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July 2007
Volume 1, Issue 4
Summertime and we're still living
C7 Kicks off in July
3 Million Small Business Owners Can't be Wrong
Unity Unites the Passions of Three Entrepreneurs
McLean County Chamber of Commerce supports the Illinois SBDC at Illinois State
No more ugly financial statements!
Training Programs
in 2007: 22
Number of Participants
in 2007: 343
% Women: 32%
% Minorities: 48%
% Already in Business: 31%
You may not know it to look at me, but I love to fish. As a child I would get up early and go fishing with my father and siblings. But I must admit that as an adult, I’m a lazy fisher, preferring to use a bobber rather than cast out continually. Instead, I prefer to sit back and wait, hoping that we can catch dinner (which I’ll have to clean and cook). Fishing teaches me patience, a virtue I am in short supply of. A frequent prayer of mine is "God give me patience and give it to me NOW." I'm still waiting.
Unfortunately now I really need that patience as we wait for the Illinois State legislature to pass a state budget, which impacts all state funded programs including the Illinois Small Business Development Center at Illinois State University...
C7, the unique new program developed by the Illinois SBDC at ISU and the Economic Development Council (EDC) of Bloomington-Normal, will kick off with a reception on Wednesday, July 25 at Central Station from 5:30-7:30 pm. C7 provides small and medium sized business owners the opportunity to be mentored by a seasoned business person.
The mentorship experience is conducted in a group setting with five other individuals seeking the same mentorship experience. C7 groups will meet each month for a period of 9 months to discuss a wide variety of business issues.
With over 3 million small business customers and 230,000 accountants, QuickBooks is the #1 rated and recommended small business financial management software year after year. Small business owners frequently use QuickBooks to perform the day-to-day bookkeeping. The problem has been the lack of training available to learn how to use the program.
The Illinois Small Business Development Center at Illinois State is offering Hands-On QuickBooks training in a one day event led by Rob Smith, a CPA, QuickBooks ProAdvisor® and partner at Gordon, Stockman & Waugh, P.C. Rob’s experience with small businesses and QuickBooks will provide you with better ways to set-up and run QuickBooks.
A Cosmetology school licensed by the State of Illinois, Unity College of Cosmetology opened its doors for its first class of students in March 2007. But this dream for three cosmetologists was only in its infancy when the business owners were referred to the Illinois Small Business Development Center at Illinois State in September of 2006.
"When Teresa, Phyllis, and Fran first came to us, they had an idea, but no plan to bring it to reality," said Illinois SBDC at Illinois State Director Elizabeth Binning. "We walked them through the process and gave them a realistic idea of what a commercial lender would expect from them."
The McLean County Chamber of Commerce has been a sponsor of the Illinois Small Business Development Center at ISU since its inception. This private membership organization has served the community over 100 years and assisted in its positive economic development.
The Chamber continues to practice its mission of being the business voice in the halls of government at all levels as well as the streets of our community.
In our line of work, we see a lot of ugly financial statements. Not ugly in the sense that the business is performing poorly (well, we see some of those too!) but ugly in the sense that they contain glaring bookkeeping errors. We suspect there are several reasons for this. One is the proliferation of software that makes doing the books yourself attainable for almost anyone with basic computer skills. Answer a few interactive questions, choose from the drop down list of industry choices and you're off and running with your very own profit and loss statement. Press a few more buttons, and voila, instant balance sheet.
The other reason is that many business owners only consult accounting professionals at year-end to figure out how to reduce taxes. While we're usually all for saving money (and paying no more taxes than absolutely necessary), this approach can cost dearly in the long run.
The Illinois Small Business Development Center is funded in part through a cooperative agreement
with the U.S. Small Business Administration in partnership
with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and Illinois State University.
All SBA programs are extended to the public on a nondiscriminatory basis.