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Help
for small businesses in North Florida, across the State and around
the Nation.
Small Business Development Centers have
assisted hundreds of thousands of potential and existing business owners
by providing the management advice, training and information they need to
start, grow, and profit. With funding from the U.S. Small Business
Administration and partners ranging from institutions of higher learning
to state agencies to municipalities, to private organizations, SBDCs are
able to offer this management assistance to business owners at little or
no cost.
Why the SBDC?
More than 90 percent of all businesses
in the U.S. are small. Small businesses are truly the backbone of
our economy, employing more than 60 percent of all workers and creating
80 percent of all new jobs. (For more stats on the importance of
small business, check out the U.S. Small Business
Administration.) Yet small business owners face some tough challenges. The
primary causes of small business failure are undercapitalization and management
inexperience. If small businesses are the engine driving our economy,
we can't afford to have them stall. As a result, Congress created
the Small Business Development Center program in 1980 to provide this much-needed
management assistance that many small business could not afford in the private
sector. The SBDC at University of North Florida actually started in 1976
as part of an eight-state pilot program, giving it the distinction of being
one of the longest running SBDC programs in the nation.
How
can the SBDC Help?
SBDC programs deliver up-to-date management
advice, training and information to help business owners make sound decisions
and to assist potential owners in getting started on the right foot.
Start-up assistance begins with a menu
of SBDC workshops. Practical,
convenient, concise and affordable, these group training programs cover
topics from STARTUP basics, to marketing, accounting/record keeping, financing,
and taxes.
Business plan assistance walks start-ups
and existing business owners through the process using a low-cost interactive
tool, Active
Plans, designed to get your plan down on paper. Review of draft
business plans and feedback on the plans strengths and weaknesses is just
one of the counseling services
available in the SBDC at no charge.
One of the critical issues potential and
existing business owners face is financing the
start up or growth of a business. Access to capital is provided through
the U.S. Small Business Administration and
the Small Business Resource Network.
Existing business
owners interested in reviewing strategic business
processes, increasing sales and/or improving the
bottom line can take advantage of the SMART management audit, MarketPlace sales leads, and/or the
fisCAL Physical financial analysis.
Does
the SBDC Work?
The SBDC's performance is assessed based
on the economic impact its customers achieve. Surveys consistently
show that businesses assisted by the SBDC outperform non-assisted businesses,
creating three times more jobs and increasing sales three times faster. For
every federal dollar invested in the SBDC program, nearly $10 is returned
in the form of tax revenue. Not a bad Return on Investment! The
University of North Florida carefully tracks its own Economic
Impact and documents Success
Stories.
Where
is the SBDC located?
The Small Business Development Center at University of North Florida serves 18 counties from offices
in Jacksonville, Gainesville and Ocala and is part of the Florida SBDC Network and the national Association of Small Business Development Centers.
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