Center helps budding businesses bloom
by, Nathaniel Motshabi Outpost contributor
With assistance from the center, administered by the University of Nevada, Reno, she was able to open her own day care center this August in Dayton Valley, 50 miles southeast of Reno. Her day care center employs 16, not including Joyner, who pitches in after her full-time driver gets off duty.
"I got a lot of help from the small business center," Joyner said. "There are wonderful folks over there. They were very helpful. Everything went really well."
The center helped her put together a business plan that enabled her to obtain a bank loan to start her small business. She said it took a few weeks to get the paper work together to get financing for the day care center, which provides 105 children age 11 with full-day care or a place to go after school.
How the center helps (top)
Joyner is part of the growing number of enterprising Nevadans who crave self-employment. Many of them, 1,212 last year to be exact, visit the business development center for general business consulting, professional development training, geographic information services, environmental counseling, technical research and economic information.
The number of clients served by the center - which has offices in Carson City, Elko, Fallon, Gardnerville, Las Vegas, Reno, Winnemucca and another one planned for Henderson - has more than doubled since it opened its doors in 1985.
The organization, funded by the federal Small Business Administration and the Nevada legislature, helps people who wish to start small businesses and those who started them but met insurmountable problems, said Winnie Moore, the center's assistant director.
"Our function is to provide guidance and non-aligned opinion," she said. "We advise them on how they can make their business plans work."
Although big employers such as International Gaming Technology and the casinos often grab the spotlight, small businesses employ the vast majority of workers in Washoe County. The 1996 issue of Nevada Statistical Abstract reports that 9,258 firms, about 96 percent of all Washoe County businesses, employed fewer than 50 employees in 1995. Fifty-four percent of the county's firms employed between one and four people.
The Nevada Small Business Development Center helps people who want to join those ranks package their business ideas to increase their chance of being considered for a loan. It helps small business people with market analyses.
It also sensitizes them, through workshops, on the environmental aspects of their potential or existing businesses. The number of people who attended the workshops and seminars sponsored by the center has increased dramatically, from 406 in 1985 to 3,943 in 1997.
The workshops include topics such as "Business Environmental Program," "Communicating Quality Customer Service," "Strategic Thinking: New Limits to Old Thinking," "Positives of Adversity: A Different Approach to Living and Working," "Small Business Innovation Research and Development" and "Dealing with Difficult People."
The center spent $6.6 million to create 593 jobs and save 68 others last year, according to its 1997 report. It also handled 3,394 data inquiries, 150 training events and counseled 34 percent women-owned businesses.
The report cites Riverside Fitness in Winnemucca, Compliance Alliance in North Las Vegas, White Lotus-Professional Cleaning in Reno, Gold Strikes Lanes in Elko, Computer I of Las Vegas and Brent Wright, Architectural Engineer in Las Vegas as 1997 success stories.
A success story waiting to happen (top)
Joyner and Shawna Holt of Reno might soon be counted among the successful clients that the center advised. The center helped Holt, like most other potential business owners, overcome her biggest problem: "Definitely money," she said tersly.
Holt said she applied for a bank loan in June to set up a ceramic shop in Northwest Reno. The bank approved the loan four months later.
She applied for $20,000 with the help of the center. In addition, she was able to raise $14,000 to secure a building for her business -- Shawna's Ceramic World -- where King's Row meets McCarran Boulevard.
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Shawna Holt, who opend her business with a loan from the NSBDC, paints ceramics to sell in her shop. Photo by Teri Vance. |
Joyner was also fortunate to have the means to make progress with her small business venture while her loan application was being processed.
She used a home-equity loan to get started. Then she depended on collecting fees to keep going. Others have not been so successful.
The center doesn't always work (top)
Linda Totty of Sun Valley approached the center with the hope of beating the financial odds that stood in her way of joining Joyner and Holt in self-employment.
Her first attempt to start a health food store and a juice bar drew a blank, but the go-getter is determined to make one more try.
"I'm not giving up on this idea," she said. "But for now, I need an income to get back on my feet."
Totty is one of the keen would-be entrepreneurs whose problems range from cash flow to labor issues to product marketing. She is one of anumber of those who have not been able to succeed because of these problems. And these are the problems the center helps budding business people tackle.
Totty said she first approached Bank of America for a loan but was turned down because she could not raise the 30 percent of the loan she needed from the bank. She then asked for a loan through a Women's Qualification Program administered by the center. She did not succeed with that loan either.
"They said I was asking for too much and told me to reduce the amount," she said. "When I submitted my application a second time, I was shut out because federal guidelines had changed. I will never recommend anybody to go to that program.
Like several other people, Totty approached the center for assistance with the not-so-easy modalities of setting up a small business. She said she had to get a job in the hope of making a financial rebound. She must raise enough money to contribute to what the bank can lend her.
Cash flow makes the difference (top)
Moore said cash flow -- whether a loan or money to run a business -- is a headache to small businesses in Nevada.
"Most people don't have money," she said. "Some come here when they are in trouble with their businesses."
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Graph by Nevada Small Business Development Center. 1997 Annual Report. |
The SBA also estimates that at least one in seven small businesses will fail. More than 1 million small firms out of 23 million closed their doors in 1996, with 124,000 of them in bankruptcy or owing debts, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported earlier this year.
Small businesses collapse because they fail to find a market niche, owners lack management experience, poor business practices and under-capitalization or the owner is a personality not suited for entrepreneurial self-employment, the paper reported.
Holt suffered similar problems in her start-up, falling four months behind schedule as she waited for her loan.
"It takes so long," she said. "And, it has been a nightmare ever since. It has been depressing and hard."
But now that she's up and running, she's determined that her business won't be one of the statistics.
Posted Nov.11, 1998
Copyright 1998 Nevada Oupost
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