America's SBDC Blog

Tom Kindred  00:01

This is Small Biz Florida, the podcast and broadcast. That’s all things business across the state of Florida, and it is all about small business here in Orlando over the last couple of days. If you’ve been tuning in lately, you know small biz Florida is on the road again. We are working, covering, supporting, attending the 46th Annual America’s SBDC Training Event, the future of work. I can tell you, the rooms are absolutely full. 1400 SBDC consultants from around the country have all come to Orlando, Florida to participate in networking, sharing, best practices, but most important, participating in over 200 training workshops. They will take that information back to their SBDCs across the country to share with their small business community and small business owners and operators.

Tom Kindred  01:01

It is an incredibly powerful event here. The ballroom is full of exhibitors who represent the latest in technology, resources and tools that are used to assist America’s small business community. And we’ve got with us now a the table is full, just like the ballroom and the training rooms, so I’m going to go around the table and introduce everyone we’ve got with us now. It is April Youngblut, who serves as the Vice President for America’s SBDC. Welcome to Small Biz Florida, April.

April Youngblut  01:39

Thank you.

Tom Kindred  01:40

We’ve got Lisa Hall, who is the Regional Director for the University of Scranton’s SBDC. She also serves on the Professional Development Committee for America’s SBDC. Welcome to Small Biz Florida.

Lisa Hall  01:53

Thank you.

Tom Kindred  01:53

And we’ve got Kyle Hensel, who is the Director of Continuing Education at the University of Georgia’s SBDC Center. He chairs the Professional Development Committee of America’s SBDC and Kyle, it’s okay. You’re a Georgia Bulldog. We’ll, we’ll be we’ll work it out. I’m a gator.

Kyle Hensel  02:18

My apologies.

April Youngblut  02:21

By the end of this you’ll be friends.

Tom Kindred  02:22

Yeah, we’ll be friends. We’ll work it all out. Listen, welcome everyone. April, I can just start by saying most incredible training event I think I’ve ever been to, ever seen, ever been a part of. 200-plus workshops. I just can’t believe the kind of training support that America’s SBDC offers all of the consultants across the country. Incredible work. April.

April Youngblut  02:52

thank you so much. You know the the sessions that you’re talking about that are that have been packed to the seams, and we have some very active and wonderful dynamic attendees in are to the credit of our professional development committee who really goes through and makes decisions about what kind of content these people need. You know these people, our advisors, our network of advisors, need to help them take their expertise back into their local communities and share that knowledge with our small business clients, the small businesses that are listening to this podcast. So we’re very grateful. We’re grateful to be here. Thank you for having me and thank you for your kind words about our event.

Tom Kindred  03:33

Yeah, let’s start as we always do, because I’m anxious to get into the conversation about the event itself, but real quickly, let’s go around the table just a little bit of your background pathway to your current role. We’ll start with you, April.

April Youngblut  03:47

Okay, I actually started out in advertising, and I went to school for that, and spent a lot of time in communications, video production, and I actually ended up working for a small business in the tech space, around 2007-2008. I came to the America’s SBDC conference in Chicago. Sponsored, our organization, sponsored the state stars, the SBDC state stars. And that’s how I met the program. And I love working for small businesses, and I got to know some of the staff and the people at the association, and later they were looking for someone to come over and help them with their event, and reached out to me, and kind of serendipitously, ended up there about 15 years ago.

April Youngblut  04:34

And over those 15 years, I worked as the director of marketing. I eventually became the VP of Communications and Marketing, and the position just evolved. And so I was very involved in the creative and art direction of this event. And, you know, worked with all these committees to, you know, get their input and build something. It’s been a lot of fun, and it’s, it’s wonderful to do it. And now I’m, you know, the Vice President. President of the Association, and it’s very exciting. I’m very excited about this role. I have, after all this time, a strong vision of where I think things should go, and so it’s but it’s wonderful to kind of have that experience, all those experiences in the past to help me.

Tom Kindred  05:14

Lisa, same question.

Lisa Hall  05:16

So I was born into a family business, and always knew that I wanted to help small businesses, but I didn’t know what that meant. But eventually came to partner with the SBDC when I was working for another institution, and it all kind of became clear that this was how I could help small business. So I’ve been with the SBDC for 18 years. I have come to conference for I think my first conference was in 2008 maybe, and I’ve been on the conference committee. This is my 15th conference. Wow, as part of the committee, it has been an amazing experience, really, in in professional development, and all of those good things. But also, there’s a whole network of people across this nation, and you get to know people, and you get to you know, you might have, I might have clients in Scranton, and we’re working on something, and I can pull in, you know, someone from anywhere across the nation, and I meet them here and develop those relationships, and look forward to that each year.

Tom Kindred  06:25

Nice. Thank you for all you’ve done. Kyle, same question.

Kyle Hensel  06:30

Absolutely. Well, you know, coming out of college, I had dreams, you know, business school. I’m going to be in corporate America. I’m going to, you know, be a CEO one day. And then I went out and did that. I worked at several large retailers, you know, Walmart is one of them, and worked for several years. And then I had the opportunity to go back, and actually, one of my major professors said, Hey, why don’t you come back and teach for us? And I ended up becoming an instructor of retailing and marketing for about three or four years at the university level. And then all of a sudden, I heard about the Small Business Development Center. And now, what is 19 years later, I am still here, and I’ve worked from being an advisor in a rural center to being in downtown Atlanta to now, you know, working with all of the different CE programs that we’re putting on around the state of Georgia, and I’ve been on the Professional Development Committee for about 10 years and been leading the conference here for about three years, excuse me, the training event. But it is just an absolute pleasure helping small businesses grow and reach that potential that we know that they can get to.

Tom Kindred  07:38

Nice. All right, so, April, incredible event that you have put together, obviously for multiple years, all really dedicated to continuing education, professional development certification. Talk to us about, let’s start high level. Talk to us about the event itself.

April Youngblut  08:02

Well, you know, one of the things that makes the SBDC program so strong is that we have 63 different SBDC networks across the country, in their regional, their state, and in the territories. And so we really do reach all of America and beyond. And so there isn’t really one national event that those that those advisors, attend, and this event is that and they we bring everybody together, and so they can connect and share best practices and network. So it’s obviously an incredible educational opportunity for them, but it’s really the only opportunity for them to come together. And obviously, there’s, there’s a lot of cross pollination, you know, different different states and regions are doing different programs. And so, you know, a lot of that expertise is shared. It’s shared in our workshops, but that we have meetings and roundtables and so, and then, you know, here on the trade show floor, people are talking and learning from each other. And so this event, really, I think, is culminates all of that into one place. And it’s very special, like you mentioned. It’s the 46th conference, and it’s been very, very important to these SBDCs. And one thing I would just mention as well is that some of them don’t have this kind of training available to them in person, training in their states and regions, and so this is maybe that premiere, that one time opportunity for them to really dig, dig in and get three days of a lot of hardcore training. So it’s, I think for some it’s incredibly important.

Tom Kindred  09:36

Yeah, absolutely. So let’s work our way down through this process. Kyle, you are the chair of the Professional Development Committee. We talked a little bit before we went on 200-plus breakouts, trainings, workshops, over 600 some odd people are you know, interviewed to become potential instructors. Talk about that process and talk about how it kind of looks today.

Kyle Hensel  10:05

Absolutely, as you mentioned, on average, we have about five to 600 people apply to actually present to this conference, to our advisors that are from around the country. And you know, it all comes back to those core competencies and what we need to know to help small business owners succeed. I mean, you look at the areas like marketing and finance and management, and what are those key areas that people really need assistance with? And people will submit as part of a national call for papers, and they will, you know, they want to be a part of this conference or training event they want to be able to speak to our big group, and we then review all of those different sessions, we make sure that it is going towards those core competencies, as well as will it help a modern day business owner? And then once we do score every single one of those presentations multiple times, which seems to take forever, I’m not gonna lie to you, but we then narrow it down to those that we will accept for the conference, and it is just an incredible process, but the amount of education that is gained to help out small business owners, is phenomenal.

Tom Kindred  11:21

Now, let’s go to the final step of this incredible, incredibly powerful process. So, Lisa, so what you’re a regional director of the University of Scranton’s SBDC center. So how does it all how does it all end? You bring your team here, they’re learning. Now, you take all this back talk about that process,

Lisa Hall  11:46

sure. So actually, yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting a session with many of my colleagues from Pennsylvania where we shared our best practices, you know, just different programs and things we do to add value to our host institution. And I, I learned just as much from the audience in that session as we kind of shared with them. So I met lots of people who shared lots of information about some programs and initiatives that we may be working on or things that we want to do in the future. So we’ve, we’ve exchanged contact information. So, you know, when, when we go back, we meet as a team, we share the information that we learned, kind of like a, you know, what did I do on my summer vacation? But it’s like, what did I learn at conference or at the training event? And then we really dig in. We meet with some of the folks from across the nation to say, Okay, we want to, we want to look at this, how you’re using artificial intelligence, or what you’re doing for child care businesses or something like that, and how can we apply it here? We really do help each other. Those connections are formed, and I end up meeting with a lot of people virtually. It works out great, and sharing that information and continuing, and then we apply it at our center. But the real, you know, the great thing is, we’re taking back tools and resources and information and sharing them directly with the clients that we’re working with.

Tom Kindred  13:11

Nice. And I guess April, you know, back to you that kind of the big picture. I mean, this is really at the end of the day this, this is a professional development conference, it is about training consultants from across the country. And let’s face it, you know, in business, things change quickly. This isn’t, this isn’t a slow process in business, we’ve had AI come into the process. Now we’re trying to figure out how that how that supports and helps small business owners and operators. There’s FinTech companies here in the exhibit hall. What does that look like? How do we get that kind of technology in the hands of small business owners and operators, which helps them, in turn, get access to capital that they need to grow and scale. So, I mean, this is essential that that, you know, we bring consultants together, because things just change so rapidly in business. I mean, is that a fair kind of statement about this event?

April Youngblut  14:12

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, we we look at the theme each year of the of the event, and look at what is happening in the marketplace, and what are the concerns of small businesses, what are the concerns of the SBDC programs, because they’re typically the same or very similar, and think about, you know, what are how can we get ahead of that? And like you said, it sometimes can be difficult because things are moving so fast, but the event, you know, also attracts some really great sponsors and exhibitors that bring in some of that technology and innovation. And so they actually will are part of our workshop selection. And so we’ll have some really great resources there as well to kind of help bring in exposure to things that are having happening in FinTech or technology. A lot of our SBDCs are just phenomenal. We have an AI, what we call America’s SBDC AI U program. We have a curriculum committee of SBDCs that have put together this curriculum to help the SBDCs and their small business clients to demystify what’s, you know, this huge thing coming in, right? AI, and we have actually developed a certification. We’re doing it here at this event. And you know, it’s really broadening everyone’s understanding and reducing the fear that so many people have about this, you know, tech revolution that we’re that we’re now in.

Tom Kindred  15:35

And again, I cannot help, you know, we’ve discussed the 200-plus workshops and breakouts where what we’re learning in those you know, breakout sessions, we’re taking that back to our local level at the local SBDCs. And I just can’t help mention to what’s behind us here, behind the podcast table here is, is a room full of exhibitors with all kinds of high tech tools, resources, a lot of them free resources that really help that small business owner and operator up their game. You’ve assembled really an incredible group of of support resources and tools. Talk about this element of the event.

April Youngblut  16:22

Well, thank you. You know, we’re very grateful, you know, for all of these organizations and their their interest and support. A couple of them this year actually came from SBDCs. You know, SBDCs are, you know, they have such a great reputation of working with their local partners. And so some of these small businesses actually came from, you know, cities across the country started working with an SBDC started maybe doing training for small businesses there. And then the SBDC said, you know, maybe you should scale this across the entire nation. And so they introduced them to me, and I bring them in. And then, you know, a lot of times, some of these organizations, they’re social impact arms, and they’re saying, hey, you know, we really want to reach these businesses, and we’ve got this program or these funds or things like that. And they learn about the SBDC program and their ability, how many clients SBDCs work with. And so they’re like, What a great partner, the relationships and the trust is there.

April Youngblut  17:19

And so it’s about building a bridge, you know, and there’s all these important pieces, and so I think that’s what really attracts these organizations to this event. And some of them, you know, come back again and again, and they’re having such great success. And one of the things I just wanted to share that I love to hear from our sponsors is how enthusiastic SBDC attendees are. They’re so passionate. You know about their clients, because they their clients are. I’ve, like I said, I’ve done marketing at the association. I’ve listened to a lot of stories, and they’re so moving. And SBDCs are so their heart is in it with those clients. And so when they come here, you just feel that energy. You feel that and they are here to soak this all up and take it back and share that wealth with them. And the sponsors and the exhibitors here really see that.

Tom Kindred  18:10

Yeah, well, there’s no doubt. All you have to do is walk through the room one time when they’re in this exhibit hall and see the engagement with these exhibitors. You know you can’t get around the tables. So couldn’t agree more. Kyle and Lisa, again, you both serve on this professional development committee. Just final words about the value and the power of this, this training event for those SBDCs across the country.

Kyle Hensel  18:39

Well, I will just say the SBDC is an incredible organization, and the amount of education that business owners can get as well as the value is just phenomenal. And this organization has helped collect all of these SBDCs together for the greater good. And I just cannot say enough about all the presenters that we have at this training event. All the great education is and everything. It’s an incredible event. And I know that all of our SBDCs are looking to take all of this information home just to help all of their clients implement it. So it’s an incredible event.

Tom Kindred  19:23

Lisa?

Lisa Hall  19:24

I think Kyle said it best, and we work really, really hard as a committee to sort through all of those proposals and figure out and listen to the people who attend and think about what they really value and what they want to learn and see. And you know, we take a lot of time to do that.

Tom Kindred  19:46

Absolutely. April, you get the final word, this is, this is your event. You’ve done incredible work. All you hear is, is great things about all that. Here over the course of three and a half days. So how do we wrap it all up?

April Youngblut  20:06

Well, I would just, you know, I I said it, get it again. We couldn’t do this without our professional development. That’s the meat, that’s the that’s in the sandwich, or next to the potatoes, whatever you want to call it. And it’s,

Tom Kindred  20:19

I like your I like your term.

April Youngblut  20:21

I’m hungry. I think I might be hungry.

Tom Kindred  20:24

It’s the meat in the sandwich. I like the way you put it, Apri.

April Youngblut  20:26

It is. It’s so important. And I’m just so grateful to be here to talk about it. We really want to see this conference, this training event, to continue to continue to provide quality workshops. And so the relationship between the association and this committee is so important. That communication that Lisa mentioned out to the network to talk to them about what they need is really, really important. And you know, this year, we’re offering three certification programs, and you know, we can do that. We can do more. We we’re just, we’re here to listen to these SBDC advisors and what they’re looking for based on where they’re at and where they’re at with these small business clients. And so, you know, we, I would say, you know, thank you all for this opportunity. Thank you for highlighting this this event. And you know, all of this knowledge is going to go back out all across America and help our nation’s small businesses. And I think we all feel really good about that.

Tom Kindred  21:23

Absolutely. Incredible work. And I can tell you, you’re you’re not going to have to go any further than the, you know, dozen or so episodes that we’ve created here. It was all incredibly valuable information about tools, resources and training opportunities. So we appreciate it. It is April Youngblut, who serves as the Vice President of America’s SBDC, Lisa Hall, who is the Regional Director of the University of Scranton’s. SBDC. She’s also serves on the Professional Development Committee. And Kyle Hensel, Director of Continuing Education University of Georgia’s SBDC, and Chairman, soon to be, maybe outgoing Chairman of the Professional Development Committee. Kyle, thank you for your years of service. Lisa, thank you for your service. April, thank you for all you’ve done for America’s SBDC and America’s small business community.

April Youngblut  22:21

Thank you, Tom.

Tom Kindred  22:22

Absolutely, thank you. This is Small Biz Florida. I am Tom Kindred, your host. It is all about small business here in Orlando, it is all about training, professional development, opportunities, certifications here at the 46th annual America’s SBDC training event, the future of work. Stay tuned. More to come. This is small biz, Florida. You.