What Do You Want from the SBA?
UPDATE April 1, 2009 at 8:00PM: The live “Roadmap to the New SBA” webcast took place today and was broadcast on SBTV.com.
You can watch the archived broadcast here:
http://www.sbtv.com/SpecialPrograms/AmexOpenForum/
You can read the Twitter discussion that was held during the live webcast here:
http://twitter.com/timeline/search?q=SBAMAP
Thank you for your comments and questions here, on Twitter and on Facebook — as well as those that you emailed to me. I’m pleased to say that a number of questions that Small Business Trends readers submitted were posed to the panel during the webcast — your voice WAS heard.
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ORIGINAL POST:
On Wednesday, April 1, 2009 there will be a live webcast on SBTV.com discussing what the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) can do to help small businesses.
It is expected that we will have a new SBA Chief confirmed the same day. Now is a great time to be heard about what you want from the SBA going forward.
As we’ve discussed here many times, there’s more to the SBA than loans. They offer educational programs, help fund the Small Business Development Centers, provide Web resources for entrepreneurs and biz owners, and more.
Here are 3 ways you can participate:
(1) Watch the live webcast
(2) Join us over at Twitter at the same time the webcast is going on – we’re inviting all members of the Small Business Trends community to join us for some “live tweeting.” Go to Tweetchat.com at 1:00pm Eastern, sign to Room #SBAMAP, and join in the discussion. It’s a way to be heard about what YOU want.
(3) Leave a comment below with any questions or comments for discussion – what would you want to see the SBA do for small businesses? Tell us and I’ll pass your questions along, or at the very least our esteemed tweeters will tweet about them.
Here are the Webcast details:
Insights from OPEN Forum: A Roadmap for the New SBA – the first in a series of small business panel discussions hosted by American Express OPEN.
Spurred by the confirmation hearing of Karen Mills as the new administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA), the panel will discuss:
- The state of small business
- What business owners need to know about government programs aimed at helping them
- What nominee Karen Mills and the Obama administration can do to help small business owners pave the road to economic recovery
WHO:
Insights from OPEN Forum panelists:
- Jeffrey A. Carr, Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurship and Executive Director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at New York University Stern School of Business
- Barbara Kasoff, President and CEO, and Co-Founder, of Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP); co-creator of Give Me 5: Education and Access for Women in Federal Contracts
- Ken Yancey, CEO of SCORE: Counselors to America’s Small Business
- Sharon Brown, small business owner representing EOSS, Inc., a New Jersey-based environmental engineering firm; Make Mine a Million $ Business awardee (www.makemineamillion.org)
- John Battelle, moderator; small business expert and founder and chairman of Federated Media Publishing
WHEN:
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 from 1 – 2 pm Eastern
Founder of Marketing Professor
The Franchise King
Founder of Small Business Finance Forum
I am not sure that I will be able to attend the webinar. I am interested to learn more about the Small Business Development Centers.
I am a very big supporter of the loan programs from the SBA and the SBA itself. I have great hope that this administration will support the SBA to the level of their campaign promises.
At this point, the efforts of the Congress and the President have been inadequate. The $35,000 ARC Stabilization program excludes most current SBA Loan Borrowers and the eligibility will depend of the definition of “viable”. The again, a “viable” business probably wouldn’t need a loan. There have been very few effective measures to help small business enacted, so far.
I would like to see the President use the SBA to help those struggling Small Businesses in a way similar to how the Government has helped struggling homeowners stay in their home. While the main efforts to help Small Businesses have focused on opening credit markets and promoting new lending, it is the existing Small Businesses who have been largely ignored. There have been more than 500,000 SBA 7A loans approved in the last 5 years alone, and there is not one program designed to help any of these businesses that are struggling. My company works with current SBA Loan holders helping them with Loan Restructuring and Loan Refinance, but they need to make it easier for the SBA to enable options for loan and financial relief easier to achieve.
Thanks
Neal Gordon
ngordon@businessborrowersalliance.org
Amen to what Neal said. I can’t attend the event either – I’ll be working in my small business. From that perspective, it seems as though there are many more hoops to jump through if you’re trying to get $35,000 or less than if you’re the recipient of billions in bailout funds. But then, I’m not too big to fail. I’m just small enough to pay my taxes and serve my customers.
Three things will make the SBA an incredible success:
1. KISS – keep forms, processes, websites, and everything else AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE. Make the SBA the poster child for SIMPLE.
2. Fund (guarantee…) Small Business Loans QUICKLY. Make sure your partner banks and other lenders keep their forms to 2 pages and approve or not with specific reasons within a week. Better to fund too many than too few…
3. OPEN – keep all SBA moves completely open on the web. No surprises.
After studying the role technology and social media played in President Obama’s winning the presidential election, I would be interested to see if the SBA has any special plans for educating and assisting small businesses in utilizing social media to grow their businesses.
Thanks!
I will not be able to attend. But the issue I find to be singularly most important is health insurance coverage. The SBA should create an insurance plan that all self-employed persons and business with under 35 employees can join at highly competitive rates. This alone would encourage entrepreneurship. Many people would like to launch a business and are willing to take that financial risk, but can not afford to risk the health of themselves and their family. What’s more, existing small businesses are being crushed by the costs of health care. If small business and entrepreneurship are the future of the country, we have to fix this as soon as possible.
What about microloans? The SBA could help many more businesses with microloans than 7a loans.
[...] was held on April 1 along with simultaneous discussion on Twitter.