Web site expansion works for smaller businesses

Thanks to a recent partnership between the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce and Washington, D.C.-based ChamberBiz, there's a new Internet resource available to small business owners and operators.

Designed with information and services needed to solve key management problems, this new business tool can be accessed by visiting the chamber's Web site and clicking on the bright blue ChamberBiz icon.

"We wanted to expand the information and services offered on our Web site," said Brad Bodenhausen, senior vice president for public affairs and communications for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce. "We felt that joining ChamberBiz would give our members access to more information on a national scale than we could provide locally."

The idea for ChamberBiz originated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Robert Hodierne, executive editor for ChamberBiz, said the national chamber joined forces with Telcom Ventures LLC, a venture capital firm from Alexandria, Va., to form ChamberBiz, a for-profit Internet portal serving small businesses.

"Telecom Ventures put up the money to create the organization in October last year, and by December the Web site was in place," Hodierne said. "The Web site that went up at the end of the year was just a place holder. It wasn't until this April that we really got started promoting ChamberBiz."

Since then, Hodierne said, things have gone well. So well that last week ChamberBiz added its 300th partner: the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce.

"Our research tells us small-business owners and operators are swamped," Hodierne said. "This service may not be the kind of thing small-business owners would imagine existed, but when you talk to them about the things we're offering, it doesn't take them long to see the advantages of ChamberBiz."

Many small businesses got their start because the owner loved the type of work they were involved in, Hodierne said. But what business owners soon discover, he added, is that the work they love is only a small part of what they have to accomplish each day.

"They have all these other things payroll, taxes, and marketing, for example they have to do," he said. "Much of that has nothing in common with the work their business does, and in many cases they don't have the training to do it properly."

Hodierne said ChamberBiz offers solutions to help business owners deal with those chores.

"We can't make them go away," Hodierne said. "But we can make them easier."

Because small-business owners and operators aren't experts in many of the areas they operate in, Hodierne said ChamberBiz can serve as a source of knowledge when questions arise.

"Users can e-mail questions to a tax expert, a small business law expert or a regulatory expert," Hodierne said. "We honestly try to provide answers to every question we receive."

At some Web sites this type of inquiry might end up in someone's trash bin. Hodierne said that's not the case at ChamberBiz.

"One of these gentlemen is on our staff; the other two are on retainer," he said. "Although he's not well known to the general public, our tax expert, Michael Mares, is a big name in the world of taxes. He sits on the advisory board for the Internal Revenue Service and has written several books for tax professionals. And he's there for our users."

Meant to function as a one-stop shop for small-business owners and operators, Hodierne said ChamberBiz includes links to government Web sites, online stores and the BizCenter, where users can recruit employees, look for help with money management or get start-up assistance.

Web Freeman, communication coordinator for the Springfield chamber, said the service was added to the chamber's Web site less than a month ago. There really hasn't been a campaign to publicize it, he added, but there have already been a number of questions about ChamberBiz.

"We don't have usage numbers at this point," Freeman said. "But it's already starting to attract attention."

Freeman said one advantage to the service, the first of many new features to be added to the chamber's Web site in coming months, was that users could just log on and use it as is, or they could "customize it and make it their portal to the Internet."

Bodenhausen said he believes local businesses will find ChamberBiz helpful.

"We'd like members to bookmark our Web page and use it daily, whether they are accessing ChamberBiz, stock information or just catching up on daily business news," Bodenhausen said. "Hopefully, they will find goods, services and ways to connect to other business that are helpful to them."