America's SBDC Blog - America's SBDC

America’s SBDC Blog

A “Forbes 100 Best Websites for Entrepreneurs”

5 Powerful Steps to High-Impact Financial Coaching for SBDC Advisors

July 19, 2024

By Barbara Nuss, CPA
Founder, Profit Soup

Some SBDC advisors are confident supporting clients with operational issues, marketing and brand strategies but struggle with conversations about financial goals and KPIs. Like the clients they support, not all advisors have strong financial backgrounds. But armed with a structured approach and some basic foundational knowledge, all SBDC Advisors can positively influence financial discipline and results.

The best financial coaching leads advisors and clients to collaboratively create insights, goals, and action plans that improve financial performance.

An SBDC advisor who has a solid framework, a curious mind, and collaborative spirit can outperform one who relies on subject matter expertise to solve problems for their clients. When the measure of success is improved financial performance, it’s the process, not the advice, that influences results.

Here is a 5-step coaching framework that works for any problem-solving process, including financial coaching. The key is to have a robust supply of thought-provoking, open-ended questions that guide the client to discover issues and solutions.

Future Business Leaders Start Here! Penn Hills Charter School Partners with Duquesne SBDC

June 28, 2024

The Penn Hills Charter School of Entrepreneurship provides a hands-on, engaging program designed to bring entrepreneurial and economic concepts alive for students. The lessons related to the Pennsylvania Core Curriculum of English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies incorporate the basic economic and entrepreneurial concepts for the students. These are the future leaders of small business in the community who start learning Entrepreneurship in Kindergarten!

From Stay-at-Home Mom to Baking Empire: Bakety Bake’s Success Story

June 24, 2024

Kourney Post started Bakety Bake in 2018, just after having her 4th baby as a way to earn extra income and be creative. It began as a home-based bakery, where she sold custom decorated sugar cookies. After baking and decorating thousands of sugar cookies, she found the market was really lacking a meringue powder for making royal icing that was easy to use and didn’t taste like cardboard. After months of experimenting in her home kitchen, she developed a recipe for meringue powder that quickly became a staple in her cookie business. She started selling her meringue powder to local bakers, and then connected with a cookie-based Facebook group, where her sales suddenly and dramatically increased literally overnight. She quickly outgrew her home kitchen and had to find solutions to make larger quantities faster. Sales grew from $2,000 to $100,000 within a year.

From High School Job to Dream Business: One Woman’s Passion Creates Joyful Beginnings

June 20, 2024

DEVILS LAKE – Helping address the pressing issue of a shortage in child care providers, Margy Prozinski has created an invaluable asset for the community of Devils Lake and surrounding area with her business, Joyful Beginnings Child Care & Preschool.

Margy loves watching children learn and grow. She’s had a passion for working with children from an early age. She started working at a child care center when she was a freshman in high school, and worked at the same child care center in Bismarck foreight consecutive years. Through this experience, she saw that there was a great need for child care. Her work experience, along with fantastic bosses who grew her passion and encouraged her to open her own business, led her to the decision to do just that.

More BOI Reports will be Filed than Business Income Tax Returns in 2024 and Small Businesses Need Your Help

May 14, 2024

New legislation creates a burden for business owners to file BOI reports with the federal government before year-end - Let’s break down the numbers.

Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting began January 1st, blindsiding millions of business owners. The United States government expects to receive more BOI reports in 2024 than business income tax returns. That’s right – despite almost non-existent public awareness of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), the law giving rise to BOI reporting in 2024 has broader-reaching implications for millions of businesses nationwide than their IRS tax filings. Delinquent filers may face substantial penalties for missing the reporting deadlines, some of which have already passed.

To help spread awareness among its advisors and mitigate risk with streamlined filing for its members, America’s SBDC has partnered with FileForms. As BOI awareness begins to spread, a few statistics that small business advisors must know:

12 3 ›»