St. George gets an average of 255 sunny days per year. But the dispositions at the Southern Utah office of the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) radiate positivity about St. George business prospects every day.
“The future down here is very bright,” said Lennart Erickson, SBDC associate regional director. Despite the nationwide struggles with the pandemic, he said “. . . it’s not doom and gloom. We are resourceful and businesses have learned to pivot. St. George remains a very positive place for growth.”
A wide array of free services
For more than two decades, the Southern Utah SBDC has given entrepreneurs help clearly regulatory hurdles and cutting through red tape with a wide variety of services – all free of charge – that include the following:
- Creating a business plan
- Finance and capital
- Marketing and sales
- Budgeting
- Accounting
- Tax planning
- Cash flow management
- e-commerce
- Buying and selling a business
Over the past seven years, the St. George SBDC has helped more than 350 businesses launch.
Everyone is welcome
Jeff Mather, SBDC regional director, said “we take anyone who walks through the door looking for business services. Our customers range from someone with $1,000 coming in to a company with a multi-million dollar business development investment.”
Erickson told the St. George News that the first step for many walking through the door is the creation of a clear business plan that can be used to secure funding.
“You have to be able to lay out sales expectation and cost of sales to investors or to the banks,” he said.
We will have more on the Southern Utah SBDC in an upcoming post. Please check back.