After President, Eric Bubb, called the meeting to order and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance, Past Club President, Jerry Cooke, provided a thoughtful Invocation with reference to recently deceased, Carl DiCapo, finishing with The Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father.
Our meeting moved along briskly, as Carl DiCapo’s funeral mass at Redemptorist Catholic Church, was scheduled to begin at 1 pm.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Next Week’s Meeting: MEETING LOCATION CHANGE for next week May 11th ! GO to the “No Other Pub” (14th & Grand, in the P&L Block, closer to our parking.)
Following Week May 25th (Memorial Meeting) We are back at the Kill Devil Club.
Kentucky Derby Party:We were reminded of the Invite to Tim Tholem’s house for the Kentucky Derby party from 3pm to 6 pm.
New Theatre Restaurant: May 23rd “Million Dollar Quartet”, our reservations have been filled.
OUR PROGRAM: Jill Hathaway, Senior Business Development Consultant for the Missouri Small Business Development (SBDC) at UMKC: TOPIC: Small Business, Big Impact: Maximizing Your Resources for Success. Originally from St Louis, MO and a family that owned & operated a cement company for three generation and over 70 years. So Jill comes from an entrepreneurial / family business background. Jill owned multiple retain shoe stores in the Kansas City area for over 15 years and served on the National Shoe Retailers Association board. For the past seven years, Jill has served a Senior Business Development Consultant.
Fun Facts:(1) more than half of Americans either own or work for a small business and (2) small businesses create about two out of every three new jobs in the U.S. each year.
Our local SBDC is part of America’s nationwide network of Small Business Development Centers. As a partner with the SBA (Small Business Administration), SBDC are hosted by universities, colleges, economic development agencies and private sector organizations. UMKC hosts our SBDC” ELEVATIONLab Entropreneurial Education at 4747 Troost, across the street from the Discovery Center in the UMKC Innovation Center.
There are 12 SBDC’s in the state of Missouri and our serves 11 surrounding counties. Our SBDC helps business owners and entrepreneurs get the information to make confident decision from pre-concept, start-up, growth, scale, and succession. Our SBDC serves for-profit existing businesses and start-ups in making confident decisions through training/events to meet small business needs, one-to-one personal assistance by appointment and resources, and referral connections to the SBDC’s vetted professional partners. The SBDC does not itself provide legal or tax advice.
Jill noted several or their programs: Understanding Financials; Accounting & Budgeting; Funding, what the banks don’t tell you; Cash Flow Management (Profit is Good, but Cash is King!); Marketing & Sales (how to get returns on relationships); Tech Commercialization; Exporting, KC International Trade Accelerator, Program; Business Planning (no cost software to get your business road-map); Start Up Assistance (20 focus areas to grow your business); Succession Planning (2 million small businesses [Silver Tsunami] are owned by Baby Boomers of which 35% want to exit within 3 to 5 years; 80% haven’t considered exit plan/legacy).
Last year, the UMKC SBDC saw over 600 clients for one -to -one counseling and training. Our SBDC helped our small businesses increase economic opportunities with $55 million in increased sales, over $30 million in approved capital. They helped more than 45 start-ups get their business going and over 500 new jobs for the KC economy. Our SBDC partners with other area entrepreneurial support organizations (ESO’s), to offer mentoring, grant pitching, program coordination and facilitation. 43% of their clients were minority owners. The relationships continue as the SBDC stays engaged on an as needed basis, helping with action plans and if need be, assisting in getting their clients back on track.
This scribe’s observation is that our SBDC’s ELEVATION LAB entrepreneurial education programs are a real treasure to the metro Kansas City business community.
TODAY’S QUOTE: “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have 24-hours days.” Zig Zigler.
@rotaryclub13
@rotary13
@rotaryclub13
