 It's a business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're a show that broadcasts live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 in the downtown studios at Think Tech Hawaii in the Pioneer Plaza. We've got beautiful weather in Hololulu this time of the year, so if you're not in Hololulu and you're someplace cold, feel free to come over and join us. Might even have you on the show. We broadcast success stories. We talk about businesses and business owners that are successful in Hawaii. And one of the reasons why we do have successful businesses is because of all the resources that are out there to help train and promote and get people focused in the right direction. And the Small Business Administration is an organization that certainly does a lot of that all year long. And I've got Jane Sawyer with me here today. She is the district director for the Small Business Administration here in the Pacific, which is a big area. Welcome, Jane. Hello, Reg. How are you today? Good. Welcome back on the show again. Thank you. It's good to be here. There's a lot going on these days. I guess I heard a rumor that there's a new sheriff in town, a new president in Washington. He's kind of doing some things to shake things up. What's happening? Is any of that impacting the SBA at all? Well, we do expect that it will. We are seeing some changes now. But a lot of the really strong programs with SBA are continuing on. There are programs in capital access, in government contracting, and in consulting and training. Technical assistance are all going forward. There have been long, long-life programs. They've had a lot of great success, so we expect to see a lot of those things continuing. It's good to have some of that continuity. Yes. There'll be some tweaks and maybe some new initiatives and programs that come up. But we're a small agency. We're looking forward to see what some of the new economic initiatives may be and where we're going with that. We're contributing to make our economy stronger and making sure that small business is taken into consideration with any changes that might come up. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, you cannot underestimate the power and the influence of the small business community, if you will, on a national level. I mean, it's a huge economic engine that we have to protect. And I know that there are some things going on that's going to be attempting to change some of the regulatory environment and some other things are going on, but you just don't know how that's going to play out yet, so you've got to stay a little flexible and have some patience. But there are some great programs that you've got that you mentioned is not going to be stopping. One of the, of course, is the annual awards that happen. You open talking about small business success, and that is one of the things that we really like to follow and see what these businesses are doing that are doing, exporting that are really creating jobs and really keeping the economy kicking forward. We're seeing that some of the numbers that came out in recent reports indicate that Hawaii is doing pretty well, a little bit ahead of some of the numbers from the mainland, and maybe softening a little bit here, but still ahead of some expectations in many areas. So we annually have National Small Business Week. And when is that going to be this year? It's usually right around the first week of May, so that's when we're kind of planning most of the activities. I know that we'll have our statewide Small Business Awards luncheon, which is a great event that recognizes our top small business owners, our exporters, the family-owned businesses that have been so much a part of Hawaii for so many years. We'll see young entrepreneurs, those newer businesses, they've been in business for at least three years, the owner is under 35 years, and he's shown a strong likelihood of success and many of them are already very, very successful and kind of driving new ideas and new pathways in their industries. See, and that's one of the themes of this show is trying to highlight some of those success stories, and I've been involved with going through and doing some of the evaluations and the judging and have been for a number of years, and we always have a very challenging time trying to figure out which ones are always going to be the ones that are recognized because, you know, from my experience, we always seem to have an abundance of applicants and people that are being, you know, sponsored and promoted for the position. I think that's really one of the strengths of this program is, well, it's been around for over 30 years that we've been looking at a number of different award categories for our small businesses here locally. We've had many, many national winners, and so often my colleagues will say, that's amazing that, you know, this business is happening in Hawaii and is so innovative or so successful or, you know, has such a long history of success and being innovative in their industry. So each year, you know, we set out the categories, we work with community organizations and bankers to get the nominations, and I think some of our rigorous kind of vetting and testing, we look at any business, we look at their financials, and we look at comparisons year over year. We look at job creation, we look at whatever they've done that's an innovative practice, an innovative product, you know, just what they've been doing and how they give back to the community as well. We usually have a team, as you know, being a judge for several years that we vet carefully as well. They do all the judging in the office. I know that's probably the worst part of it, to come in and read the nominations, you know, in that freezing cold conference room, and to do the objective scoring. Freezing cold for those people in Chicago and New York, it's not that bad. You know, well, we get a lot of complaints about that, so we... Well, it motivates you to go a little bit quicker. Yes, sometimes you need to do that, because there are a lot of choices, but that objective scoring process and clearance process that we go through does really mean that we're finding really high-quality, you know, high-performing winners. The results speak for themselves. I mean, last year, I think Ray Jardine. Ray Jardine? Yeah, he was what? Native Hawaiian veterans. He was the second runner-up nationally. Very good. That's... We bring together the top small business persons from every one of the states and the territories, so there are 52 of the best of the best that meet in Washington, and Ray was the second runner-up. Number two, I mean, that's amazing for such a small state here in the middle of Pacific Ocean. But he's done some incredible things. His business is about a little over 10 years old. He's been through the 8A program. He's got now over 200 employees in locations and contracts all over the world. Well, and for those people who may not know what an 8A program is, what is that? The 8A program is a special certification for small businesses who do contracting with the federal government, and these are start-out as socially, economically, and disadvantaged firms who get into a business development program that is sponsored by SBA, and it helps them develop the skills, become a protege of a bigger firm, and then kind of helps them to get special contracts to work with the federal government. 23% of that federal government pie is supposed to go to small businesses. That's huge. It's a big, big, billions and billions of dollars, and so we see them being very, very active, and we see lots of companies grow and become successful and get a lot of workers trained and then spin off into their own business as well. And they start working, you know, not only in Hawaii, but from Hawaii can work in locations throughout the Pacific and mainland and even in different federal locations across the world. Right. It's a great fertile ground, particularly with some of the things that are going on in Guam and with the presence of the military here and all their contracting needs. I mean, it's a great area for people to get that certification, get those contracts, and, you know, small businesses and also minorities, they have preference in that, don't they? They can in certain types of contracts and things like that. So it depends on, it's complicated, but, you know, and we can help anybody with that as well. We have a monthly free seminar to introduce people to the 8A and other government contracting programs like the Women-Owned Small Business Contracting Program, the HubZone Contracting Program, the Service Disabled Veteran Contracting Program. Some of them require applications to be approved through the SBA, some of them are self-certified, but they can give a small business a leg up in getting into government contracts. So it's a really good program to consider and learn about. So people out there in the audience can call our office and just learn a little bit about it and see if they might be, it might be a good step for them to take. Do you know your number off hand as to the number they can call? And then it's 541-2990 or go to our web page and that is www.sba.gov and backslash hi. Hi, Hawaii. Hawaii and you can find information there, find how to contact my staff or myself. And a calendar maybe of some of the different training that's going on. Yeah, we're very, very active in the training area as well. My SBA office as well as our resource partners in the community, the Small Business Development Center, SCORE, the Mink Center for Business and Leadership, our centers in Guam. So there are places that people can find the information. They're even online training, but that is just head to our website. Some of the other programs that are coming up, of course, everybody is familiar with SBA loans. So we're cranking along with that program. There's money available. We know that it's a little bit of an uncertain time for a lot of people, but it's a good time to evaluate if now is a time to bring some more capital into your business. We will meet people at a number of banks that we're launching our resource days for the calendar year. We have several that'll be coming up in late February and March. We have some in Kapolei. These are, we send our lender relations and specialists out into the field and they'll partner with the bank to have a day where they'll meet with customers. They'll meet with small businesses out in the community to talk about what our loan programs can do and if there's something that's tailored specifically for their needs, just for working capital. Help them walk through the process to see what works and what's right for them. Or to get them hooked up with someone who's going to help them refine their business plan or expand their financials so they really understand much, much more about where they should be looking for money. You know, is it the right time or steps they might need to take so they're a little more bank ready or are there other alternative lenders that can help them as they get bank ready? You know, I guess the SBA has got so many different types of programs and resources available, you can almost go from soup to nuts with them. I mean, to get them right up if they're thinking about it, they've got programs through the ScoreAce that they can explore, you know, what the options are, SBDC, you know, Patsy Mink Center, you know, and take them all the way up through, provide training, provide, you know, point them into funding sources and even be able to take them to the next level at some point. I mean, it's a full menu of services. And it's kind of before you start your business at every stage of the business life and even helping you to kind of prepare for exit strategy and every small business should have something like that, too. Hopefully it's business sale and, you know, share the wealth or decide. Funny you say that. Part of when I talk to clients when they come to me and they're thinking about doing a new business or maybe someone just comes to me and want to talk about it in general, it's one of the first things I say, okay, getting into business is great, but what's your exit strategy? Because sometimes having that exit strategy helps drive how you're going to set the business up and how you're going to manage it, you know, in order to have a more viable exit strategy when that time comes. It's an important part of the equation. Right, it really is. What do you want this business to do? What legal entity shall I be? How shall I set up my books? So then we just refer them to you. All right, well, we have to take a short break. Believe it or not, we just blew right through that first half. And now we're going to take a short break for about 60 seconds. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. I'm here with Jane Sawyer, District Director of the Small Business Administration in the Pacific region. We'll be right back in about 60 seconds. Aloha, my name is Danelia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. We are the co-hosts of Keys to Success, which is live on Think Tech live streaming network series, weekly on Thursdays at 11 a.m. Aloha. Got a new show here. You've got to tune in. Check out my topics on sensitive, provocative female issues. So Tuesday mornings, 10 o'clock, don't miss it. It's going to be fun and dangerous. Hey, has your signal just been taken over or am I supposed to be here? This is Andrew, the security guy, your co-host on Hibachi Talk. Please join us every Friday on Think Tech Hawaii. Welcome back. This is Reg Baker, Business in Hawaii, with Jane Sawyer from the Small Business Administration here in Hololulu. We were talking about all the different products and services that the SBA has, and it's quite extensive. We spent a lot of time talking about what was available here in Hawaii and through the Pacific region. But I just want to mention that I'm involved with the Regulatory Fairness Board with the SBA at the national level, and I chair the ninth region. And because of that role, I get a lot of communications from the region on all the different trainings that are available in courses throughout the region. And I can tell you, if you ever had any plans on expanding from Hawaii to, say, California or Arizona or Nevada, there's an awful lot of training available in those areas that can help you do that as well. So it's very extensive what the SBA offers. Does that make sense, Jane? Do you see the same thing? Definitely. If we look at our core programs, there is kind of a national profile, and programs like the SBDCs associated with a university and available for free consulting with small business owners from startup all the way through. They've helped clients who have been in business for years and are just ready to kind of bust at the seams, but not sure how to take the next step or suddenly find maybe I don't have the credit to do what I need to do to grow. An example might be auto repair shop here in Honolulu that was doing great business. They could hire, with a few more bays, they could hire another couple of mechanics to come in. They had prospects there. They had plenty of customers, but they thought they should have the money but couldn't find it. They went and sat down with the small business development center network and they really worked through their financials and their business plan and they found where they were kind of overspending or dropping money out or not really looking at the best use of funds. So they helped them restructure some of their debt. They helped them look at greater efficiencies and how they were operating and found enough money to actually have the capital infusion they needed to make a bigger loan and grow the business. So it took them a little work but they got all that free consulting over months time and got them in the position that they then could get a sizeable loan from their bank with an SBA guarantee that then launched them to the next level and where they wanted to go. You know, it sounds like the SBA almost partners up and not in a legal sense but as a mentor if you will and help by partnering and showing them and walking them through all of this. Now I would suspect that the more the business can do and more engaged they are the better but certainly there's the advisors and the consultants there that can help them go through this process and guide them and obviously to some good success. And throughout the state. So we see businesses on Maui, businesses on the Big Island that may encounter the same kind of thing. Actually there's a well-known glass company, Autoglass Company who with SBA has grown to be the last, the largest Autoglass company in the Pacific because we've helped them with their own drive and their own vision to become, you know, that resource and serve the customers in Hawaii and in Guam but they've built a shop on every island and most of them have been started with the help of SBA financing as well. Maui, Hawaii Island, Hilo, Kona and I believe they're in Kauai now and Guam. Wow. So very good. So that's a great success story and you've got people with boots on the ground and each one on each one of these islands. I mean they've got SBDC centers out there that have these consultants available to help everybody throughout the entire state. Right, you know, one of the things I mean with working with our lenders, you know, with all the banks that are affiliated with SBA to do the guarantees, we do a lot of cross-training with them. We help the individual customers and prospective borrowers. We have SBDCs out there. We have, we work with other agencies and economic development entities. We work with several of the accelerators, you know, to help not just the mom and pop shops but we are helping people in research and development. We're helping people who are commercializing their new machines, toys, you know, inventions, tickets, whatever, practices to help them be able to sell to a bigger market, not just here in Hawaii as well but beyond the United States with some of our experts. And exporting is, yeah, exactly. Exporting is a big part of what the SBA would like to try and see happen, right? Mm-hmm. And we would, across the country, to help us put out more of our U.S. products and work with our trade balance, our trade imbalance, as the case may be, to get more products outside the U.S. So we work with D-Bed here and we work with the foreign trade zone. We do a lot of partnership training because it is a little bit different kind of customer than most people are used to dealing with. But there are some great programs providing some funds for travel, funds for product development, funds to do research, and Export U has proven to be a great program and they've enrolled a lot of people. I think their programs are going on or starting right now. Well, and I think to that point, there are a lot of these conferences that D-Bed works with and I don't know how involved the feds are with this or the SBA, but they'll take groups of 20 and 30 companies and they'll take them on a road show, if you will, to different countries to show them what the products are from Hawaii that would be available. And every year I hear about the people going out and establishing these new markets and there's training and some potential funding for some of that. Right, right. So a lot of it is through some SBA funding for those programs and I think they've taken people to the surf show, the Tokyo gift show, they've gone to Korea, they've been all over the place and these opportunities abound to do a trip with the folks at D-Bed or to identify a trade show that they may want to go in their industry and propose or write a, there's an RFP that's been out and probably it's closing up in the next week or so that people could apply to get up to $15,000 in funds to help them with a project like that. Wow, so it's just, it's unbelievable how much is out there available and most of this information would be available on the website or? We won't have all of that on our website but if they sent me an email I can connect them with the right website. So if they just sent it to Hawaii General at SBA.gov. Not that I'm the general but no. But Hawaii General or they could just find me and send it to Jane.Soyer at SBA.gov if they have questions about exporting or any of the programs that we've talked about. Not you personally but your team is out in the community quite a bit. I mean they're out there, they're engaged, you're talking to people. And it's easy to walk up and talk to them and get some direction. Yeah, and definitely take a look at our office calendar at the SBA.gov. You just scroll down and you'll find the events calendar and it'll forecast out everything that's happening in our office or with our staff anywhere on the island, resource days at the bank. We've started for business startups and newer businesses. We're having an SBA resource orientation at least once a month. It's free at our office. And it will go over a lot of the startup steps you need to take. Who has the best resources? When to stop at the business action center down on Nimitz. And what to expect when you get there. Names the websites. Gives you places to go for applications. Sites, useful training that's online. So it's a great resource to just come in for. It sounds like it. And that must be expensive. Oh, it's just the right price, you know. We like to have people come in and learn more and be prepared when they start businesses. So we'll do these courses for free. For free, that's the word I was looking for. It's free. We do ask that you let us know for coming so we can have all those materials for you. Of course, right. So you can find the dates. I think the next one's coming up on February 17th at yes, 9 o'clock, 9 to 10 30 in the morning down at SBA district office at Waterfront Plaza on Alamoana. And everybody, I guess, Waterfront Plaza is the same as the old restaurant row location. So it's easy to get to. Everybody knows where restaurant row is. It's right across from the federal building. So easy to get in and out. Very good. And I guess just to point of clarification, everybody knows about SBA loans. So what? You got like a ton of money sitting over there at the district office that you're just trying to give away or how does the SBA loans work? Well, I don't get to sign those checks myself. No, no. SBA, our 7A loan program, 7A is named for the section of the Small Business Act that creates these loans. So these are determined by Congress. They help set our funding levels, our ceiling where we can go. But we don't actually loan taxpayer money. Right now, we partner with the bankers, the people who really do the loan making as professionals. So most of our banks here locally participate in the SBA program. But a borrower would learn a little bit about the SBA loan and a lot of times you'll go to the bank with your request, hopefully knowing what you're going to use the proceeds of the loan for, how much you're going to need with a little background history because they are going to want several years of your tax returns. They are going to look at your credit score. It's a loan application. Banks are in the business of making loans to make some money. So I think that is something that we need to be cognizant of and respect a bit. But we're here to help them be able to make the loan to a newer small business who might not fit every one of their underwriting criteria. We help them relax that a little bit, as long as the small businesses can demonstrate they have the ability to repay the loan. That it's a reasonable project. They're putting some of their own capital and sweat equity into the business. They're committed. They're getting the game. They need to be committed to doing this. And it has to make sense. So that's also a good time to maybe visit with score, visit with the Mink Center, visit with SBDC here to have, bounce off your basic business plan and your financial projections with them. Because even a new business, some businesses who've been around a while have a track record. It may need some improving or a little bit better analysis and what they've had time to do. But even a startup business or pre-start-up business, you can research your numbers and do some projections and then have one of those organizations, one of their consultants kind of test it. We fall in love with our business idea. So wake up calls sometimes. Sometimes it's like, who's your competition? Oh, nobody's my competition. There's always somebody that is similar or thinking the same thing. So it's good to get a second opinion. It is. It's good to have a fresh look at it and maybe point out something that's obvious to somebody who's not buried into the fore so much. It's a good practice to go through. Jane, I'm sorry, we have run out of time. Oh, darn. Well, remember Small Business Week is the first week in May and we'll be introducing our Small Business Awards for the State of Hawaii May 4th at the statewide luncheon. All right. It's going to be great. It'll be great. I'll see you there. And we'll have you back on the show afterwards and maybe we can talk a little bit about who the award winners were. Great. All right. Be happy to. Super. Very good. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30. We focus on success stories or those organizations that provide the support to make sure that the Businesses in Hawaii are successful. Looking forward to seeing you next week. Until then, aloha.