May 4, 2025 • 12 mins
We spoke with Business Advisor Denise Whitford about state programs that help small businesses.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest today is Denise Whitford. She is a business advisor
with the Connecticut Small Business Development Center.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning, Good morning Alison. It's a pleasure to be
here for.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
People who don't know about the Connecticut Small Business Development Center.
What's your mission? How did it all come about?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, that's a great question. It's a cooperative agreement between
the Small Business Administration, the state in which we're located,
which is Connecticut, and we are housed within the School
of Business at Yugon and so the small Business Development
centers across the country really have a mission to work
with entrepreneurs and small businesses for no cost and private
(00:41):
and confidential, where we help bring resources and knowledge to
help them achieve their business goals and objectives. And sometimes
that's launching a business, other times it's growing, but overall
we really want to help them create jobs and increase
the amount of business activity in our state.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
And why did you decide to do this?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, my back grounds in banking and economic development, and
I've always had a fondness for small businesses. Background in
finance and development really led me to answering a lot
of questions with my clients, and so it was a
natural bridge for me to help them problem solve and
also develop and grow building upon their knowledge and their success.
(01:23):
I started doing this about fifteen years ago, and I
think I drank the kool aid, as they said, and
I really love seeing people succeed.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
That's wonderful. Why is it so important for us to
support local business? Small business? No less.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, if we're going to support small business, there's an
exponential amount of dollars that we invest in our communities
that continue that domino effect of continuing to build healthy, strong,
vital types of environments here in Connecticut and in our neighborhoods.
And I think when we look at the numbers of
jobs that small businesses retain, I believe there's thirty eight
(02:00):
million small businesses across the country, and again that number
fluctuates from time to time, but that's a substantial number
of jobs. And all of those resources, whether someone's growing
crops that you eat or they're providing products that you buy,
we have access to that right next door or somewhere locally,
and I think that it just creates a very vibrant,
(02:22):
healthy community.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Let's talk about the services that you offer, you have
several of them.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yes, there are. I have to say that last year
we served I want to say about let me just
take a look and see what that number was. Last
year we served about thirty five hundred different clients and
trained probably over a thousand individuals. That translated to us
to about ten thousand, almost eleven thousand hours of advising.
(02:53):
And some of those services are going to be business
planning and strategy, where we help them put together a
business plan, do that market research so that they're fundamentally
solid in the way that they make their decisions. And
then we also provide that financial analysis so we can
look at what they're doing right in their financial statements
(03:14):
and managing that cash flow so that when they get
to a bank or an institution of lending, whether that
be equity or it be capital through debt, that they
are prepared to move forward. In some cases that's going
to be in the technology and innovation resources, and other
times it could be an international trade if they have
(03:34):
a product or a service that they want to export.
And that said, we also help the clients look at
their safety in terms of their intellectual property, if they
have a patent, trademark, or a copyright in some way
we help guide them through that process. And then the
cybersecurity in today's world, everybody has a cell phone or
a laptop or works from a computer. We've got to
(03:56):
think about that safety or we're making sure that our
data is protected appropriately. And then lastly, I want to
say we tie that not just to private industry types
of business activity, but also doing business with municipal, state,
or federal government entities and working with them in terms
of that contract support.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Wow, this is amazing and so helpful. Is there a
web address that people can go to.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Absolutely, they can reach us at www dot ct, SBDC,
dot ucon, dot edu. We're also found, if you will,
on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. And so we try to
meet our clients where they are, and we like them
to find us no matter where we can be.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I love that you meet them where they are.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Absolutely, we often do face to face workshops and webinars
or one on one advising. We pride ourselves in the
fact that all SBDCs work in a private and confidential environment,
and we do that. Again they're in a face to
face but most often now, especially since COVID, you can
(05:05):
find us on any of the channels, whether it be
through Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google meets, go to meeting, We
try to find them where they like to hang out,
if you will, And sometimes that means that the chambers
of commerce too in phase to face meetings, or it
could be at incubators and accelerators across our wonderful state.
(05:26):
I have to say that our team has a seventeen strong,
small but mighty team out in the field where we
do workshops and webinars, and those are also offered at
no cost in a confidential setting, and those programs can
focus on managing their money or SBIR, SPTR or even
business growth accelerators that we work with now and even
(05:50):
we put together a number of SBA lender programs where
we put the lenders in a room and we have
an introductory period and put on workshops where folks can
come and learn and meet and mingle the folks that
are going to help them put their financial packages together
and then actually provide the lending.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And another way that you help businesses is through your
Connecticut Boost Fund. Maybe you could tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, definitely, the Connecticut Boost Fund has been a wonderful
program that the state of Connecticut put together, and it's
really a state backed public private partnership that offers low
interest loans to Connecticut small businesses and nonprofits. It's that
one stop shopping that provides that financial assistance and support
that helps people through that process. And that's where the
(06:34):
SBDC steps in and helps out as a service provider
for the Department of Economic and Community Development and those
lenders and helping that loan process, looking at their financials,
helping that miscellaneous information and data that they need to
get together to submit a solid application. And the main
objective here is to really look at helping businesses, especially
(06:57):
those that either a low income or underserved area, find
access to working capital. For instance, some of those loans
come in at a four and a half percent actually
all of those loans come in at a four and
a half percent interest rate. There's no application or closing
fees on it, and they can borrow anywhere from five
thousand to five hundred thousand. So it's a really good
(07:18):
opportunity for those out there looking for low interest and
a lot of flexibility to get their business up and
moving forward.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Can you tell me what grants or loans are currently
open to small businesses.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, grants come and go, and I have to say
that some of the grants that are out there, I
may be talking about them today and understand that there's
a few of them that go through a series of processes.
For example, the Women's Business Development Council we call them
the WBDC offers a variety of grants that different periods
(07:51):
throughout the year, like the Ignite grants or the launch
Pad or even for a childcare business opportunity. But essentially
those are applications can be for twenty five hundred to
ten thousand dollars in grant and they usually have a
matching component, so the business isn't getting one hundred percent
of the project financed to the grant. They have to
(08:11):
put some kind of skin in the game as well.
So WBBC is one of those places. But also Sector
so we look at Sector Rise. They offer business grants
for businesses from ten thousand dollars to twenty five thousand
dollars and that fund is also a matching grant program
and it can be for a variety of towns in
(08:33):
eastern Connecticut. And then I think that the Community Foundation
of Greater New Haven is also a wonderful partner with us.
We work with a lot of their clients in and
around the city of New Haven. They have an NH
three grant that really helps with the equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem,
(08:54):
looking at businesses and helping them get through that opportunity
again to create jobs, working capital. Sometimes we also have
grants that might be periodically offered through other places like
federal institutions like the Small Business Innovation Research Grant or
(09:15):
NIH the National Institutes of Health, and that's where our
workshops and webinars come in to help support those folks
looking to apply for those grants. We provide them with
the special services to really think about how this brand
will impact their bottom line.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Sb DC is effective at helping businesses navigate the complexities
of starting and running a small business. How do you
individualize it, what do you focus on to help them?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Well, that's a great question. Again, I want to talk
about how we offer a no cost, confidential tailored way
in which what their needs are not everyone comes to
us for the same reason. The number one reason people
came to us last year was either to start their
business find access to capital, and so we look at
(10:02):
the focus of the economic impact of what they're doing correctly,
and then help them adjust where they might need to
guide differently with training tools and data to get them
in a better place with the lenders or within the
workforce development area. We developed very strong partnerships within our
state and within our national network. For example, you can
(10:24):
find us that a lot of those incubators and accelerators
across the state working with different cohorts that come in
for either food accelerator or a business impact competing for
pitch deck winnings, if you will. But also we focus
on the chambers of commerce and a lot of the
economic development offices in the towns in which we operate.
(10:47):
We're really looking at impactful results. And again, as I
mentioned some of those results from last year with a
number of clients, we served more than thirty five hundred clients,
but we also helped bring more than seventy six million
dollars in capital impact, and that was both debt and equity.
And so when we think about that almost one hundred
(11:07):
and seventy new businesses started, those are pretty impactful numbers
and we're on track to do that and break that
number again this year. So every day's a different day
here and it's absolutely wonderful to be able to work
with these folks. They're eager for knowledge and resources.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I'm so happy you're here today to let these people
know that it exists.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Well, I'm delighted that you have you come in. We
have a very hard working team and we love to
get the word out there. So thank you for helping
us spread the word. And if I can one more moment,
just say that you can find us at www BTSBDC
dot ukon dot edu and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And LinkedIn and LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I'm speaking with Denise Whitford. She's the business advisor with
the Connecticut Small Business Development Center. Again, that website is
seen e T s b d C dot U con
dot e d U. You can also go to Facebook,
Instagram and LinkedIn. Denise, thank you so much for being
here today.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Thank you, Allison. Enjoy your day.
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest today is Denise Whitford. She is a business advisor
with the Connecticut Small Business Development Center.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning, Good morning Alison. It's a pleasure to be
here for.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
People who don't know about the Connecticut Small Business Development Center.
What's your mission? How did it all come about?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, that's a great question. It's a cooperative agreement between
the Small Business Administration, the state in which we're located,
which is Connecticut, and we are housed within the School
of Business at Yugon and so the small Business Development
centers across the country really have a mission to work
with entrepreneurs and small businesses for no cost and private
(00:41):
and confidential, where we help bring resources and knowledge to
help them achieve their business goals and objectives. And sometimes
that's launching a business, other times it's growing, but overall
we really want to help them create jobs and increase
the amount of business activity in our state.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
And why did you decide to do this?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, my back grounds in banking and economic development, and
I've always had a fondness for small businesses. Background in
finance and development really led me to answering a lot
of questions with my clients, and so it was a
natural bridge for me to help them problem solve and
also develop and grow building upon their knowledge and their success.
(01:23):
I started doing this about fifteen years ago, and I
think I drank the kool aid, as they said, and
I really love seeing people succeed.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
That's wonderful. Why is it so important for us to
support local business? Small business? No less.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, if we're going to support small business, there's an
exponential amount of dollars that we invest in our communities
that continue that domino effect of continuing to build healthy, strong,
vital types of environments here in Connecticut and in our neighborhoods.
And I think when we look at the numbers of
jobs that small businesses retain, I believe there's thirty eight
(02:00):
million small businesses across the country, and again that number
fluctuates from time to time, but that's a substantial number
of jobs. And all of those resources, whether someone's growing
crops that you eat or they're providing products that you buy,
we have access to that right next door or somewhere locally,
and I think that it just creates a very vibrant,
(02:22):
healthy community.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Let's talk about the services that you offer, you have
several of them.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yes, there are. I have to say that last year
we served I want to say about let me just
take a look and see what that number was. Last
year we served about thirty five hundred different clients and
trained probably over a thousand individuals. That translated to us
to about ten thousand, almost eleven thousand hours of advising.
(02:53):
And some of those services are going to be business
planning and strategy, where we help them put together a
business plan, do that market research so that they're fundamentally
solid in the way that they make their decisions. And
then we also provide that financial analysis so we can
look at what they're doing right in their financial statements
(03:14):
and managing that cash flow so that when they get
to a bank or an institution of lending, whether that
be equity or it be capital through debt, that they
are prepared to move forward. In some cases that's going
to be in the technology and innovation resources, and other
times it could be an international trade if they have
(03:34):
a product or a service that they want to export.
And that said, we also help the clients look at
their safety in terms of their intellectual property, if they
have a patent, trademark, or a copyright in some way
we help guide them through that process. And then the
cybersecurity in today's world, everybody has a cell phone or
a laptop or works from a computer. We've got to
(03:56):
think about that safety or we're making sure that our
data is protected appropriately. And then lastly, I want to
say we tie that not just to private industry types
of business activity, but also doing business with municipal, state,
or federal government entities and working with them in terms
of that contract support.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Wow, this is amazing and so helpful. Is there a
web address that people can go to.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Absolutely, they can reach us at www dot ct, SBDC,
dot ucon, dot edu. We're also found, if you will,
on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. And so we try to
meet our clients where they are, and we like them
to find us no matter where we can be.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I love that you meet them where they are.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Absolutely, we often do face to face workshops and webinars
or one on one advising. We pride ourselves in the
fact that all SBDCs work in a private and confidential environment,
and we do that. Again they're in a face to
face but most often now, especially since COVID, you can
(05:05):
find us on any of the channels, whether it be
through Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google meets, go to meeting, We
try to find them where they like to hang out,
if you will, And sometimes that means that the chambers
of commerce too in phase to face meetings, or it
could be at incubators and accelerators across our wonderful state.
(05:26):
I have to say that our team has a seventeen strong,
small but mighty team out in the field where we
do workshops and webinars, and those are also offered at
no cost in a confidential setting, and those programs can
focus on managing their money or SBIR, SPTR or even
business growth accelerators that we work with now and even
(05:50):
we put together a number of SBA lender programs where
we put the lenders in a room and we have
an introductory period and put on workshops where folks can
come and learn and meet and mingle the folks that
are going to help them put their financial packages together
and then actually provide the lending.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And another way that you help businesses is through your
Connecticut Boost Fund. Maybe you could tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, definitely, the Connecticut Boost Fund has been a wonderful
program that the state of Connecticut put together, and it's
really a state backed public private partnership that offers low
interest loans to Connecticut small businesses and nonprofits. It's that
one stop shopping that provides that financial assistance and support
that helps people through that process. And that's where the
(06:34):
SBDC steps in and helps out as a service provider
for the Department of Economic and Community Development and those
lenders and helping that loan process, looking at their financials,
helping that miscellaneous information and data that they need to
get together to submit a solid application. And the main
objective here is to really look at helping businesses, especially
(06:57):
those that either a low income or underserved area, find
access to working capital. For instance, some of those loans
come in at a four and a half percent actually
all of those loans come in at a four and
a half percent interest rate. There's no application or closing
fees on it, and they can borrow anywhere from five
thousand to five hundred thousand. So it's a really good
(07:18):
opportunity for those out there looking for low interest and
a lot of flexibility to get their business up and
moving forward.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Can you tell me what grants or loans are currently
open to small businesses.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, grants come and go, and I have to say
that some of the grants that are out there, I
may be talking about them today and understand that there's
a few of them that go through a series of processes.
For example, the Women's Business Development Council we call them
the WBDC offers a variety of grants that different periods
(07:51):
throughout the year, like the Ignite grants or the launch
Pad or even for a childcare business opportunity. But essentially
those are applications can be for twenty five hundred to
ten thousand dollars in grant and they usually have a
matching component, so the business isn't getting one hundred percent
of the project financed to the grant. They have to
(08:11):
put some kind of skin in the game as well.
So WBBC is one of those places. But also Sector
so we look at Sector Rise. They offer business grants
for businesses from ten thousand dollars to twenty five thousand
dollars and that fund is also a matching grant program
and it can be for a variety of towns in
(08:33):
eastern Connecticut. And then I think that the Community Foundation
of Greater New Haven is also a wonderful partner with us.
We work with a lot of their clients in and
around the city of New Haven. They have an NH
three grant that really helps with the equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem,
(08:54):
looking at businesses and helping them get through that opportunity
again to create jobs, working capital. Sometimes we also have
grants that might be periodically offered through other places like
federal institutions like the Small Business Innovation Research Grant or
(09:15):
NIH the National Institutes of Health, and that's where our
workshops and webinars come in to help support those folks
looking to apply for those grants. We provide them with
the special services to really think about how this brand
will impact their bottom line.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Sb DC is effective at helping businesses navigate the complexities
of starting and running a small business. How do you
individualize it, what do you focus on to help them?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Well, that's a great question. Again, I want to talk
about how we offer a no cost, confidential tailored way
in which what their needs are not everyone comes to
us for the same reason. The number one reason people
came to us last year was either to start their
business find access to capital, and so we look at
(10:02):
the focus of the economic impact of what they're doing correctly,
and then help them adjust where they might need to
guide differently with training tools and data to get them
in a better place with the lenders or within the
workforce development area. We developed very strong partnerships within our
state and within our national network. For example, you can
(10:24):
find us that a lot of those incubators and accelerators
across the state working with different cohorts that come in
for either food accelerator or a business impact competing for
pitch deck winnings, if you will. But also we focus
on the chambers of commerce and a lot of the
economic development offices in the towns in which we operate.
(10:47):
We're really looking at impactful results. And again, as I
mentioned some of those results from last year with a
number of clients, we served more than thirty five hundred clients,
but we also helped bring more than seventy six million
dollars in capital impact, and that was both debt and equity.
And so when we think about that almost one hundred
(11:07):
and seventy new businesses started, those are pretty impactful numbers
and we're on track to do that and break that
number again this year. So every day's a different day
here and it's absolutely wonderful to be able to work
with these folks. They're eager for knowledge and resources.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I'm so happy you're here today to let these people
know that it exists.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Well, I'm delighted that you have you come in. We
have a very hard working team and we love to
get the word out there. So thank you for helping
us spread the word. And if I can one more moment,
just say that you can find us at www BTSBDC
dot ukon dot edu and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And LinkedIn and LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I'm speaking with Denise Whitford. She's the business advisor with
the Connecticut Small Business Development Center. Again, that website is
seen e T s b d C dot U con
dot e d U. You can also go to Facebook,
Instagram and LinkedIn. Denise, thank you so much for being
here today.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Thank you, Allison. Enjoy your day.
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