Still Time to Sign Up for Small Business Seminar at the Loyal City Hall this Thursday
Monday, January 27th, 2020 -- 2:58 PM
-The Clark County Economic Development Corporation is holding a Starting and Growing Your Own Business Seminar on January 30th at the Loyal City Hall.The seminar is also being sponsored by the Small Business Development Center, West Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission’s Regional Business Fund, the Clark County Young Professionals and this station. On January 30th from 9:30am-11:30am, the public is invited to a seminar on Starting and Growing Your Own Business. Then, from Noon-3pm, consultants will be available to discuss your ideas. You can make a private appointment with a consultant during that time.
In a preview of the seminar, I spoke with Luke Kempen, the Director of the Northwest Region of the SBDC out of UW-Eau Claire, and he explained what the SBDC does.
Luke: “The Wisconsin Small Business Development Center at UW-Eau Claire is part of a statewide network of SBDCs. Our role is to go out in the community and help people start and grow their businesses. At UW-Eau Claire SBDC, we cover most of west-central Wisconsin including Clark County, Chippewa, Dunn, Eau Claire, Barron, Rusk and Taylor Counties. If you’re in this area and you’re in Marathon County or Wood County, that would be UW-Stevens Point SBDC.”
He also provided information on the steps individuals interested in starting their own business should take.
Luke: “The first thing that you want to do is, I would say, try and reach out and get access to some of the resources that are out there. In Clark County, a good place to start would be the Clark County Economic Development Corporation in Loyal. Usually Sheila Nyberg, [Executive Director], can open up some doors and avenues and get a feel for what your business is, what your idea is and give you some guidance from there. A lot of times, because we have a relatively small team out of UW-Eau Claire, we can’t be on the ground in these counties all the time. So, we rely on the Economic Development people in the county to be the lead role and identify people that we can help.”
“So, what would happen from there is that Sheila would make a referral to us, the SBDC, and then we would reach out and contact the person and start consulting with them. We don’t charge for our services. We’re funded by the SBA, the Small Business Administration, and by UW-Systems. And so, what would happen then if you contacted us, is that we would get a hold of you and start asking you questions about what your business idea is and trying to learn more about where you’re at in the process and then try to identify what we can do to help you out.”
“Most of the time, the first thing that we’re trying to do is to see if you’ve really vetted your idea. That you have a viable idea. To have a successful business, you really have to have an idea that is viable, that you can scale it and make a profit. Otherwise, it’s probably just a hobby.”
Riley: “Right! I was just thinking that that’s something that’s really important because you don’t want to jump into this thing headfirst and then find out that you’re not going to make any money on this.”
Luke: “That’s correct! You really want to figure out whether or not you have something that’s viable. Because you don’t want to quit your job and find out later that what you’re trying to do is not viable and now you’ve dug yourself a hole you can’t get out of. So, a lot of time should be spent on validating your idea and making sure that customers truly want what you’re planning to offer them.”
“And I think an important element of this is that it doesn’t really matter what you want. What your ideas are and what you want. It’s, does the customer want it? Is the customer willing to pay for it? And that’s different. And you have to understand that just because you think it’s a good idea and that it’s something you would want, you have to make sure that there’s enough people out there that, at the price you’re going to charge, that want your idea.”
He also explained the funding available for those who are looking for financial aid in starting their own business.
Luke: “So, let's take you now the road now. Let's say you validated your idea and it looks pretty feasible, but you need some funding for it to move forward. What typical funding is going to be, your going to have to have some skin in the game. Generally, if you’re looking to go to the bank, or some other funding source, they’re going to want to see that you’re willing and that you’re able to commit some resources in funding to your project or your idea. Then, if you’re seeking financial funding through a bank or other sources, they’re going to want to see what’s called a business plan and a set of financial projections.”
“Most of our work at the SBDC is helping people work through the financial projections. We don’t necessarily write business plans. We’ll read through what you’ve written, but it’s your idea. You need to be able to articulate your idea to potential lenders and your customers. So, I hesitate to write business plans. But, we understand that most people are not CPA’s or Accountants and they need help with doing the financial projection work and that seems to be the biggest hurdle for people. So, most of our work out of the SBDC office is helping people work through a set of financial projections.”
“And in that process of working through financial projections, generally what happens is that a lot of other things get fleshed out in their business idea and their business plan because we start talking about the nuts and bolts of how the viability of this business is and if it’s even possible. We start looking at things like revenue streams. How are you going to generate revenue? Do you need employees? How many employees do you need? And things like that. So, that starts bringing definition and more definition to the written part of your business plan. I always like to start with the financials before I spend a lot of time on documenting a written business plan because the numbers will help you to validate whether or not this a viable idea and if the numbers don’t work on paper, they’re probably not going to work in the real world. So, the first thing is to see if the numbers work on paper; does this seem feasible before I spend a lot of time documenting on a business plan. ”
“There’s resources out there. Now, everybody comes to us and says ‘hey, can I get a grant for this? Can I get a grant for that?’ Well, there are very few grants out there. If you’re surfing the internet and you see grants all over the place, that is not the reality out there. So, I want to make that clear to people. If you’re going to cure cancer or solve some world problem, yeah, we can probably find you grant. But if you’re going to open up a restaurant, there’s really no grant out there for you. There’s some specialized grants, especially in this area. If you have a dairy product or something like that, what we call a value added product, perhaps then we could secure grants through USDA or something like that, but, again, it’s very specialized type things and usually there’s a bunch of hurdles and things like that that are there. So, again, I’m reiterating, not a lot of grants out there.”
“So, that leaves some kind of funding through other sources. We’re very blessed in this area, in Clark County and West Central Wisconsin, to have the West Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission covering our area because they have a revolving loan fund through what’s called the Regional Business Fund. And the Regional Business Fund has two major loan programs. The first loan program is called the Micro Loan Program. And the micro loan is a $30,000 loan that is, basically, geared to startup businesses. They do not need bank participation with that loan, which means they can stand alone and lend you $30,000. So, an excellent tool or an excellent source of funding for startups in the region. Now, they’re not just going to hand you that money. You’ve got to validate your idea and you have to work through a set of financial projections and they’ve got to get comfortable that you have the ability to pay them back. So, again, really good for startups and a starting point.”
“The second loan program is their regular Revolving Loan Fund Program. Now that requires at least a 50% match with bank financing. Now, if you think about that, that’s probably for larger projects. So, let's say you’re looking at building a building that’s $200,000. So, let’s say the bank says okay, we’ll lend $120,000, maybe the regional loan fund will lend you $50,000 of that cost and then you need to put some down payment money on that too. A lot of times we call the regional loan fund money “gap money.” It fills gaps where you might be able to put some money down, the bank may be able to loan some money and there’s a gap in there. And a lot of times the regional loan fund can come in and fill that gap for you. The advantages of the regional loan funds are that it’s 4% interest rate, which is really low; and they’ll fix that rate depending on what they’re borrowing on. If it’s building they may go up to 10 years and if it’s equipment they may go out to 7 years. So, they’ll fix that rate and then, generally, the Regional Business Fund will stand second in line behind the bank. So, a lot of times banks may consider part of that regional business fund money the equivalent of down payment money.”
He also explained the followup that the SBDC provides, including some marketing.
Luke: “Generally, we’ll try to follow up with you, but we kinda rely on you if you need some help going forward. Because, again, we cover a large area. We see about 250 clients a year and there’s just me and one other consultant covering this large of an area. So, being forthright, we can’t necessarily be holding your hand all the way through this process. But, we can be resourceful to you.”
“We have a consultant that can help clients with some marketing needs too. As we’re moving forward, we’ll look at your marketing needs and get that person involved in the consultation too right away from the front end and then making that person available to you as a business startup along in the process too.”
Riley: “And that, I imagine, is very helpful with all the different forms of marketing available?”
Luke: “Yes, right now, the biggest thing that we see out there is, obviously, social media marketing and websites and things like that. So, again, your expectations shouldn’t be that we’re going to do the work for you and create your website and do your social media marketing. But we can be of resource to you, give you some ideas, maybe validate what a resource partner is helping you on and maybe give you some input and guidance on these things and may be able to do some work for you, but, again, we can’t spend 100 hours on your project.”
Luke also reminded visitors to make sure they fully plan everything they can before jumping into this undertaking.
“You’ve got to make sure you think things through on what you’re doing and before you pull the trigger on it. We see people come in and they’re in trouble. So, we’re seeing them on the back end instead of the front end and then, not often, there’s nothing we can do. They’re too far in or we can’t figure a way out to help get them out of that hole and they have to shut down or move on. So, my point there would be, if you’re thinking about starting a business, do your homework on the front end, make sure you investigate what’s going on, vet your idea, contact some resources, work through the financials. Even if you’re not handy on doing a complete set of financial projections, work through a budget and think through what your revenues are going to be, what your expenses are going to be. Be conservative on things and make sure you work through that process.”
“If someone is interested in some more extensive training. We do offer our Entrepreneur Training Program. It’s in Eau Claire. We host that each semester. We have people travel 40-50 miles for that class. We did have someone from the Thorp area come to the class who has a really good business idea and is working forward on that. So, I think it’s well worth your time and investment to spend some time investing in your own education if you’re going to start a business.”
“The take-away from that class is a written business plan. So, we work you through the process of vetting your idea; talking about identifying target markets, your customer validation, working through financials, budgeting for your business. And then we have some experts come in, attorneys, accountants, insurance people, talking about different business elements related to business contracts and insurance and things like that. Insurance and then, of course, the financials. We can help with that and then we coach you through in writing a business plan. It’s a 10 week course, meets every week, and there is a cost to the class. There’s a $750 scholarship if you write the business plan and complete the requirements of the class. And so generally the cost of the class is $250 after that scholarship is applied.”
“99% of the people get the scholarship. But, if you’re not going to do the work, then we have to bill you for the remaining $750. It’s really cost effective if you think about it because you’re going to make connections with all these professionals for $250 and your time. The real investment is your time and effort. But, again, very cheap and, I think, low cost access to these folks and these folks will provide you with a lot of information and you’re also able to build resources for the future that you can contact as questions arise as you’re working through your business and within business itself."
He also explained how SBDC will work to connect you with other resources besides their office.
“Again, I would reach out to the resources that are there. You’re certainly welcome to reach out to me. And, again, I advise you to reach out to the CCDC first. They’re going to know some of the resources and things happening more locally here. I get into Clark County 2, maybe 3 times a month, but I’m not on the ground all the time. So, we rely on those folks and then work with them identifying local resources and we can bring resources beyond that. I think another thing that’s important too as we talk about resources, there’s a lot of other resources that we can link you with throughout the state. Again, I think reaching out, taking that first initial step to the CCEDC and to us can open other doors because we’re about to connect you with other resources our there.”
Finally, Luke ended our interview by talking about the upcoming seminar at the Loyal City Hall on Thursday.
“January 30th, at the City Hall in Loyal, at the CCEDC, we’ll be hosting a seminar on starting your business. We’ll be talking about considerations in starting a business, we’ll be talking about validating an idea, identifying your target market customers and funding your business. I think it would be a great idea, if you’re thinking about starting your own business, to come to that seminar. The seminar starts at 9:30am and runs until 11:30am, so a couple hour on that seminar. And then we’ll stick around for a couple hours in the afternoon, from Noon-3pm, to do some one-on-consulting."
Again, the Starting and Growing You Own Business Seminar is being held Thursday, January 30th at the Loyal City Hall from 9:30am-11:30am and private appointments with consultants can be scheduled from Noon-3pm. Please contact the Clark County Economic Development Corporation and Tourism Bureau at 715-255-9100 to learn more or schedule an appointment. You can also contact them via email at [email protected].
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.