business plan development, access to capital and loan packaging, marketing, eCommerce, social media, websites, human resources, etc.
The SBDC plans to use the money from the grant to continue offering these free and sometimes low cost services by keeping contracts with their consultants. The SBDC contracts with roughly a dozen business consultants in a variety of different disciplines from marketing to capital acquisition and so on.
All consultants are experienced business people with most owning their own businesses at one point in time.
Hanh said, “This grant allows us to continue a contract with all of those consultants and anyone in our region who needs help with their business can work with that consultant free of charge
through our center, and what we’ll do is work with the client to define as far as what areas of specialization they need and assign a consultant to them”
The best way to sign up for a consulting meeting is through their website myminnesotabusiness.com at the “apply for services” section.
The SBDC serves about 500 clients annually with clients from existing businesses, start-ups, emerging entrepreneurs, and non-profits.
The SBDC is not only for Mankato residents but also serves the nine counties in the south central Minnesota region. The SBDC provides services to Sibley, Nicollet, Le Sueur, Waseca, Blue Earth, Brown, Watonwan, Martin and Faribault.
Header photo courtesy of the MNSU website.