 I guess today folks is Dr. Kerry Samansky. Kerry is the director of the Tampa Bay Women's and Business Center. It's an entrepreneur center that takes care of women in the Tampa, St. Pete, probably Clearwater area also. Kerry, welcome to TFNN. Hi, Tom. How are you? Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. So tell us, you know, we're ready to bust out of the COVID era, you know, bottom line is that they were a year later, you know, folks basically coming out of it. You specialize in women business, bottom line, getting women up and going. So first off, tell us exactly what your organization does first. Sure. Yes. I'm so grateful to be here and so nice to meet you. I'm the director of the Tampa Bay Women's Business Center, and we help female entrepreneurs launch and grow successful businesses. So if you have an idea to start a business, if you're in business for a couple of years, we have a team of qualified business coaches to help you along the way. We're also partially funded by the SBA. So we have some wonderful financial resources that are helpful to entrepreneurs. I like to think of us as a connector of resources. We also have a wonderful array of webinars helping everyone from finance to social media marketing to branding to really staying up. I know COVID's been tough for a lot of people for the past year. So we've been able to help our entrepreneurs pivot, help to launch new businesses and expand and really get into territories they never thought they could before. You know, now, with always, it seems to me, being a guy, okay, in business for a long period of time, we've always had plenty of women that have done great. They come into companies and they can accelerate companies in a huge way. What are the challenges, that being said, what are the challenges for a woman that's starting a business at this point? You know, I think there's so many challenges for anyone starting a business. But for women, especially, what we've seen during COVID is so many women lost their jobs. They had to come home. Not only are they moms, but now they're teachers, they're business owners, they're employees. So I think there's so much to juggle with COVID. And, you know, some folks love to work remote, others not so much. So there's been such a big change in the way we work. So, you know, I love working from home, but I'm a fur mama. So I've got three, you know, pets, there's a lot of women that have kids. So working from home, trying to start a business at home, juggling a lot of things has been a challenge. And then where do we go for resources? Where do we get a business plan? Where do we get the finances to start? How do we start an e-commerce store? So we had a great webinar yesterday talking about how to launch an e-commerce store, how to create one from scratch. Nice. We have one webinar next week that we're doing with First Citrus Bank about show me the money. How do you leverage SBA loans? And what are the financial opportunities that are out there for women? So, you know, part of my job is marketing, of telling folks, hey, we exist. I'm also a college professor and I taught entrepreneurship for over a decade. I was an entrepreneur myself. I had no idea the women's business centers existed. And there's over 130 across the United States. Here in the Tampa Bay area, we offer free business coaching for clients that live in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Hernando, Manatee, Pasco, and Polk Counties. And in fact, you guys are in St. Pete. We've got an office at the St. at the Pointer Institute. So we're very excited to expand our reach with our clients in the St. Petersburg area. And we're part of the Helen Gordon Davis Center for Women in Hillsborough County, right in Hyde Park in Tampa Bay. And, you know, when we talk, now Kerry's website, folks, is it looks to me thecenter.org, right? Yes, that's part of this, the Helen Gordon Davis Center for Women. And within there, you'll find the Tampa Bay Women's Business Center. And there's a number of pages that are respective to our organization, the events that we have sign up online with a business coach. And also, if you're curious about loans and grants, I've got a whole page dedicated to the resources to get to the financial aspects of our business. So let's talk about that because it's been, it's really intriguing. You know, if you've never done business with the SBA, folks, they've always been great to do business with. Within the last two, well, actually the last three stimulus bills, it's never been easier to do business with the SBA that you can basically get loans for very large amounts of money with just a signature. So let's talk about the SBA for a bit because there's no doubt that I'm sure that you're out there teaching women on a continual basis that there is plenty of money out here to basically operate businesses. Yes, there is. And, you know, and I think that's one of the number one calls we get, you know, how do you have money to start a business? So there's grants that are available that's free money. And those are hard to come by, but they're out there. What I've done personally is I set up Google alerts. So grants for St. Petersburg business owners, grants for females, grants for entrepreneurs. There's also all the wonderful SBA loans. So the SBA provides the applications for the loans or the traditional 7A loan, the surety loan, the micro loans. And really, the folks that are actually giving the money are the banks. So First Citrus Bank is going to do a great webinar next week on Wednesday, May 5th at 11am. So you can learn more information about that. And during COVID, there's been, everyone's heard of the PPP loans. Those have been extended on May 31st. The Idle loan, which has been extended for that as well. PPP has actually turned into a grant that were clients, if you did receive a PPP, you can fill out PPP loan forgiveness. The Idle is an actual loan, but up to 10,000 was forgiven. So that was a great program. And launching on Monday at noon, if any of your viewers right now have a restaurant, bar, catering business, food truck, they're launching the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. And that's an amazing program. So the government is going to help you with an award. It's not a loan. It's an award for all of the funding that you and revenues that you didn't accept during the past year during COVID. So if you have a business, you lost a lot of revenue, definitely apply for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. That opens Monday at noon. So there's lots of information on the SBA.gov portal that you can get more information, get all the paperwork in place. So the government's really trying to do a great job. The SBA is really trying to do a good job to help the entrepreneurs. Yeah, there's no doubt that that restaurant loan that Kerry just talked about folks, for the folks that stayed in business, this is going to be a windfall and they should get it. I mean, because it's definitely a windfall. I mean, I was actually looking at the aspect Kerry of like if someone didn't make it, if they just closed down, but they had a good set of books, it's like a sad, I'm hoping that some of those people actually look at it again, because it can bring them right back on their feet, which is pretty amazing. Yeah, you know, it's worth the application. They said it takes about 25 minutes, but I don't know if that was an accountant saying that to apply for this, but definitely you can go on the portal, look at all the paperwork that's needed. They were encouraging people to get ready, all the paperwork ready this weekend so they can apply on Monday. So there's definitely money out there. It's just a matter of searching, having the right business plan, having the right opportunities in place to really apply for those. What what businesses do you see in front of you more than other businesses? So at the Tampa Bay Women's Business Center, a lot of our clients and it's so fun to talk to the clients. We see a lot of life coaches, we see a lot of fashion companies and I've got a couple clients launching e-commerce companies, wholesale companies, hair salons, home health. We've got a great woman that's a client that's got one of the stands at the pier and sell some wonderful products out there.