Sometimes, you actually get results

Posted on | April 30, 2008 | Comments Off

Say, I never did give you an update on how my talk in Maryland went, did it?

I did the local government types a disservice when I implied that they were a pack of smoke-stack chasers. They seemed really interested in addressing the microbusiness owner’s biggest headache: access to capital. More on that in a few minutes.

The highlight of the event, for me, was the way the microbusiness owners in the room were able to relate to so much of what I said and to take that crucial step of identifying themselves as microbusiness owners in their own heads. Once I started talking about the particular characteristics of a microbusiness and how operating one was significantly different from operating a larger small business, I didn’t have to convince anybody.

One of them said to me after the Q&A period, “You know, I never thought of myself as a microbusiness owner, had never even heard the word before. But it’s one of those things where you know it only you don’t know you know it until somebody says it.”

Another pair of women approached me to tell me that they had driven all the way down from Wilmington for the event and to thank me for making the trip worth their while. They had tried to get help from the nearest SBDC, only to find all the business management training materials geared toward larger small businesses (and particularly making sense for manufacturing concerns) — completely useless for their service microbusinesses.

They said they had a handful of fellow microbusiness owners they turned to regularly for advice and brainstorming. When they found out that more than 90% of U.S. businesses were micros, they were both amazed and relieved. It let them know there wasn’t anything particularly weird about them.

It was the weirdest thing but, even after I sat down in the audience for the remainder of the program, the speakers — representatives from participating organizations in what they call the Cecil County Business Partners — interrupted themselves several times to ask further questions of me.

It seems that what I had to say about the Microloan program piqued their interest, too, in addition to the advice I gave them: if you want to put together an access to capital program that really meets the needs of your local microbusinesses, then you need to rent a room somewhere and sit everybody down at a table — including some microbusiness owners — and let the microbusiness owners tell the bankers what they need.

The CCBP members seemed particularly enamored of that idea and I left them evidently making plans to arrange just such a meeting. I won’t know unless I follow up how that turns out for them but I will tell you that I came away from the whole thing feeling like I had actually accomplished something great for microbusinesses in Cecil County, Maryland.

It occurs to me that, if we are going to deal with this issue of access to capital for microbusinesses, we might get better results turning to local government rather than federal government. The feds will catch on eventually but they generally don’t like what they consider to be experimentations in democracy, preferring to leave that brave and innovative stuff to local governments.

So, on top of feeling like I actually got something done, I think I’ve learned something.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

[tags]microbusiness, economic development, access to capital, Cecil County, MD[/tags]


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Category: Ego Fodder, Rants and Ruminations


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