 Thank y'all for being here. All of you that are here will not get a nasty gram from me later on. We have 150 people signed up to be here today. So we're very excited for this opportunity today and I want to thank everybody for taking the time. You know, Colombia has really embraced as long as I've lived in this community, it's embraced long distances and it's so important. It really is a backbone of our community. And so we want to continue to highlight, be there to support through our OVO Office Mysteryers, where you raise your hand. The rest of the OVO staff, we all raise your hands if I can see them. They do an incredible job helping small businesses, but we want to continue to bring resources to Colombia and make sure people understand what's available to them in our community, if it's state, local, or federal. But we're hosting these events. I hope to have a whole lot of other events like this one really to make sure that we're getting out to all of our citizens. We've had an incredible run over the last two years of small businesses growing in our community. We've had more new applicants for business licenses than we've ever had. We've opened up more women-hung businesses, ladies, give yourselves a hand, which is incredible. But I had Alan and I'm in Washington. Alan Thomas is the regional, they call him the director or administrator. It's even bigger than the director life. Administrator, but what's great about Alan being the regional administrator is he's a former mayor. So he actually understands what we're trying to do because he's been there as a mayor. He's dealt with a small business community. And I think this is what's interesting about some of the positions in the federal government right now is that we have a lot of former mayors that are there. And so having these conversations, and I'm talking to the secretary, we're talking to the regional administrator, they understand what we're trying to do as a community and they're willing to help. And so we're excited to have Alan here. We have this big Evans here who is a small business owner who's going to tell her story today. I think y'all are going to be very impressed with what she has to say. And then obviously all the SBA, where's the SBA team? Can y'all raise your hands? I know somebody will be outside. Greg White is right here. I'm at Greg News with the USBA. So he knows cross utilization zone area, which is really great how to work with the different agencies to figure out what are the pockets that can help your business. So we're going to talk about everything about what the SBA has to offer, how businesses are taking advantage of the programs they have, understanding what state local and federal resources are today, bridging the gap not only from the process but the resources. A lot of people think the process is too cumbersome, but at the end of the day it's worth it. So how do we help them get through that? How do we use the resources, the other resources we have to prepare to do that? And then obviously we want to continue to share information, as we said, now through our local offices, but our ABO city resources. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Almond to talk a little bit about what's good. Well first of all, let's give the mayor a hand and bring it to David. And I want to give you a hand for the raindrops this morning. You know the first thing people do when the meteorologist talks about rain and find reasons to check things off the list, right? But that's the difference. Doing tea people who succeed and people are always saying I want a coat of sugar, right? Don't ever let anything get in your way of opportunity. And every day I get up, and I'm excited mayor, about what I get a chance to do. Because I get to meet pieces of sunshine, like this lady, all over. So I am the regional administrator. I cover my territory area that I have. There's a handful of us across the country. So I have from Kentucky, through the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi River, all over Florida, the entire southeast, SEC Conference, that's basically what I am, right? And as the mayor mentioned, I am a former mayor. I was a three-term mayor in Greenville, North Carolina. This is the bigger Greenville. East Carolina universities, they're bringing hospital centers there. And I've been an entrepreneur since I was 10 or 11 years old. I was on the hustle. Coming up with ideas and my family encouraged it. They encouraged a little bit of risk. You know, I lost some allowances now and then, but I won a few too, right? But the opportunity to get ahead and what I know about being an entrepreneur, the great thing about the regional administrators, like in my role, many of us, there's not nine of us across the country, we come from the business community. We were appointed by the White House. We have phenomenal professionals that work with SBA across the whole country. Greg White and his team is amazing here in South Carolina. And boy did I learn it during the PPP, right? During the pandemic. Two and a half, three years ago, I was asked to look for a PPP line. I was executive vice president with the airspace and a plane jet plane company. We had 480 employees. I didn't know they had a job the next day. But what I learned from SBA started my journey to get back into this role and the opportunity to be an advocate and help spread the news. Many people when they hear about all that SBA and some of these agencies bring to the table, they are there blown away. People are like, why didn't I know about this before? Well entrepreneurs by nature get in a silo because you're so focused on making things happen, your idea, your concept. You know, I got an amen group here in the front row, back row too. We get so busy on what we're trying to do. We miss all this happening around us. We're here today to say, have an awareness of the resources that are around you that already paid for your tax dollars, that are already there to help you. You will be amazed at what we get into today. All the things that SBA touches for free with government contracting, training, how to get money in capital ready if you're a veteran, if you're a woman in business, if you're from a rural community, you know, if you're in a historically underutilized population, this haven't had the resources before. We're here to shed light on that. We're here to connect with you guys and nothing makes me more excited now than to get a chance to get you connected with Vicky Evans because we're all real people. The mayor has a great story. If you don't know it, you should know this model is in store. I think it's always important for people to know who's standing up here with a microphone. Anybody can talk, but have they lived it? Do they continue to live it? Do they share in your struggle and your story? We all fail, we succeed, we look for opportunity. So it's kind of my pleasure now to get a chance to have Vicky Evans maybe say hello and speak a little bit. She's one of your own. I'm from North Carolina. I have family in South Carolina, so it's good to be part of the South Carolina family to be here today, but that further ado, I'll let Vicky introduce herself, talk about her business, and I think that your family chapters are important too, how you got here. You've had a challenge in a few years, but multi-multi-million-dollar contracts that this young lady now pervades over on a national level that you're about to hear something that's going to get your attention. And Vicky, give her a hand. Funny, everyone. I hope everyone's doing well. I am excited to be here, and before I tell you about my company, I'd like to tell you where I'm from. So I'm from Louisiana, and what do we do in Louisiana? We cook and we eat all the time, right? It is very good. And me, I come from a very large family. I have 10 brothers, and I did say 10. And I am number 10, so I have one that's younger than I am, but he's older than me. So I'm in the kitchen all the time. And when I, as I moved into adulthood, I decided that I didn't want to be in her nearer kitchen cooking. So my career path was a network engineer. And so I started off in corporate America, where I was a network engineer and project manager for several years. I married, had children, and then I had a very devastating situation occur with my immediate family. So I had to figure out something that I could do to give me more flexibility to spend more time with my family. And for me, that was starting my own company back in 2008. So my company, Cork, is the time to start visiting. Yeah, how about that? That's right. Yes, yes. So I actually started out in real estate. So Cork, my company, is actually an acronym for Connect One Realty Group. And my tagline used to be the perfect connection for all of your real estate needs. Well, as I was in real estate, we had their house in Crash. I moved into default services doing asset management for agencies such as HUD and Department of Venture Affairs, and some of the other agencies like family, play, and Freddie Mac. So we began doing asset management, and that moved me into renovation and repairs, and owning to construction. Hence that's where we are today. So for invention where we started off in Georgia, then we moved our office here into South Carolina. It's business, it's like spread when I moved here. Oh my gosh, my business took off. So we went from a staff of 14, we're at 60 employees. And so we've had phenomenal growth. And like Alex said, we have had multi-million dollar contracts to include the entire state of South Carolina for GSA, one of the government agencies, where we manage many of the federal buildings and courthouses that you have here in South Carolina. So one thing that I did realize as I was getting into the business and getting my AA and working with SBA, there were so many opportunities to work with other small businesses to see what were my gaps at, and where I could use assistance from other companies that had maybe core competencies that I didn't have. So there was an opportunity for teaming. So that was something that we really did, learning about teaming and doing ventures and meant to protege programs. So we took advantage of being part of some of the state programs like SCDOT and being a DBE. So they had a lot of training classes along with SBA. So we have taken advantage of all of those resources that contribute to our growth of being a multi-million dollar company in there. So we are excited about how we can talk a little bit more about two hours from one to half of the SBA. But also about the gap. To me that was one of the, my family, I'm going to use this one. My family lived here from Switzerland in 1967, and my dad was basically the reason they came here is because leaders in the upstate said, if we want our textile industry, our chemical industry, to really survive foreign competition and everything else, we need to fill gaps that enhance our businesses. And I think that's where we are headed. I'd love for you to share with everybody a little bit more of those two hours because I do think the pathway to SBA and the process scares people at first, but the benefits can be long. And the second part to it is that collaboration, the gap, because there could be ways to partner with other businesses to fill the different gaps of working together. And a lot of times we, as smart businesses, we can so focus on our business. And sometimes we don't make people this competition where they actually can complement our business. Okay, so I'll start off with my partner with SBA. So I am an AAD participant and it's a 9-year program. And it's about business development. And it truly assisted me in developing my business. Like I said before, I went from having a staff team of 14 to almost 60 people now. Being in the AAD program, it introduced me to opportunities and visibility that I might have, might not have endured without being part of the SBA program. So some of the federal opportunities that we could be on and the state opportunities that I didn't know about are even how to get to those programs. Some of the resources they have for databases that show you where to go and what to do and how to do it. For instance, bonding. I didn't know anything about bonding. So learning about the SBA bonding program, that was very helpful for me because it's like, why do you get that? Most construction projects, you have to have bonding. And so I didn't know anything about it, but going through the SBA program, it actually showed me how to do that. And where to go when people talk to you about getting that. And so those are some of the programs that the SBA had to assist me. Training. We do lots of training. A lot of avenues for assisting small businesses to grow. The mental project program. So let's just say you're a small business and you're trying to learn how to get, for instance, I secured a five-year contract working in Puerto Rico. And that was through a time. So I didn't know anything about Puerto Rico for the most part, but I teamed with someone who did. So one, he was an ex-military in the military and he was retired. And he had come through the AA program. So I teamed with him in the joint venture and we were able to secure that contract. And I got all kinds of experience from that, which led to me managing some of the projects in Greenville, South Carolina. And so given that type of experience and teaming and learning about other organizations was very helpful for me. Learning more about, you know, and showing us what you need to do for workers to come. And part of it was that I didn't know a lot about those, but I had this small business and I knew what my capability was, but I just knew how to maneuver. And so the SBA really helped me with that. So I'll talk about those gaps. Again, you don't know what you don't know. It didn't get there, right? So having some of the contracts that we are on, I may have needed an engineering fund. Well, I'm not an engineering fund. I do mechanical work, but some of the projects we have, they may require a design bill. So I find a teaming with engineering firms that did have that capability. And once we package our proposal, then that was one proposal because they filled a gap that I didn't have. So some of the areas that you may want to be there, you seek out a company that may have those capabilities. And it's important, it's important, because working with someone is like a marriage. Teaming is the one that's like a marriage. So you want to make sure you do your vetting. And the SBA, again, it's very instrumental in helping you make sure you're diving on your eyes and crossing on the teeth. As you go into these teaming and doing ventures and making project programs, they can help you be successful. I want to hit on something real quick because you made a very important point and it covers everybody in this room. And we talked about it a little bit before we came on stage. Everybody's understand to, you know, sometimes you look at somebody that's been successful in business, and you're like, you know, they're not seven foot tall. You know, they didn't go to Duke or wherever. How did they do it? And Vicki mentions before we came on, and I'm 100% agree with it. You got to understand to be successful, one of the big successful elements, the big variable is you can't be the subject matter expert on all things. You can't be the subject matter expert on any of the lots. But there are a lot of smart people out there. I had a friend who has a pretty successful business. He says, you know, Angel gets a star for every Duke grad or Carolina grad he hires to work for him, right? Well, he's Carolina grad. Right? But understand that don't be intimidated by the opportunity. There are resources, your skill set needs to be to identify talent that can help you succeed and vet that talent. And get the capital and resources you need to be successful. I just wanted to amen on that one. I thought that was super important. And also I'm going to brag about her a moment. A couple of months ago, we were in Atlanta. And one of the programs, so just so you know, that the core pieces of SBA, we cover several key things. Many people got familiar more familiar with SBA from the PPP program by the loans post pandemic. But SBA's been here for 70 years. President Dwight Eisenhower founded the SBA. When he was head Joint Chiefs of Staff World War II, he saw these massive, a handful of contractors control billions of U.S. investment in post World War II and World War II. The goal there was at 23%. That's where it is now. But all government contracting goes to small business. And part of SBA's job is to be the gatekeeper to make sure those type of things happen. The other part of SBA's mission is training on a significant scale. Just like me, when I started coming back in 99, I came back to myself and a couple of partners in an extra bedroom. All right? We had an idea on that. We knew some technology. We knew a few other things. And we had to put a business together. And I really had to raise capital. SBA helps you to train. It also gets you capital ready. And we have specialized groups for veterans, as I mentioned before. For underutilized populations, for rural, for women's business centers. All of them. And great why is here. Please get to him or go to SBA.gov to find out a little more. But one of the programs I want to highlight is the 8A program, which you mentioned. The 8A program is phenomenal. I guess that began back in the 70s, maybe. Greg, is that correct? And that program was meant to be not only to be able to make sure that 23% of all 680 billion in annual spending the government does in contracting, 25% of that goes to small business. We want to make sure that certain populations that quite frankly weren't at the table, weren't given the opportunity, at least we're given the opportunity to be at the table. The 8A program is a phenomenal one. That if you've had a business for two years of tax returns, right, Vicki? You can apply for the 8A, right? This one down program. And the opportunity to have a nine-year period within this program where you could have potentially set aside government contracts to be a sub or a prime. Other government contracts will seek you out. It's a training program for nine years. And a utilization program that has created generational wealth for families of generation. And we were in Atlanta, there was 2,088, participants, which she's one of, and there's probably 6,000 at some point in the program. And we highlighted your story. Because you got to be inspired by real world activity and what's kind of happening out here, especially in South Carolina. So Vicki, if you will, you mentioned it before, but be willing to find mentors, being a mentor, be willing to partner. I think it's even beyond marriage. Some of these business partnerships, but if you'll talk about that a little bit. That applies to everybody in the room. Yes, yes, yes. And I'll tell you, sometimes you get a force, right? So all marriages do not work. But for me, when I first came to the program, I did team with someone. I know I was going to venture with someone, but it wasn't a good situation. As a matter of fact, I didn't learn anything from that person or that company. And my goal was to learn as much as I could, so that I could develop my company. Well, I went to the SBA and they were very instrumental in kind of guiding me through the process. And they wound up not working and didn't work out at all. And so, but I did give up. Did not give up. So I did move into other joint ventures. Again, looking for those companies that had expertise that my company was lacking so that I could gain that experience. Most of the joint ventures are for two years. They start up, SBA will approve those for two years. And some of those are, again, mentor program where a company, a larger company, can come in and mentor you and help you with financial resources or even space in their office and give you some guidance on your HR, guidance on your accounting systems. And I don't need to stress that. That accounting system, making sure that your financials are in order is huge because it can prevent you from getting additional working capital or resources that you may need for their long-term business, right? And even with the funding if you're in construction. So for me being a woman and being a minority in construction has had its challenges. But because I had all of my, I'm going to say ducks in a row, my finances aligned ahead by my organizational chart and like I'll share with Alex that I brought on those subject matter experts to help me because I couldn't do it by myself. Right, that's great. And so understand that there's a full portfolio within SBA and in my business world, thinking prior some projects that we've done in the Carolinas, SBA is very involved in traditional lending. Understand that in this region alone, the Southeast, we did eight billion for the B in traditional lending that SBA did where you go in and talk to your bank and the 504 program, right now we're down 504 or 708 lending. And these different lending vehicles, it depends on what you need. If you need cash flow to expand or grow a business, if you need whatever equipment that you may need, physical plan, if you need to buy land, if you need to buy a building. Understand that SBA does significant lending and here's how that works. Banks would not lend to small businesses if it weren't for the SBA lending program. SBA and many of these financial vehicles we backed that loan. We're the one, you'll go deal with a bank, but at the SBA lending program, I was at the Lender Conference in Nashville a week and a half ago with all the lenders there. So you walk into a traditional bank, ask them to have SBA loans or we can connect you. We can do a connect through SBA and they'll take a look at your business plan and make a decision on SBA financing. Normally it's a great program because the rates and the terms and all those elements are catered more to small businesses and what you may need. And also importantly, being from this part of the country, disaster lending. You know, I fortunately and unfortunately, you know, I first spoke on the job at SBA a couple of years ago, 25 tornadoes hit Tennessee. And we all know FEMA shows up you know with a jacket on and make sure everybody's safe, but SBA shows up in states for multiple years and we've spent millions in that community for example, but all times when there's hurricanes, disasters or whatever, SBA is there for you with direct lending. To be able to get you to the other side, not just where you were before, but often rebuilding business and tighter business districts and homes as well, making them safer, more secure and stabilizing communities. So trying to think of what else I want to mention here on TEC, we have small micro loan programs we do as well and again, Greg, can you get on that and go to SBA? I'm teasing you for his small business week event that's going to be in a couple of weeks, but we're going to have multiple tables around here from all of our resource partners that we've been mentioning. Our retired executives, our veterans business outreach, our women's business, where you're going to be able to walk up and have an extended conversation or sign up for virtual events and I'll hand it back to you. They're just going to add at those events, they have matchmaking. So they bring in agencies that are looking for small businesses like ours and you are able to do matchmaking events and sit down one-on-one and talk with those agencies and present your company to them and that may yield you a contract and I've done that before with EPA. I was securing the contract just by having a conversation with them and showing them the capabilities of my company. So that was very helpful as well and something that SBA promotes a lot. I was talking to somebody the other day who had an opportunity to work with SBA to actually double the size of their business. They had an opportunity to buy them a franchise that they became well-established here made great investments but then they could go they had an opportunity to purchase another market and they doubled their business and they stretched and they couldn't have done it without SBA and at first they had never thought about using the SBA that is a program. So, you know, we heard them Alan talk about micro, we're talking about loans that range millions where are we at now? Five. For five you can see you work to expand that and they can piggyback on other lending vehicles that you may use. So that's significant funding. We built a marina a few years ago. No bank would touch this post, you know, 2008 and all the asset toxicity that a lot of banks are dealing with and SBA funded that massive project. So we're talking everything from micro lending all the way up to close to, you know, five million plus and we'll work with other agencies, USDA, those lending and so understand, you know, if you're an entrepreneur you don't know where agencies beginning beginning in and we don't care even we'll connect you to other opportunities that you can cobble together to help you achieve your dream and kind of get it. Yeah, I think it's the perfect same way for us, you know, as we continue to bring these resources and we're hearing it live today what's out there but Wednesday, May 1st we're hosting our 11th annual small business week conference. It's going to be at the Embassy Suites at Braist and you have keynote speaker Dr. Stephanie Kirkland but you're also going to have social media expert Ken Walker there who's going to play the master of ceremony but it's also going to take about what he's been doing in social media and how that's affecting businesses. A highlight because look today the social media is a big part of understanding how to leverage and who knows what's going to happen with TikTok or just Instagram part of what we're trying to do in cities that constantly highlight small businesses but when you have other small businesses highlighting other small businesses it's a bigger impact. We can continue to do that and one of the things that I'm hoping is that we have more networking opportunities more that people realize we can help each other and small businesses are going to be thinking back and sharing this information with others all and never understood like if I couldn't do a catering job before we were out in the west of our business I would call one of the other small guys that I work with and say hey are you open can I set this client to be there sharing resources so that we continue to keep that one in the local and one of our challenges in the city is when we spend billions of dollars a year but we've gotten in our own way through procedures to get some of the small businesses more engaged and our goal is to continue to try to change that are we there yet absolutely not but we're going to continue you know I'd love to hear from Vick, Vick you're in Victoria oh Vick you're in Monday I feel like Monday morning with that Vickie about you know what good examples are out there that we can emulate because our goal is to spend as much as our money locally as we can why is that important small businesses grow here stay here and invest here and you know when a company gives back and and the community embraces it it makes for that it just it works all the way it makes our neighborhood strong it makes our business community strong it makes us attractive for other investments and so the gap piece I think is so important which we haven't done and going down and talking to our small businesses and saying hey what gap can an answer business so it was we're thinking about recruitment you know it used to be and I'll tell the story he said on Divide Street over my first restaurant in 1994 right across the street was Divide Foods Angela he didn't talk to me for a year he was so mad that I opened up across the street from him because he thought I was going to steal this customers and after about a year and a half he came over one Friday night he brought a bottle of wine and he said he goes I got to thank you my business increased 25% it always happens like that critical mass but I do think it's important that is that that we can engage with each other and share but also how do we leverage you know how can we work together as small businesses maybe it's an alliance buying power all the things that that you see bigger corporations do even though they're competing I mean they're medical groups here in our community they compete against each other but they created an alliance why so they could work with the insurance companies to make sure that they get the best rates the working with suppliers from vaccinations others so that they could get the best pricing so they could stay competitive and take care of their customer base so these are all opportunities and that's why we wanted to host it's not only to let you know what resources are out there but also for people to have an opportunity to meet each other to figure out well how can we work together we're going to continue to work as a city to improve we have such an excellent staff which I think the next panel is is really a yeah kick it off now are we going to talk about that well the next phase of our discussion this morning as people continue to fill in I know we've got that Eastern Drivers Director of the City of Columbia's Office of Business Opportunities we have a great panel that she's going to introduce I do want to mention one thing you said about alliances this is exciting for you all to understand of the piece of SBA so as we all know AI that has transformed business in the past 12 months in another 12 months it will be exponentially even more if you're not aware of that understand that SBA is working in that realm and kind of that information that can be trusted always understand that agency like the city or the SBA is a good vetted source there's so much junk as we all know on the internet we often talk about I'm drowning in information I'm starving for knowledge that's what I feel like in the digital realm SBA has something called the digital alliance where we work with Microsoft and Apple we vet for you what is what is trusted source information and we also help you with cybersecurity for small businesses but anyway this group that we've got coming on now Aisha I'm so excited for the panel that's about to come on and these are all local businesses will tell you about their successes and what you need to do to have opportunities here so we'll step out of the way thank you Matt I just want to piggyback on the AI that's something that's coming down the road that we hope to share with everyone as well as we're exploring we're bringing in some subject matter experts because AI is here and how do we embrace it to help enhance our businesses our operations but also protect ourselves it was very interesting I attended a conference with 28 other mayors and this was the subject matter of learning how to embrace AI but at the same time it was very interesting a lot of the folks in the technology world said it's up to you local mayors to really help build some guard relations and protection around it and as we continue to do that we hope to share more information on AI as well as everyone all right Aisha thank you good to see everyone today I'd like to invite our panelists to come to the stage first we have Pam with the Richmond County Office of Small Business Opportunity Kelly with the City of Columbia Business License Office Dom with the President and CEO of Optus Bank and Michelle Abraham with South Carolina Small Business Development Centers of Columbia thank you so I'm Aisha I'm the Director for our City of Columbia Office of Business Opportunities and we had the pleasure to work with this lovely panel all the time so we're excited that you all agreed to join us today so I want to start by allowing you to share who you are who you represent today in the scope of your service Michelle can you start no is it on yeah okay great my name is Michelle Abraham and I am the State Director for the South Carolina Small Business Development Centers we are part of a national network they're SBDCs throughout the country and we are a resource partner to the SBA we provide no fee business consulting to anyone who is considered a small business regardless of whether you're just starting out or whether you've been in business for 15 years we're here to provide assistance to you we're like an extension of your business so think about big corporations and all the departments they have we help you with all those things marketing, sales strategies strategic planning helping you figure out where and how to go get access to capital financial management of your business, HR and we have specialty programs we have experts in procurement and government contracting in international trade in technology and new product commercialization all kinds of things like that so no cost private confidential business consulting to anyone as long as your business is legal and training programs that are either free or very affordable and because we are statewide we have a group of about 55 people across the state we cover the entire state and when you come to work with us you have access to our entire team of people everything is confidential but we as I said we work with people for the lifespan of their business no matter where you are and bring in expertise not only from our organization but from others as well to try to help surround you with credible reliable trustworthy resources Thank you Chef Kelly Good morning everybody so I work in the business licensing I'm the business license administrator for the city of Columbia so if you are starting a new business or renewing a business you would want to come see our team here in the city anyone who's engaging in business or intending to engage in business you would need a business license and I'll go over the process with you later but yeah we regulate the business license ordinance and make sure that you guys have the tools you need to operate in components Good morning and it's great to see each of you as you stated earlier coming out on a rainy kind of dreary day today I'm Pam Breen manager of the Office of Small Business Opportunity of Orishan County the purpose of our office is to initially run a program called the Small Local Business Enterprise Program and the purpose of that is to ensure that the county is using a race and gender neutral tool to use in its procurement measures so we look to bring into our fold small businesses that are located in Orishan County or have a workforce that has at least 25% of them coming or the residents of Orishan County to be a part of a directory or database of businesses in Orishan County and we look to advocate for all those small business owners as far as procurement and contracting with Orishan County that is by the main focus and then the other resolves around not only advocacy but also workshop trainings whether it be technical assistance looking for ways to provide networking opportunities for business interactions and we'll get more in detail without that but the areas of certified categories for us deal with construction, architecture, engineering professional services those that require some specialized credentials non-professional services and then the wholesale families so I'm happy to be here to share information on behalf of Orishan County Okay well it's great to be here with each of you it will make even more sense why it's so great to be here with each of you and I'll share a little bit about Optus Bank's mission and why we exist to really help many and partner with many folks in this room the Optus Bank is unique in the financial institution it's today is the only Columbia-based bank and it's also one of the 22 Blackola banks in the United States it's based in South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina we're also certified as a community development financial institution that's a little bit about the I guess the core points of difference the bank but really the greatest legacy of Orishan Bank and the purpose why we exist today lies in our founding over 19 or 100 years ago in 1921 a group of very courageous and visionary African Americans decided that every person really needed to have access to capital and opportunities regardless where they came from regardless of the zip code or the inherited privilege or whatever they brought to this world and they founded this bank in Columbia, South Carolina and over 100 years later we're still thriving and really continuing to serve that core mission still is very relevant and we're fortunate to have a mayor who is an entrepreneur and is a pro-business focused on mayor that really believes just like we do that entrepreneurship is a great pathway to building generational wealth so our bank is a little bit unique and we'll talk some about that later but we bet on entrepreneurs and high potential communities that are underestimated by traditional financial institutions so we serve everyone in the community regardless where they came from regardless what they came to us with and our goal is every person that leaves our physical branch we have two branches we're building a new one or our virtual branch leaves that off in some way that are exponential resources human resources or social capital and that's what we're so glad to be partnering with many amazing leaders on this panel thank you so much so Dom you had the first question in our office we have a commercial revolving loan fund so we work with our office often we have Brad Bidey in the back Brad, if you'll wait raise your hand our loan officer and he works with him in front of the office on a regular basis they communicate often what sets out this apart from other traditional leaders and thank you Arisha and thank you Brad for what you're doing for this community I can't tell you how many stories that we have that would not have occurred up for this partnership with the city of Columbia and so maybe let me share a story and that will tell you why we're different and how we're different so just a few days ago we had the privilege of celebrating a grand opening of one of our small business owners presence at the airport so maybe you probably know Sandra and Herbert Sims at home in Carolina in a concession and if you are a frequent flyer like I am you frequently walk by there are amazing facilities that they have developed at the Columbia airport which by the way is improving by the day so thank you Mayor for what you're doing to make sure that that asset continues to thrive but you know Sandra came to our bank years ago because she was really being a little bit overlooked by the more traditional financial institutions and she's an amazing business person she she should not have been overlooked she is an incredible business person one of the best business people I've ever been around but you know but for the work that we've been doing with her she probably wouldn't have expanded and she won't tell you Canada but she's not opening up Jackson the city airport so she's expanding her business from South Carolina into other states and one of the reasons she's very generous to attribute that growth to our bank so it makes us different so why were we able to help Sandra with some of the more traditional things could I'm not saying that wouldn't I'm not saying that wouldn't even try or they didn't care they just for some reason they were not a good fit and it starts with good with our shareholders you know we're proud to have about 250 shareholders most of them are African-American they direct what we do right and they insist that we serve everyone regardless of their background and then we're very intentional about serving customers that may not fit the traditional bank standards don't tell the regulator that doesn't end so so we like to tell her a little bit outside of the lines right we like to be the biases of lending are critical right you have to create a capital character and and cash flow and the capacity to do the work that you do but as you know there are small business owners no small business looks alike right so every small business is unique and that requires a unique approach and frequently those standard criteria are probably this advantage in some businesses that could have a chance to succeed and so what makes us unique is we may work just a little bit harder we're more intentional really because of our shareholders and our board that insist that we work harder to make sure everyone can serve regardless whether they fit that traditional bank box and it's really and it's a privilege every day to be able to maybe just call them a little bit outside of the lines that intentionality is is obvious when working with optics so we appreciate that Kelly my question for you is can you explain the business license application and renewal process and what the city has done to make that process more business friendly absolutely so we all know that sometimes forms and processes can be a little overwhelming and a little scary for business licensing we actually it's the process to apply for a business license is extremely more simple than you might think you would come in or you would go online which we have now I'll talk about that in a minute apply through you know the form and put all your information we would go through a clearance process if you're in physically located here in Columbia we would have to do a clearance process with zoning make sure that you're able to operate that particular business in that location we would also go through fire so we would make sure fire has cleared your business as well to make sure that's safe and then we would actually go ahead and invoice you and you get your business license right there so that process is pretty streamlined when it comes to renewals that's also pretty streamlined as well you would report your gross receipts to us you would pay you are on a tax on that and then we would be issued a business license I wrote down some of the enhancements and some of the great things that we've done in business licensing so I didn't forget anything so we did create the ability to renew and apply online that capability wasn't there a couple years ago so before that you had to mail in your application or walk it into our office and I see some faces out there like what yeah that was one of the things but we definitely made that more easy for our customers we translated our business application into Spanish we're working on some other languages as well we created the ability for online payments that was not a functionality before we updated our website to make sure that we had fillable forms for you if you did choose to mail in your forms we wanted you to have easy access to those we updated the look and feel we created a welcome sheet that lays out all of the information that you need to know to continue to be in compliance with the City of Columbia doing the business licensing division we also joined the NASC statewide renewal portal so now if you have businesses that are in multiple locations or speak to you in multiple municipalities and counties you're able to go on this state website and renew your business license and we also created a self-service portal of our own that would allow you to apply and renew there as well so we're always looking for ways to make these easier for you guys we take feedback as well but everything that we do is to enhance the experience and to make sure that it's not intimidating we want it to be easy we want it to be inclusive for everybody to be able to maneuver and if you guys ever have questions our office, my division, our team City of Columbia team as a whole but since I work with my division I'm going to hype them up but we're really friendly we're really engaging we love talking to you guys we love learning about your business we're happy to provide other resources in the city or otherwise if you need help we often refer OVO folks to OVO as well to get assistance if they need it but if you are ready to start your business you know feel free to come down we'll help you get through the process that's what we're here for we have to enforce our ordinance but we want to make sure that you guys have an easy experience and that you're not intimidated by it because I promise you it's not as bad as it looks I think an important point to add to it was if you're located in or want to do business with the city you need a business license but sometimes that's the question when you get to it I need to have a business license yes absolutely anyone intending to engage in or engaging in business you know generating revenue advertising things like that then you would need a business license we're going to take questions in a moment thank you what's the port and shell what's the port of resources are available for small businesses looking to navigate the procurement process within our community well first I want to make one comment to all of you that are small business owners are looking to get into business if there's one takeaway I'd like to see you all have from today it's that they are so many phenomenal resources available to you at no charge in this room at the city you're hearing about the phenomenal types of services they have Don and his bank and other lenders the SBA and the programs that they have our group there are many of us out there so use our resources don't try to do it in isolation on your own come to us if you've got a question and you're not sure come to one of us and we'll get you directed to the right place here in South Carolina we have such a great camaraderie and community effort we all work together we don't want to see you go on the internet and spend ten thousand dollars to get a website set up when you can do it for two hundred so use us if that's the biggest takeaway I just wanted to make that point but from a procurement standpoint you know when you think about getting into doing business with the government whether it's your local city or county whether it's the state whether it's at the federal level there are many many resources out there and Vicky talked about some of those our organization as I mentioned we have specialists that they probably kill me if they heard me say this but between the three of them they probably got at least 80 or 90 years of experience in this field so they will sit down with you and help you understand what do I have to do to really qualify to do government contracting it's a different world than just selling out there in the community you have to have proper financial system set up you have to understand all the regulations you have to get signed up with certain entities to be eligible and qualified lots of things to do which isn't necessarily that complicated but if you're trying to do it on your own without guidance you can make a lot of missteps and go the wrong way so our organization will do that will help you with all aspects of it there are other organizations out there the city certainly has lots of resources to help you with that there is another organization called APEX that we actually operated for many years but they help people that are focused on government contracting so lots of us as a community that will help you with all aspects of it and particularly just kind of thinking about if you want to do procurement working with the city or the state is a great place to start we have so many people that come to us and they think I want to jump into a great big federal contract right out of the boot and Vicky's laughing because that's probably not the best place to start if you don't have the experience you know work with some of our local entities get some good experience perform on it free that you can do it and as you're doing that we can help you get connected and work your way up in the larger contracts thank you so much Michelle and you mentioned APEX I know we have Angela Seymour here from APEX who's raising that hand back there and another APEX representative and I know our city of Columbia procurement team is in the back as well and media and media so definitely we have that representation here if you have procurement related questions Pam so how can small businesses directly engage with your organization and build meaningful relationships for potential opportunities so as you can see up here we have our contact information obviously if you're interested in being a part of our database or connecting with us as it relates to any type of training you can email us or you can give us a call or you can go to Grecian County se.gov forward slash I spoke I'll talk from the standpoint of our small local business enterprise program that is like a gateway into our organization what you're wanting to do and I think in the past we've directed folks to because it's all online you can go on register to be certified as a business upload your information but we've shifted some to make sure that we are doing more personal approaches with our businesses I think Vicki talked about a lot of you don't know what you don't know and so for us what we've done now is we've we've put into play of setting appointments so I feel the best way to engage with us is either to give us a call I also have my cards available to you all as well or to email us and our business development person is going to contact you set up an appointment and then we're going to walk you through the documents and then we're going to talk about why do you want to be a part of the small local business enterprise database of businesses and what does that mean and then we also talk about how we work with procurement how do we advocate for you as a small business what do you need to do what do you need to have in play so for me it is more of the personal touch and I say I believe it was Alan saying you need to know who's up on the stage when we're talking and we're advocating for businesses I've owned a business I owned a business with an ex-husband who were great partners ex business partners we were not great married so um I say that from the standpoint you're dealing with teams that understand understand your walk so I say to the folks that come into my office I understand contracting I understand the struggles of being in business I understand the importance of you know those times where you're really wanting to kind of intermingle personal funds that really need to stay on the business side and then I've got 30 years of banking experience in working in the lending capacity with small businesses so you get that whenever you're walking into these offices of very passionate people about entrepreneurship but I think I answered the question are you sure you didn't think it's so much better all right oh so Tom in your experience what common challenges to small businesses face in engaging with banks and how can these obstacles be addressed I think this room has a lot of resources to close those gaps that exist so often in context so our bank is relatively small but we did grow over a thousand percent of the last five years to over almost five hundred and fifty million and most of the growth is directed to small businesses so most of our lending almost half a billion in lending that we've done since helping at the bank is small businesses and so we we learn a little bit about what it takes and it frequently takes more than just financial capital for businesses to succeed and so maybe I'll just personalize a little bit hand you that and the mayor did so I'm going to enter into I started a small business and what I really was liking was the social capital the connections and the community I had access to financial capital because I had a I was an executive of a bank because I had money but I had access to it but I didn't have the social connections and I also didn't know how to run a business even though I was a banker but I didn't know how to actually run a business so what we see in our community what we serve and by the way almost 100% of our loans last year 97% of our loans went to minority owned businesses women owned businesses or businesses located in underserved communities so almost 100% of our lending is directed to communities that are underserved in some way maybe historically they come to us so from that experience I can share we frequently find businesses that come that they like one of those three sources of capital they don't have the connections they don't have to know how not because they're not capable of gaining that know-how but that's not what they do they're really good at running a restaurant they're really good at building a widget or doing manufacturing we have some great businesses in Colombia they do manufacturing so that's why I think the resources that are represented on this panel are amazing because you can you can close some of those gaps so the greatest to make it really tangible one of the greatest obstacles we have is on the financial side this is where the SBA and the work that you do and Greg you and your great team does is that sometimes the closing of the financial gap a lot of customers come to us maybe they like a little bit of the down payment that they need that cash that they need to bring to the table and they didn't come to this world with that money right someone helped them along and they may not have enough to bring to the closing table in other cases they come in and they may not have their financial statements to get that they have great business that's cash flowing already they're trying to expand this because they don't have their financials they're coming in with the funds and so that's when a lot of the work that we partner with organizations so many in this room to help bring those financial statements up to parts of the bank or understands what's going on with the business without us getting involved and then finally I'll say this is probably the most important one is that social capital we frequently connect our business almost with other resources and just like the mayor said that that competition is sometimes good but sometimes we even refer and to other financial institutions if we believe that they're better equipped to serve their business so we connect them with lawyers we connect them with accountants we connect them with other resources in the community sometimes we hire them to do our catering at the bank and kind of use that as a coaching moment for them to get better so that social capital is as important and and important to close those gaps that exist in that that social network as a disfinancial capital or just a human capital in Omaha so anyone can answer this but what types of opportunities are there for small businesses to partner with your organization if you were to go out we have a home on fire there are a number of opportunities that are out there a lot of times you're hearing with Christian County about a lot of the transportation projects that are out there that are funded by the committee but there are a number of other opportunities that are available to you and we just ask that you take a look at your source our office actually tries to source through this pretty much daily and send out the information to our small local businesses to let them know of opportunities but when we take a look at the 30, 35, 40 different departments that are at the county they're always procuring something so just to give you an idea there are some projects where they're looking for general contractors with the evidence from the teaching center we're also looking for someone that can help with the redesign of websites for a number of different departments we're also looking for someone to come up with a plant or like a prehistoric district of how that can be unveiled to the public so there are a number of different things that are out there just need to make a point to make sure we're part of which is why we have to come in for the appointments to talk through what am I looking at when I go here and what do I need to do but there are so many things and I won't just talk just Christian county but as Michelle has stated with the state with the city you know the state is one of the largest procurement of goods and services so that's anything from drawing tissue to facilities to whatever that could be so if there are opportunities for many of you in the room we just have to figure out ways to source that information in your best way in the end well for the Small Business Development Center it's also known as the SBDC anybody in this room can partner with us and again there's no charge for it our website is scsbdc.com and you can go on there and click the button at the top right and sign up to get assistance again it's completely confidential and we will work with you not we don't really want to come in and just work with you on a one-off issue what we want to do is develop that relationship like a lender would and work with you over time we have many clients we've worked with for 15 or 20 years like Tracy we've worked with a company called Jordan Construction which many of you may have heard of and they started out we worked with them from the very beginning and they've grown by weeks and bounds they were featured on 60 minutes last year Karen Jaykins here in Columbia has a great business LLC construction these are businesses that we continue to work with not just from the very beginning but all along the growth and you know some of the services we provide may change as time goes along and your needs change but that's why we're here my folks about 55 people around the state almost everybody is a small or has been a small business owner we have a lot of people that have come out with banking and have worked extensively with small businesses and we know all the lenders I mean probably about anybody in here would be a great candidate potentially for Dom's Bank or Optus but we know all the lenders so if you're not sure come to us we will help you get your ducks in a row as somebody said earlier it was Tracy that said that and help you put that package together so that and figure out what lenders have products that fit you so that when you go to them you've got a really high probability of success so and again I've got cards with me happy to help in any way and as Tracy said earlier and I'm really very very sorry why is it Tracy before I'm so sorry I'm like you're there it must be Monday yeah but you don't know what you don't know that is so well stated and so seek out your resources when I've done two businesses when I started out I didn't know about the SBDC and a lot of these other resources I wish I had because it certainly wouldn't have helped me along the way so use them that's great yeah we always say that Columbia has a great ecosystem of our small business community and we collaborate all the time on the events we'll just on the May 1st event we'll have all of our partners there representing and providing information to anyone who wants to meet with them 101 so my final question before we wrap up is can you offer one piece of advice to small businesses aiming to participate in opportunities and the documents start with you and come down with me it's hard for me to say which one in particular I think you asked about the resources so maybe I'll try to merge the two questions a little bit I think everyone in this room can be a resource for each other and I think Columbia has a fantastic ecosystem but also I think it's important to be very intentional even as a small business owner that you're just getting started being intentional about doing business with other small businesses because you never know you know when that relationship is going to be beneficial to you and so being intentional about creating your own ecosystem we're an office bank we're building a new branch we are very intentional about using local businesses to do every part of that construction we said every dollar needs to be going to a locally owned business that's spent so imagine if everyone in that in this room did that with all of their spending power I bet we would have 100 small businesses and Dom stole my work because I was going to talk about being intentional but every time that you have an opportunity to be in a further resources making sure that you actually use those resources reach out to us the other pieces understanding your capacity your financials though this is shameless blood we do have a couple of workshops one being a virtual today starting at noon because it's the power show and making sure that your business is on go ready, willing, and able and I have some stuff with me if you want to that you can still actually register for that event and then in April we're going to be talking about financials and it's talking about how can you not outgrow your business also how to grow your business but really what does it mean from a cashless point because often that particular piece of financial information is ignored your cash flow so we'll have that coming up April 24th I'll have information for that as well so just the nugget is understanding your capacity and really understanding your numbers I would say ask questions don't be scared to ask questions you know like I said before sometimes forms and processes can be intimidating and if you allow that to take over sometimes that'll make you deviate from the goal the end goal that you have so I would say don't let things like getting licensed at the city of Columbia for your business intimidating you ask questions come in and come talk to us live online we're always happy to help you yeah and just as I said before and everybody here said use your resources find them use them take advantage of it surround yourself with knowledgeable expert people that can help you along the way many people want to help you you may not feel that way sometimes when you're out there on your own but it is the truth and I would also reiterate what what Pam just said the number one reason small businesses fail is poor financial management you know you come into business you've got a great product a great service you're really expert in that but you don't necessarily know how to run the business financially so make sure you're getting that support and then I will just put a plug in again for the May 1st event that is going to be a phenomenal event so I would encourage you to attend that we are also the SPEC along with our counterparts in North Carolina are hosting a similar type of event on September 5th in Greenville and we will have state and local agencies buyers from both states there that you can sit down and talk with directly go to some training sessions to your panelists like this so I would encourage you to see that or attend that and they'll be more information forthcoming you can always go to our website and find it there well thank you all we like to stay in our office we might not have all the answers but hopefully you know someone we can connect a client to and you all be excellent partners to the city of Columbia so we appreciate that continued partnership their contact information is on the screen so if you have any questions any follow-up questions and I believe Greg White is going to do our Q&A session I know and as a panel please stay up here because I'm sure some of the questions will be answered first of all I mean I'm Greg White it's the small business administration in Scott, Carolina we're like a strong little fellow but we oversee the counseling area which is the small business development center score chapter between this business center and the veterans business out there to see if we have a cause to save we also oversee the cabinet program which we were talking about the community drugs, microloans seven, eight, nine, or four for sure to my friends we have resources to help you find those lenders that you need for your business to grow then we also see the contract program we've been talking about there's several of those there's the 88 program there's the small business events businesses, there's a woman on businesses there's a veteran on businesses so there's like several opportunities for small businesses to get them off the federal contract when they manage those there's 23% of all federal contract programs should go to small businesses so we oversee that and finally the third aspect of it is disaster see if you went through the code program we have all the code and the loans and all the code and the GVT loans and the IDL and all those we also right now we have the declaration of Denver County from the 20th that they're inflating 2015 through and from that we oversaw those funds again through SBA so SBA does a lot of oversight and support we don't have the person on hand reaching every item that's on the answer resource department like UCF here so we're going to start out with questions today we've had all the professionals here now the most important thing is get your feedback and get your needs met so if you've got a question you want us to answer the certain layers here and the announcements here we'll try our best to answer if we don't have an answer for you we'll get back to you so if you might have any questions you want to ask if you're in this room in that I can handle it real quick to look to typically SBA and our programs are for profit entities except for disaster programs with disasters we do criminal and non-profits some of you know the federal agency says as you SBA but they do work with non-profits and they do have loan property and grant loans and they'd be able to assist this room so what is the government's position now on affirmative action and subsides for that has not changed I didn't think so but I will just say that I've had an experience with the local municipality that they don't feel affirmative action is something that you know they are engaging so I want to know is there a problem with subsides is there not a problem with it you know because for a small business to get up the subsides are absolute key to helping especially in construction there's federal programs that have not changed and such that programs what's it over well I know this when I go on SAMS to say that there are very few woman opportunities and hardly any in the south seen some in and Idaho and the state parks that are out in the nowhere land and things like that what do you think that there is really in the opportunity section for women on businesses especially women in construction that has not changed and everybody has a lot of opportunity through the federal programs there were tens of millions specifically in certain these projects are very important okay and you down it's just make you want to address I'm sorry let me address that position okay great so I have received women on A to A hugs on several of the subsides and it hasn't changed for me and just in the last week I probably got three in the last week so I would say that with the A to A program I don't know if you were in A to A program I've applied before and I waited that's a whole separate so we're in an A to A program again it's a business development program but there's life after A to A so you still have to be out there and market yourself and work with those different agencies to try to get more business there is a focus on one of the opportunities I've been involved in several of the webinars and meetings with you to find out if it's on SAMS or if it's here's like another procurement avenue for that show yes I use SAMS as one of them and they're as I'm sorry just for Michelle for sure Michelle said I don't know if you work with them but I've been working with them since 2015 so I get a list of all the opportunities that are coming out whether it's state, federal or local and they use the SAMS app I mean I don't know if you work with any of those there are agencies but I have worked with everybody on this I've worked with Scott Miller okay but everybody on this stage I've interacted with their departments me too there's Benina at office I've worked with Benina as well so I would say take advantage of the resources here and I don't know if you're trying to be the prime I started off as a sub or an attendee department and then I moved up to a prime and so once they see the agency see that you're doing good work and you have good C parts they start coming from you well um well maybe we can talk about that sure so we don't have to take up the time thank you thank you good thank you good thank you Ben thank you for talking to you with one of the 80 contracts that you can work with well to be good we we have that contract that's right yes ma'am let's get it you like don't you piggyback on the discussion before so we are with apex me i'm jasmine kennedy angela smore and chrystal marant we're all procurement counselors with apex and what we do is we advise small businesses here in south carolina with government with their government contracting needs whether that's a set aside certification that you want to apply for that's opportunities out there with the state of south carolina that's state local and federal so like you were saying you're out there on sam dot gov looking for these contracting opportunities and you're not finding them well a lot of times that's people that you let me let me just say this but a lot of our clients it's not going to be out there on the website that's where these networking opportunities come in that I tell a lot of my clients depending on the industry you're in it's not going to be anything that you're going to click and find like you said construction I have my construction clients they're booming right now because there's a need for that and though even those offers some of those opportunities they're not finding out there on the website but with those networking opportunities with these resource partners even like with xc dot you know of James I can't remember James last name but anyway if I could if my client says I'm just not finding anything I'll call James and James you'll tell me where to go he'll send me things so it's all about who you know I mean that's something that we that's something that we assist with I'm going to be honest with you my clients that are new to government contracting I don't start them on sam dot gov especially depending on the industry they're in because sam dot gov you're going to get frustrated you're going to get overwhelmed especially if you're not finding anything because a lot of these opportunities are not going to be out there for you to publicly see a lot of these opportunities depending on the dollar amount they don't even have to be publicly advertised it's not even required for them to be publicly advertised that's my next question is is that almost everything I've seen on sam's I think that people that are getting into a need to understand that small business to the sda is what 49 million dollars is that am I correct okay it depends on your business so I would just mind if I strive to take one of my first years in a business car okay we need to talk to eight banks because that's we're tasked by the dov to help businesses grow in the realm of government contracting on the federal state and local side of the government we assist with all of these contract opportunities that come out in racially counted this is the city of Columbia we're housed in the usc in commitment so it's a part of the University of South Carolina we've also been there before and I'm happy to say that this green has been instrumental I've lived in a contract with her but it was a market ship is that correct you want to say I'm working yeah it was it was what I consider a set aside opportunity and so yes I will contact you again and see if there's something that I miss it it's right come on this is great this is exactly what I'll talk about because your resources non-connecting is exactly what we'll do and can contact you with the eight banks group I've contacted you too Mr. White I know nobody can be with eight banks and meeting with them I think that's just a great opportunity for you so let's go on to a couple of questions yes sir yes my name is D. I'm a generator and I've had the luxury of working with the city of Columbia on different opportunities and because of OVO I've said small business owners there and sometimes they get frustrated I guess with the online process maybe and I hear you all talking on the panel you mentioned that the financials is where it's lost that what exactly what programs or whatever that you have to place that exactly that you know if you had that small business owner that they don't have the financials is there something that would first hand help them through all of your agencies so I'll go ahead real quick it is to get plugged in into the workshops that are being provided because we all of us try to identify the gaps that small businesses are meeting so we have workshops that target that you go through your financials what are you looking at and then we share it so you know Ayesha's going to share whatever workshops we may have going on as well so it is to make sure I think you can find on the video of our things that we've got yes yeah always looking through about financials so yeah so anytime any of our partners have an event coming up we share it on our weekly newsletter so we're really good about that but in addition to that we work closely with SBDC and their staff when we have a client that's working on the loan package they have staff that are very familiar with how to format that package to get us what we need when it comes to financials of course we have some price area that we have to have we have to have some type of procedure that we loan funds with but we work very closely with SBDC if there's a client that is not really sure how to gather their profit and loss statements and things like that but in addition to that those workshops and trainings are crucial to making sure that you can understand how to put your financial infrastructure in place and we're located at the SBDC I'm sorry we're located in the same building as APEX and SCORE and right down the street from the city building so happy to help with that we need that day in the day out and I'll plug our website to the sba.gov so I'm sure you can go there we can put on the courses that for lending preparation see if we can get the website we can do credit courses across the state and that's it and I would mind if you address it from a banker's standpoint what you look for for financial information in the app itself though before I didn't just clarify the formatting comment is right on but it doesn't mean just reshuffling numbers on the spreadsheet what it really means is having a clarity the basic information that we always ask for is last three years attached to terms whatever they may be even if there's just internally prepared financial statements for the business and we want to see the cash flow profit and loss statement balance sheet depending on type of business I mean those are the basics that's to start to start with and what we're finding that frequently the small businesses they don't have a clear internal financial record keeping so it takes the lender tremendous amount of time to try to unwind it and you get to right to the end and you discover oh I forgot I had this thing on my credit or I thought I forgot I had this loan or I forgot about this and it's not showing up and then process starts all over because the financial picture looks very different so having all that up front having it all collected having a clear picture and go back to the the five C's of lending so the credit that's your credit score it's not the only credits that's not when this we want the credit score is what's on the credit report it's right so the lender can then project what your cash flow is going to be as a sole proprietor or LLC it's often solidated the only other thing I would mention is there are some we've hosted some sessions that I've just been to about business credit business credit most things community makes don't look at business credit at all they look at it as solidated because you're personally guaranteeing the debt so we want to see the full financial picture of the borrower getting that borrower have some I guess vision to repay the debt and that's where the SBA comes in if it's not guaranteed cash flow that's already generating the SBA using the SBA credit and then it's between three monthly that allows to base that long decision on protections because we have that credit and that's when they break in this table on this and I'm going to add the bankers are very realistic so if you don't look at the plate of figures and they're able to say that that's not realistic they'll appreciate signing goods somewhere else and if I could if I can add one thing to that great so you're all sitting there listening and and Dom is exactly right but if I were you sitting out there I'd probably be saying what does that look like and how do I get from here to there with that package and that's where we can sit down with you with one of our experts who go through it step by step we're not going to put it all together for you we're going to guide you through it because you need to understand it and when you present that to the bank you're the one that has to sit in front of the banker and explain what those numbers mean and how you put them together so we're going to educate you while we guide you through putting that package together that's great that's great good morning my name is Lynn I told them I've worked with many of the people in the room I help to manage the Columbia chambers I'm going to give a shameless plug here the Columbia chambers minority business accelerated program and many of the people in the room and on the stage and one of their people if they're not involved directly they have some of their employees involved and what we do is we teach businesses how to scale and with that I'd like to just say to many of the businesses here we teach you how to work on your business and not in your business and I think somebody said earlier that so often we're so busy trying to run our business we can't look up and see what's going on around us and so it's very important that you take the time to come to these kind of opportunities you get when they say free guys free is free okay and you really need to take advantage of it because these guys have years and years of expertise many of their people we have this program has coaching element worked into it where we assign a business coach and a financial coach it's a year-long program it asks you to make a serious commitment but when you come out on the other end and you see some of the businesses that have been through our program you'll see that it's well worth the investment it's not free but when you look at what you get it is a $15,000 program it's a year-long program we've come out on the other end many of the things especially the financials it is a program where we we get transparent we just pull it all off and let people see we have to be vulnerable and if you're not if you can't share your problems with these people and other people who are trying to help you they're not trying to shame you they're not trying to make you feel bad you got to take it off and let them see what it is so they can help you so this is what our program is all about it's not for startups because one of the things that we found is some of the businesses that have been in business for a long time need to almost start over from a structural standpoint and so we helped them do that and again we couldn't do it without the assistance of the mayor and everybody in this room SBA grade I think you can come and talk to us at our program guys if not our program find more they're excellent find people that really care about making sure our businesses in our community survive and thrive and can offer opportunities for others Lynn can you can you tell everybody what they actually pay because they don't pay $15,000 no I'm sorry they no you don't pay $15,000 one of the things that you think one of the things that we ask you have to be a member of the chamber that's a given but with that come so many opportunities to actually interact with the mayor and other big businesses that are coming into this community who are looking to partner with some of you all okay so you join the chamber membership I think it's about $600 and then you also pay $500 and the reason why we do that is because we found that if you don't have skin in the game sometimes you're not going to give it the attention in the bank that it needs so when you think about program it's $15,000 and all we're asking you to do is to make a minimum investment of $1,100 and then your time you have to be committed because the people who are coaching you we're not paying them they're volunteering we did these guys volunteer their time and when I when I say coach somebody's who's going to walk with you through the program so that $1,100 is a drop in the bucket compared to what you get in the program after that we have several programs through the SBA called thriving yes we don't have the quality of that agreement with Charleston but it's a very similar program and it helps you grow your business and can I add we also have a program when we get businesses who apply and they're not ready for this program we have what they call entrepreneurial pathways we work with Michelle and her folks who actually start kind of walking through some of the same processes so that you'll be ready for our program in the next year upcoming year thank you so it's not a piggyback off of this question and the next question about the non-profit can you hear me? yes oh okay so I know with a non-profit it kind of runs almost like a for-profit as far as the financials and some of the business structure I know that you say that you offer programs financially to kind of help those non-profits but do you offer like the learning that is needed to help kind of structure the business I was going to say yes because you're right a lot of the on topics they will discuss such as marketing the financial infrastructure would apply for anyone operating any type of organization the only limits would be the financial assistance or our office in city of Columbia can do that but I'm oftentimes doing research to see what opportunities exist for funding so I would still encourage non-profits to reach out to our organization and get in our network so you are able to network with others when you have different events and workshop opportunities I will say that score chapters they will help insist small businesses that are non-profits grow and entail the funds also what they would be able to do if I can add to that as well so we work with a lot of non-profits at Office Bank and to us your taxes and status doesn't matter to us with the year you show small business and non-profits are a critical part of our small business infrastructure in our state in our country so we finance facilities for non-profits we finance office buildings we finance work even advanced working capital when they have grants that are coming in but it's mismatched with their cash flow needs so many of the financial institutions we work with non-profits which is treated just like regular business has to pass the same same underwriting criteria as a regular business any questions? any other questions? yes, ma'am any questions on a question? thank you just to give you a resource on non-profits you're going to be seeking a federal funding a federal grants you're going to need a SAM registration so you're still going to have to come see eight papers we have a lot of resources that DOE is allowing us to supply to for-profit organizations and we have I had researched several grant opportunities especially through innovation research and development that's now a new task under our new leadership for the DOE that we help with grant opportunities so because you're going to need a SAM you're going to still be coming to see us at 8-BEC so again by all of these all of these resource partners we're just all here to help you so coming from the federal side we kind of get dabbing a little bit of it all thank you very much get this question right hello my name is Leshawn Anderson I am a nurse and I'm in the process of opening up my healthcare agency so I had a question about licensure what type of license what that means to get started? so you definitely need a business license but it goes off of your names which is your industry classification so that would determine your rate for your license but you definitely need to come in and get that is it going to be a physical location business or is it going to be like a home occupation? okay so then we would have to fill out a home occupation form for as long as it's going to be on the question is there a shoe with all these accurate names there an accurate location which one would you like to get to? SBDC is one of this development center used to be search for retired executives so that's some of them you're talking about they've been since they've been since we're just saying that they're in the federal contract interview so that's what you do federal contracts, they're there yes sir way back in the back one question all right so to feedback on her question about licensing she would need a license and you can see but also a license for the county, correct? depending on if she's in which county correct yeah correct and in some cases if because the city sits in the county depending upon your needs codes it may be a situation where you're coming to Michigan County where you may have to give you a hyper-city license but there will be a personal assessment that you'll have to do with the county and it might not necessarily orient you to have that so anytime it's just it's great that you chat with both so in the end of the day I'll either be found with people where they've been with both and you also can make sure you have a commercial license oh that for sure is that fair? yes ma'am okay I just want to add one thing if I could go to that when I started my business started working on the federal contract and state and federal contracts if there's one thing that I would share with you guys that when you start your business you make sure that you hold in on what you do well sometimes when you get the news you say I don't want to do this and I can do that well my needs codes facility claims right infrastructure kind of go together right but then if I add you've been planning what is my past performance in that grant sometimes when you're getting business resources I say oh I can do this and I can do that well there's more to your ability because you know they're going to look for your past performance they're going to look for your experience in the nation that youth is essential in being able to perform children thank you thank you when when you started your business were you so honored to do that okay so if you had someone for that past performance that could have helped you and then that 49% business owner how would that have affected you for your AA so with a as long as she's in the correct performance 51% on the chest requirement so as long as you're still 51% on the chest right and then we have self-performance requirements so I had to perform a certain amount of the work of self in each needs code hours certain amount of time and so the question would be are the I know that there are personal and value assessments for the owners of the company so if the owner of the company net worth is x and then the 49% person is y is that a problem so again I didn't know kind of that 500% too but I'm thinking that maybe to rip to break that gap that um a project manager I could give a ownership to him but and this is the net worth maybe a lot more than that is that one I'm lucky with that that's a good one I'm lucky with that on case by case places but we need to get some of these lists we need to set up one more question that one right here I'm very new to this and I'm still actually learning the capital area and there's plenty of acronyms up yet today so I'm going to be looking at that I'm probably going to that and I know I need to talk to this Kelly um Smith definitely and I'm also a nurse looking to set up like a new base kind of things what's kind of I do need like some training and there's no shortage of consultants that are trying to get my money to help you know with this training and that training and setting up a business in that particular field but what's holding me back is my understanding that I don't want a very limited income happening right now and before I start putting it into this business my understanding is I need to have that business license in place so that I'll be able is that like the first step so that I'll be able to write off all of these things that I put in for the training and the different certifications or whatever that I decide to get in order to be at you know have that credibility in the field yeah absolutely you're going to start there with business licensing just to make sure that your license business and your income finance so I would recommend starting there first but as far as getting any type of consulting and things like that you may want to go this way we do a lot of investment yeah so so chief that I would start there but if you'll come make an appointment come sit down with one of our folks we can walk you through step by step and kind of prom watch your order what do I need to do to get everything in place thank you that's a very very good research that's it may have been 44 about 44 years I've seen this thing with all the guys and kids and of course South Carolina is a change I was here when it was I don't know this aerospace telecommunication I'm doing on the ground because they've been here for 44 years it's they work that work and still we started an engineering firm because of the battles that I incurred and trying to probe in Columbia I opened up an engineering firm in Shaw and it has to be a working relationship and you may have an institution but you have to have an info really have that to to see the progressiveness of what we have that's where the firm is at I'm doing and I'm basically participating in the energy field great number of friends of mine I actually get all the energy system for BMW on my parties and we still see like friends of the scout brought the truck down in here right Richland County has a lot to do with getting the scout company here what are y'all doing to make sure that those participants in that program right there is actually getting support from people around you and around that door that's a lot happening over there where roads are being moved and that's again there are teams that already have gone on without both participants maybe they you want to address that what's happening this morning is that for are you anybody up here I'm going to refer to the county because they actually set up vendor bays and put in the program specifics about making sure about the business so there are there are a couple of moving parts with scout we'll say that we did partner with commerce a few weeks ago in that we were able to get roughly 600 businesses in front of curing a professional scout okay so that was one piece there's also some legislative folks that are involved as far as making sure that there is participation in a few different areas that they're going to be using small businesses that are really living and reaching as well what I am going to suggest is number one that you and I talk offline about a few things but I can say that from a county council perspective I know that there have been several meetings with scout the oneness of small businesses being involved has been expressed not only locally but also with commerce and commerce being used as part of the vehicle and having the portal and all that to make sure that there were capturing the businesses that are available here to do business with scout so there will be some ongoing efforts as we partner also with economic development with what will be happening with scout right now pre-construction is happening and that right now everybody knows that pre-construction really tends to pretty much relationships that builds to the plan okay thank you thank you we'll wrap it up I'm going to ask the remainder and I'll come up and close the comments