today is the first official day of
National Small Business Week it's the
celebration of entrepreneurs and small
business owners and Florida is a great
place to start your own small business
in fact it ranks second in the nation in
terms of having the best business
climate and if you're opening a small
business what do you need to do what you
know if you don't know what to do what
are you gonna do you have to get help so
we can help you with that get off the
ground and be successful Bernie
Dandridge he's here he's with the
Florida Capitol Bank joining us now so
it can be a little intimidating starting
your own company even just the thought
of it is a little overwhelming of you
know what do you do and the proper steps
and you said even some business owners
that have been in business for years but
don't have the proper support are still
clueless on certain things that's right
and you know one of the things that we
need to help people to understand is
that there is a support structure out
there for you today and you know I work
for a bank and we make commercial loans
and we help people that's for sure
but we don't do everything for people
marketing advertising all kinds of
different things accounting all these
different things that people need to be
successful at to really have a
successful small business I am part of
an organization called the Small
Business Resource Network here in
Jacksonville it's part of the Small
Business Development Center at UNF which
is sponsored by the SBA and that is an X
of both of those are excellent resources
for people my encouragement to every
small business owner today is that if
you don't have an existing relationship
with the SBDC you need one even if
you've been in business for a long time
I spoke to a gentleman that had been in
business for 25 years the other day
called me up and literally asked me
Bernie does anybody ever get an SBA loan
you know and he had just had a bunch of
bad experiences with people that he knew
and I hooked him up with the SBDC and
they helped him get organized put that
whole thing together and really get a
right focus on what he needed to do to
be supported and he had a successful
company so you know people need to be
aware that there's a lot of different
areas in business that can
be pitfalls and if you don't have
somebody who has additional experience
to help you and it advise you you're
missing out and the best thing about
that is all that stuff at the SBDC
pretty much is free that's great because
it's gonna say it's speaking of money
that's the biggest fear I think with
people I have this great idea to start a
small business but I don't have the
money to front it or oh I don't know if
it's worth the investment or what
happens if I don't get my money back on
it what do you tell people in that
situation yeah I mean just a couple of
weeks ago we worked with a gentleman
here in Jacksonville who was wanting to
start his own business by buying a dump
truck a very simple process but he had
gone to the SBDC developed a business
plan got some focus on all the different
aspects of having his own company what
that meant what the pitfalls were what
he needed to do and he really put
together a great plan and we as a result
were able to help him with that purchase
so and we do a lot of other much bigger
things but that's a great example of
somebody who even as a small business
person of just starting out just
starting out that helped him a lot you
know there's a lot of things going on
this week with the SBA and with the SBDC
as far as Small Business Week Linda
McMahon will be in town on Tuesday to
start her East Coast tour of the SBDCs
and promoting Small Business Week
throughout the East Coast and she's
going to start right here in
Jacksonville and that's going to be
great I got an invitation to go on
Tuesday to meet her I'm really really
excited about that and so you know we
have a lot to be proud of in
Jacksonville we have a lot to be proud
of in Florida Florida is a fantastic
place to own a small business
Jacksonville is a really great place to
be involved and there's a lot of great
support structure here there's a lot of
great institutions like ours like for
our capital bank that will help you
along the way
so hey get involved if you're getting
ready or you're thinking about starting
a small business take advantage of some
of these great resources out there and
put together a plan put together a
process that makes sense and then let's
get together and talk about if there's a
way that we could help you
- we're really excited about that yeah
we want people to succeed in this and as
he said there are a handful of events
this week where you can learn more about
that we're going to throw some
information up on your screen there's a
conference May 1st through 3rd and there
is a celebration on May 4th that you
Anna from 11:30 until 1:20 a small
business summit on May 8th at the SBA's
North Florida district office and if
anything it's great to just get out and
meet people that are in the same boat -
and all-around different ideas thank you
so much for coming on oh it's on my
pleasure