Latest / WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio / Talk Line: Helping businesses grow with SVCC's Small Business and Development Center

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Talk Line: Helping businesses grow with SVCC's Small Business and Development Center · WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio

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  Speaker 1: Good morning, Soak Valley. You've joined the Waking crew here
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  Speaker 1: on FM ninety five one and AM fourteen sixty WIXN.
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  Speaker 1: It's eight fifteen on your Thursday morning. We're almost two
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  Speaker 1: the week, but you know what that means. It's time
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  Speaker 1: for talk line. And I'm joined in the booth today
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  Speaker 1: by our good friends from Sock Valley Community College, but
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  Speaker 1: the first time at least for me and the booth.
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  Speaker 2: Kim E.
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  Speaker 1: Wilson, ma'am, how are you today?
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  Speaker 3: I'm well, how are you?
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  Speaker 1: I'm very very well. And as I understand that you
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  Speaker 1: run the college's Small Business and Development Center.
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  Speaker 2: Is that right?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I oversee the SBDC along with me economic developments
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  Speaker 3: and some other duties for the college.
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  Speaker 1: So and it's a wonderful resource resource, and I'd like
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  Speaker 1: to start out while I have the presence of mind
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  Speaker 1: because I just jump in and.
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  Speaker 2: I started talking.
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  Speaker 1: You're great, and I've covered the SBDC during my time
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  Speaker 1: as a reporter. But for those who don't know, what
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  Speaker 1: is the SBDC and what.
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  Speaker 2: Does it offer?
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  Speaker 3: So, the Illinois Small Business Development Center is one of
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  Speaker 3: about forty five centers across the state of Illinois that
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  Speaker 3: is dedicated to providing no cost confidential business advising for
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  Speaker 3: small businesses. So we will do anything from trying to
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  Speaker 3: help you figure out a name for your business if
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  Speaker 3: you don't know, if you're not sure if you want
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  Speaker 3: to do a full time business or a hobby, where
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  Speaker 3: does that lie? We kind of help you navigate that
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  Speaker 3: and make that decision. We can help you get your
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  Speaker 3: LLC and articles of incorporation that you might need to
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  Speaker 3: figure out your legal structure, business plans, that's probably the
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  Speaker 3: one we're the most known for. And then pretty much
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  Speaker 3: anything in between, including you know, if you are looking
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  Speaker 3: to expand, if you're looking to retire and maybe move on.
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  Speaker 3: Can we help in those services? Absolutely?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that, and it's it's such an important
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  Speaker 1: thing because I think a lot of us I would imagine,
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  Speaker 1: maybe not everyone, but I know even I've at one time,
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  Speaker 1: you know, you think I could start a business I
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  Speaker 1: could run, And usually it starts with an idea, right absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: but ideas and the execution of really running a business.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes people miss a lot of things in between.
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  Speaker 3: Right absolutely. And I think sometimes we serve as a
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  Speaker 3: therapy piece because we're a safe space where people can
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  Speaker 3: kind of just let it all out and we can say, Okay,
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  Speaker 3: what are your top issues or priorities or challenges this week,
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  Speaker 3: and we can kind of help them navigate some of
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  Speaker 3: those things. But I think always one of the first
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  Speaker 3: questions we ask is you know, what's your why why
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  Speaker 3: do you want to do this? And really drill down
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  Speaker 3: to is this something? I think sometimes there's a fun,
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  Speaker 3: sort of lofty goal of if you are a small
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  Speaker 3: business owner, you have plenty of time and you can
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  Speaker 3: go do what you want on your own time, and well,
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  Speaker 3: yes there is some of that, but to be really successful,
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  Speaker 3: I think one of the things we try to drill
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  Speaker 3: down with our clients is, you know, are you ready
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  Speaker 3: to do this twenty four hours a day, seven days
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  Speaker 3: a week. You know, even when you're off, you're on.
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  Speaker 3: So I think those are important conversations that we help
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  Speaker 3: our businesses have.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, running a business is not just a nine to
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  Speaker 1: five gig. That's I mean, your story you know, or
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  Speaker 1: what have you has its hours. But you know, after
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  Speaker 1: the lights go off, who's you know? You got to
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  Speaker 1: clean the place, right unless you're already big enough that
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  Speaker 1: you're hiring cleaning crews and employees, And even then you've
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  Speaker 1: got to manage this stuff. You've got to schedule this stuff,
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  Speaker 1: you've got payroll to think about insurances like, there's so
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  Speaker 1: much more.
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  Speaker 3: Right, absolutely, And I think that's the fun thing about
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  Speaker 3: the expertise level that we have in our office. So
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  Speaker 3: we do have an insurance expert. If you are a
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  Speaker 3: business that has quick books that you're using and you
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  Speaker 3: get stock, which is not an uncommon problem, we have
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  Speaker 3: a certified quick books expert on hand. So all you
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  Speaker 3: have to do is make a phone call to us
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  Speaker 3: register as a client. It's very simple, and then we
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  Speaker 3: schedule an appointment and most of the time we're working virtual.
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  Speaker 3: We found that that was actually a benefit of COVID
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  Speaker 3: given the GG area that we cover. And again, how
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  Speaker 3: a lot of our small businesses are one in two
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  Speaker 3: person shops. They don't have the extra time maybe to
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  Speaker 3: cut out an hour of their day, so we can
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  Speaker 3: do virtual and make it easier for them to access
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  Speaker 3: the services. We can even do after hours or we
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  Speaker 3: have done weekend appointments to help accommodate as well.
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  Speaker 1: That's terrific, And you know, we could probably go on
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  Speaker 1: for most of the morning talking about what the SBDC offers,
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  Speaker 1: but you want to talk about a very important event
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  Speaker 1: that's coming up this month.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we have a big day on March eighteenth, the
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  Speaker 3: third Wednesday of every year is National SBDC Day, so
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  Speaker 3: it's celebrated across the country. And this year we have
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  Speaker 3: two fun events that we would encourage everybody to come
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  Speaker 3: out for. The first one is kicking off at nine
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  Speaker 3: am and it will be in Room two FO nine,
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  Speaker 3: which is on the second floor of the college, and
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  Speaker 3: it is an AI workshop. So how to incorporate AI
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  Speaker 3: into your small business and that can be anything from
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  Speaker 3: just putting in some information to get a general Facebook
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  Speaker 3: post that you want to do, because a lot of
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  Speaker 3: our small businesses work on social media a lot and
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  Speaker 3: use that as a primary marketing tool, or it can
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  Speaker 3: be even more complicated than that. And so it's going
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  Speaker 3: to be a fun exercise that we really just have
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  Speaker 3: an opportunity to have our speaker, Art van Zoon, who
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  Speaker 3: is actually at the college as well and dabbles a
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  Speaker 3: little bit in AI, just give some basic tips on
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  Speaker 3: what it is, how do we use it, and how
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  Speaker 3: can we incorporate it into our small business community.
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  Speaker 1: That's really important because you know, just like every major
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  Speaker 1: technological advancement that's come our way. You know, you get
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  Speaker 1: some people who might be a little afraid of it
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  Speaker 1: or like, oh, I would never do that. At least
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  Speaker 1: educating yourself on how to use it and how to
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  Speaker 1: use it to benefit you is so important and so
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  Speaker 1: I absolutely love that you're doing this.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's critical, really, and I think what we
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  Speaker 3: saw again during COVID was the businesses that are the
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  Speaker 3: strongest are the ones we're able to adapt and sort
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  Speaker 3: of change. And again it's sort of like you mentioned,
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  Speaker 3: an ever changing economy and ever changing world and so
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  Speaker 3: to embrace that technology. And we've even found where some
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  Speaker 3: businesses are using either younger sons or daughters, grandchildren, nieces,
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  Speaker 3: nephews that have sort of more experience with some of
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  Speaker 3: those things tools to be able to incorporate those into
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  Speaker 3: how they're doing their stuff. So that's kind of exciting
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  Speaker 3: to see that intergenerational work as well.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know you don't have to for those
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  Speaker 1: creative types out there, it's not that you've got to
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  Speaker 1: let this take over that part. There's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: menial tasks that would take up chunks of your day
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  Speaker 1: that you can learn to use AI for to kind
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  Speaker 1: of like an unpaid employee one hundred percent.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it's just starting to learn. I
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  Speaker 3: think it's kind of peeling off that band aid, if
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  Speaker 3: you will, of like, oh, this is scary, but it's
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  Speaker 3: really not. It can be very simple. I mean I've
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  Speaker 3: even looked at it. I've used it. I've told people
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  Speaker 3: this story before, Like nobody could agree in my house
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  Speaker 3: and what to have for dinner. So I took a
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  Speaker 3: picture of my open refrigerator and then I put the
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  Speaker 3: picture into like chat GPT and said, give me three
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  Speaker 3: meal ideas that I can do with this, you know,
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  Speaker 3: with these ingredients, and it gave me a recipe. So
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  Speaker 3: I'm not sure if it was a keeper recipe, but
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  Speaker 3: it worked for what we were doing. So it's just
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  Speaker 3: kind of random how you can incorporate it into things.
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  Speaker 1: We are never going to have the dinner time to
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  Speaker 1: backle in my house again, I've never heard of that,
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  Speaker 1: and I love it, Honey. That's what we're doing from
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  Speaker 1: now on. Don't ask me as chat GPT.
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  Speaker 2: You're welcome. What is the other event that you all
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  Speaker 2: have going on?
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  Speaker 3: And I will say for that when you do need
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  Speaker 3: to register so you can go to our website SBDC
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  Speaker 3: at SVCC dot edu and register for that event but
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  Speaker 3: it's no cost. And then right immediately following that event
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  Speaker 3: at ten, we have a coffee and connections with our
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  Speaker 3: SBDC staff, some clients that we've utilized, and becomes access
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  Speaker 3: stories that are going to be on hand just to
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  Speaker 3: kind of learn a little bit more about our services.
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  Speaker 3: So if you are interested in starting a business, if
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  Speaker 3: you have one and have questions, that's a fantastic time
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  Speaker 3: for our lending community, our chambers, our economic development groups.
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  Speaker 3: If you know of someone that is looking at space
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  Speaker 3: or kind of in that stage where they're in between.
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  Speaker 3: We even like to talk about the shops at Grand
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  Speaker 3: and Plaza that in Sterling that are kind of in
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  Speaker 3: that medium stage of do I want brick and mortar
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  Speaker 3: or not, Like, this is a great time to come
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  Speaker 3: out and talk to us and just see what we're
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  Speaker 3: all about. So again that's from ten to twelve on
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  Speaker 3: March eighteenth, and that event will be in the Dylan Mall.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I know you had me at coffee, but give
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  Speaker 1: me treats. Oh man, that's even better. I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: have to come up with a business just to have.
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  Speaker 3: A reason you can just come out and see it.
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  Speaker 2: See there you go.
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  Speaker 1: And I mean, this is what's important, is having these conversations,
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  Speaker 1: having this information, in this knowledge, you never know when
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  Speaker 1: you're going to use it. If you're somebody who who's
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  Speaker 1: been kind of on the fence, or you know you
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  Speaker 1: know someone, or maybe you have that idea, you feel
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  Speaker 1: that you're ready to go. I think this is really
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  Speaker 1: kind of the tipping point for people is to really
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  Speaker 1: get this information, make those connections, and then they can
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  Speaker 1: meet with you folks to make a plan.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I think that's the fun part of it.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, for all of us, I think part
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  Speaker 3: of it is we invest as much in your business
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  Speaker 3: as you are, so when we get you to that
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  Speaker 3: point where you are able to close on a building,
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  Speaker 3: or you're able to get that loan that you needed
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  Speaker 3: to take the next step, or even to open your doors,
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  Speaker 3: it's just as exciting for us as it is for
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  Speaker 3: them because we feel like, you know, we've been there
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  Speaker 3: every step of the way, and it's almost like a
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  Speaker 3: baby right, like you've seen it at every step. And
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  Speaker 3: I think for us, it's trying to encourage any business
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  Speaker 3: that hears this today or sees this later. You know
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  Speaker 3: that think of us as, like you said earlier, your
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  Speaker 3: unpaid resource or your bonus employee, and we're beyond the
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  Speaker 3: ribbon cutting. So at any stage, come to us, even
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  Speaker 3: if you don't know where to turn, Like we're the
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  Speaker 3: best place to start. We have a number of expertise
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  Speaker 3: areas between our staff, and we have wonderful staff. Justin Bergman,
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  Speaker 3: Pam Clodfelter, and Nancy Schaeffer all work with us. Nancy
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  Speaker 3: will kind of be the first person you talk to.
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  Speaker 3: She is our treash officer, so she gets your information,
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  Speaker 3: sets up your appointment, and then we go from there.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, you all have really been You've
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  Speaker 1: been doing this for a while now, and you've got
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  Speaker 1: so many success stories under your belt that you could
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  Speaker 1: speak of.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty amazing when you think about looking at
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  Speaker 3: the community and our footprint, like I mentioned earlier, is
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  Speaker 3: a little bit bigger than the college footprint just because
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  Speaker 3: of the nature of where we sit in the corner
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  Speaker 3: and where SBDC offices are located. But we have success
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  Speaker 3: stories across Lee Ogle, Carrol Whiteside, even Bureau and Henry County. Sometimes,
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  Speaker 3: so I think, is it Flynny's Diner downtown. They're a
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  Speaker 3: success story. They've been to the SBDC. We have other
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  Speaker 3: examples of businesses. Our newest one is a daycare in
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  Speaker 3: Morson that will be unveiled. I think it hit the
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  Speaker 3: website maybe yesterday. We have worked with a lot of
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  Speaker 3: service industries, music creatives, the new creative studio here in town,
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  Speaker 3: the new creative outlet that Reuters are doing. You know,
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  Speaker 3: those are the ones that we're really excited about. That Again,
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  Speaker 3: it's just coming from an idea or somebody sees a
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  Speaker 3: need and so I guess that's the second question Like
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  Speaker 3: that we always ask is not only why are you
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  Speaker 3: doing this, but are you filling a gap? Or does
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  Speaker 3: your product change something and help the community in some way.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that's the fun part and the more
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  Speaker 3: we get people to come out to these events and
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  Speaker 3: create connections. You may walk into that event and not
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  Speaker 3: realize that the Mayor of Dixon is going to be there,
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  Speaker 3: and suddenly you're in a corner talking to him over
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  Speaker 3: a cup of coffee and realize, well, maybe they have
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  Speaker 3: programs that can help you, or maybe there's a grant
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  Speaker 3: program through the City of Morson and somehow you're incorporated
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  Speaker 3: in that. Maybe you're not set on a location. So
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  Speaker 3: it's just fun to see how those things kind of
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  Speaker 3: organically happen when you get everybody into a room and
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  Speaker 3: everybody's excited about what they want to do.
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  Speaker 2: No, you're absolutely right.
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  Speaker 1: The power and the value of connection, I think is
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  Speaker 1: a lot is a lot of times people kind of
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  Speaker 1: undervalue it. You could already have, you know, maybe a
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  Speaker 1: solid business plan, idea, you're ready to roll.
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  Speaker 2: But you're absolutely right.
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  Speaker 1: You walk into the right meeting, the right event, and
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  Speaker 1: meet the right people and it can be it can
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  Speaker 1: be a game changer in what you're doing, just by
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  Speaker 1: having a conversation and making a connection with the right
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  Speaker 1: person that takes things to the next level for you.
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  Speaker 3: It's exciting and I think you know, we had a
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  Speaker 3: success story and Morson a few years ago with Refuse
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  Speaker 3: to Quit Fitness. So that story is the gentleman that
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  Speaker 3: owns it is a former CEO student. So if you're
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  Speaker 3: familiar with the CEO program, it helps young entrepreneurs kind
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  Speaker 3: of do their own mini business plan and then leads
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  Speaker 3: them to maybe a future career. Well, this indeed did happen,
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  Speaker 3: and so now he's come back, he's been a client
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  Speaker 3: of the SBDC. He's sort of seen that sort of
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  Speaker 3: program work and excited to see where his business continues
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  Speaker 3: to go. Art van Zudin, who is our speaker for
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  Speaker 3: the AI Small Business event. His wife Mattie is a
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  Speaker 3: former client. She opened Maddie Do Flowers, which is a
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  Speaker 3: wonderful store. So I mean, I think it's just again
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  Speaker 3: making those connections and making people aware and quite honestly
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  Speaker 3: thanking you for having us here to talk about this
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  Speaker 3: kind of stuff, to make these resources known.
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  Speaker 2: I just like putting out the infront. I'm not doing
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  Speaker 2: the hard work.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sitting in here, I play music, I have my coffee,
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  Speaker 1: and I get to have conversations with great people like
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  Speaker 1: you that are doing this hard work.
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  Speaker 2: I just like telling everybody about it.
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  Speaker 3: So we appreciate that. That's half the battle right there.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Kim, we're about out of time today. If anybody
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  Speaker 1: wants to find more information about anything we've talked about
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  Speaker 1: or the SBDC itself, what's the best way to do that?
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  Speaker 3: You can go to SBDC email us at SBDC at
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  Speaker 3: SBCC edu. You can put it in your Google search,
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: anything will find us. And if that doesn't work, you
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  Speaker 3: are always welcome to call my cell phone at eight
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  Speaker 3: one five six hundred sixty two sixty seven and we
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  Speaker 3: will match you up with whom you need to be
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  Speaker 3: paired with.
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  Speaker 1: Well, folks, there you have it. You have no reason,
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  Speaker 1: no excuse to say you don't know what to do,
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  Speaker 1: because they're happy to help you over at the SBDC. Kim,
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  Speaker 1: thank you so much, not just for coming in and
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  Speaker 1: sharing this information, but for all the work that you're
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  Speaker 1: doing out there helping businesses within the Sock Val and
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  Speaker 1: beyond just grow and really get there at their start.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Thank you, and I look forward
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  Speaker 3: to seeing everyone on March eighteenth at the college.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, Come on out, folks,