SBDC marks 25 years of helping small businesses

In December, the silver anniversary was commemorated at a holiday-party celebration that included a proclamation about the center’s accomplishments from Springfield City Council.

The center provides training and consulting for small businesses, as well as services such as financial analyses, trademark searches, marketing research and customized business training. One-on-one consulting is free; prices for other services vary, according to Rayanna Anderson, who became the center’s director in July and has worked there for 17 years.

Supporting small business

The Association of Small-Business Development Centers was created by Congress in 1980, Anderson said, and it is part of MSU’s College of Business Administration. Funding for the center comes from a federal grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration, matching funds from MSU and in-kind support from businesses and the community.

The federal grant, matching funds and income from training and services totals roughly $250,000 a year, Anderson said, but in-kind support boosts the annual budget to nearly $400,000.

There are 10 SBDCs in Missouri, not including satellite locations, such as an office in West Plains affiliated with MSU’s campus there.

The SBDC’s nine-member staff includes full-time consultants and graduate students. Businesspeople from the community also are brought in to lend their real-world experience to training, Anderson said.

The October addition of consultant Isabel Isenhauer to the SBDC staff brings big-business experience to the lineup.

Eisenhauer has 19 years of experience with two Fortune 100 corporations. She worked at Hewlett-Packard Co. in several areas, including marketing, and at Northrop Grumman Corp. – formerly Litton – in Springfield until that division was closed last summer.

Still, small business isn’t new to Eisenhauer.

“Prior to going into corporate America, I actually owned a small management consulting firm,” Eisenhauer said. That company, Eisenhauer Management Consulting, was located in Eisenhauer’s native state of Arizona, where she also taught business courses at Northland Pioneer College, a community College in Holbrook, Ariz.

Her exposure to SBDC clients so far has been limited as she becomes acclimated to the job, but Eisenhauer said she is excited about the position.

“I’m hoping that my corporate experience will be translated into the ability to help small businesses, because I have a broader range of experiences,” she said.

Some business challenges, she noted, are the same for companies of all sizes.

Among them is an understanding and close monitoring of the financial side of the business.

“Managing the business side of the house – keeping track of cash, understanding the flow of cash and the need for asset purchases and managing the liability … is always a challenge for a small-businessperson, but that also is a challenge in a larger setting as well,” Eisenhauer said.

There’s also the relationship factor: Eisenhauer said that all businesses are built on relationships.

Eisenhauer, who holds a bachelor of science degree in business administration with an emphasis in accounting and a master’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in management information systems from Northern Arizona University, is fluent in Spanish, and she thinks that will be useful given southwest Missouri’s growth.

Eisenhauer joined Litton in 1996 as a sales forecaster. Litton was purchased by Northrop Grumman in 2001, lending global flavor to Eisenhauer’s experience.

“The focus of the business was completely different,” Eisenhauer said. “I was able to expand on my Hewlett Packard experience to help the local division, and I also reported to and worked with a manager who was actually stationed in Scotland.”

Her duties at both Hewlett-Packard and Northrop Grumman also added another skill to her repertoire: working one-on-one with clients.

“Just having that exposure helps, because there will be questions, and having exposure to other cultures and other business techniques always is something that’s a good thing for a consultant to be able to share with prospective clients,” she said.

Bringing the right people on board at the SBDC is important to its commitment to providing quality training, consultation and assistance to area entrepreneurs, according to Anderson.

“That’s going to result in economic impact. That’s really my focus,” Anderson said. “What we document on economic impact is loans, investments, sales increases, businesses created or acquired, but probably our biggest focus is on job creation.”

In addition to working directly with businesses, SBDC staff members work with MSU COBA entrepreneurship classes.

The center collaborates with students in the beginning entrepreneurship course to provide feasibility studies.

“They create a feasibility analysis for them. It’s competitive, with two teams working on each business,” Anderson said. “At the end, the client gets this great feasibility study with all the background research, and they also do a presentation that gives them a go or a no-go. We’re always looking for good business ideas to incorporate into that class.”

Another academic project, launched in the spring 2008 semester, entails working with local businesses on a Strategic Management Analysis and Review Tool, or SMART report, an analysis based on the same criteria as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The analyses focuses on leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; human resource focus; and process management and business results.

Anderson said the class is working with Mark Nix of Lumix Electrical Inc. in Nixa this semester.