A Quick Primer for How We Assist Businesses

By Marshall Doak, SOU SBDC Director

To start a New Year in a recovering economy it seemed appropriate to remind our readers about the many services we offer through our Small Business Development Center. Please review this article for insights to how we may assist you in your business situation. Our services center around Technical Assistance and through providing business education. We offer our services regardless of the demographic group our clients are from and are delivered in a confidential manner and setting. Areas we work in:

Startup: Initiating a business venture from a thoughtful, reasoned approach saves time, money and a lot of heartache in the long run. As soon as you start thinking about your business, you are investing resources (money) into it. Taking the time to plan, set goals and timelines, and deciding on the mileposts or markers for achieving your goals makes the work understandable and can be a guide to early-stage business development. We offer introduction classes, business planning and work with various programs for business initiation to give you the start you need.

Business Assessment: Working with businesses as they grow or want to grow market, geography, or look into new products and services can be assisted through our assessment of plans to be put in place for achieving the desired results.

Accessing Capital: Arguably the most important part of business building in the short run. Presenting a coherent plan with supporting financials is mandatory for receiving loans. We help through reviews, instruction and support for plan writing and loan package development. We help clients access capital through the private sector, through public/private partnerships, and through various public sources as the need presents itself. Teaching business people to read financial statements for good decision making is a standard. Teaching clients Quickbooks and accounting fundamentals are parts of this service. SBA lending program assistance has been a particularly active part of our service delivery these past two years.

Lifelong Learning: Customized training and educational offerings are standard fare, from beginning entrepreneurism through numerous topics for specific skill development. Review this newsletter for our upcoming classes! Better yet, contact us to put your name on the list for the next cohort for our ‘Small Business Management’ Class. This is a nine-month course for intensive business development taught by Leo Hull, a strong adherent to developing a systematic service delivery that can make the difference between success and failure.

Human Resources: You need human resources, and we assist through helping you develop a great HR system with support materials to help smooth the employer/employee relationship, and for assistance in finding and retaining great employees.

Licensing and Contracting: From assisting businesses register for obtaining government contracts, contractor’s licenses from the State, local business licenses, and for putting together a business format and structure to support your businesses are capabilities we have. 

Specialized Services: Through our center, we deliver specific services with Market Research and acquisition, in Cybersecurity, assist with connecting you to Patents and Trademark service providers, disaster preparedness, and for accessing markets on a global scale. We assist directly and through partnerships to get you the resources you need.

Exit Planning: Going into business can be intensive work, but exiting a business on favorable terms can be very difficult at times. Advance preparation for consideration of family, retirement goals, employee retention and recognition, succeeding ownership structures, owners’ legacies, and understanding the value a business has are some of the areas we work with when owners consider selling or gifting their businesses.

To give you the broad range of services we offer, not only do we hire the most capable experienced advisers and instructors we can find who exhibit the traits of service to community, but we rely on our Partner organizations to coordinate service delivery with us. These partnerships have been formed and reinforced over years of working together to help us declare we are 

“Helping Build Oregon’s Best Businesses!”

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Marshall Doak is the Director of the Southern Oregon University Small Business Development Center and a huge supporter of innovation and the community that forms around innovation in the economy. In private practice, he works with businesses that plan to transition to new ownership within the next five years, assisting them to build value that can be converted to retirement income when the business sells. 

He can be reached through: mdoak06@gmail.com or 541-646-4126.