New York SBDC Research Network

From SmallBusinessNewz : If you want clients and prospective clients to think of you as the go-to person, for whatever service you provide, I believe you’ll find this post really useful. It’s based around 3 steps you can take, which will change the way people think and feel about you, so you become their irresistible choice. What is a go-to person? Firstly, I’d like to confirm what I am referring to when I use the term, go-to person. I’m talking specifically about those valued people in business, who we immediately think of when we have a need, related to their area of expertise. When someone thinks of you as their go-to person for a particular need, they go direct to you. •They don’t ask a friend for a recommendation. •They don’t poll their friends on Facebook. •They don’t take their need to a search engine. •YOU get the call! Clearly, the commercial value of being the go-to person for your marketplace is huge. Not only will you retain your existing clients for longer

Black Willow joined the Niagara Wine Trail in January of 2011. This fulfilled a longtime dream for the owners. They converted a 35-year-old pole barn into their tasting room and production area. They hired a local winemaker as a consultant to ensure the quality of their wines. Black Willow is open seven days a week and currently offers nine wines. They have several new varieties in development. In addition, they have 500 peach trees and 30 cherry trees. Black Willow has product in the SBDC Wine outlet in China. Cindy joined Jinshui Zhang of the NYS SBDC, and Empire State Development on a trade trip to China in the fall of 2012. She has shared what she has learned with others on the wine trail. The Niagara SBDC (Maureen Henderson) helped the clients put together their loan package/business plan to obtain their start-up funding. Additional assistance included aiding the development of their marketing strategy including a comprehensive branding approach and helping them connect with

Rep. Michael G. Grimm (R-SI/Brooklyn) was joined by Small Business Development Center of CSI (SBDC) Director Dean L. Balsamini and local small business owners impacted by Sandy on May 20th, 2013 to announce the opening of an SBDC Satellite in New Dorp. The satellite office will be staffed by Business Advisor Joseph Bottega and will offer a variety of services, including disaster recovery assistance. For 20 years the SBDC at CSI has offered free business assistance at the College of Staten Island. Now with the expanded services into New Dorp with a new satellite office, located at 1361 North Railroad Avenue, this location becomes SI SBDC's second satellite office in addition to the office in Bay Ridge Brooklyn which opened in 2011. Both locations have expanded the SI SBDC's footprint in assisting small businesses throughout the local area communities. Small Business Development Center New Dorp Satellite Office Empire State Bank 1361 North Railroad Avenue Staten Island N

Red Castle Bakeries was founded in 1996 by Marco and Lucille Minuto. The Minutos started this business after Marco was laid off from a 15 year sales and marketing career with a beef patty company located in NYC. The two decided to start their own manufacturing and distributing company delivering beef patties throughout the Long Island and NYC region. They moved their growing business to their own building in Bayshore in 2007 and grew to employing 25 local residence. Shortly after the expansion, Mrs. Minuto was left a widow. She was faced with selling the business or to continue as the new President and running the operations with her sons. She felt compelled to stay as so many employees and her own children were so vested in the business. She and her son Marco continued to operate and work hard to preserve what had been created. Mrs. Minuto came to the Small Business Development Center in Farmingdale on November 14, just 15 days after Super Storm Sandy devastated so many

Signs.com Announces Small Business Sign Giveaway Signs.com is launching its Business Hours Giveaway. As a part of the event, the Salt Lake City, UT company is giving 5,000 small businesses a free business hours decal to place on their local store or office window. According to Signs.com communications director Daniel Royer, local businesses will "spend money on banners and yard signs but many times having a nice looking business hours decal on their front door or window is an afterthought. We owe much of our success to the small business community and we wanted to show our appreciation by giving them a great decal absolutely free.” The Business Hours Giveaway is completely free to the first 5,000 businesses who visit www.signs.com/business-hours-giveaway and redeem their sign. There are 11 different professionally designed templates to choose from and each design is completely customizable to meet the needs of any business. For more information about the Signs.com Busine

The owner set the business up in such a way, that his risk and financial investment was as close to zero as possible. That way, if it failed, his losses would be minimal. So... With no investment in making the business work and no penalty for failing, he did indeed fail – and extremely fast. You see, whilst he was playing at being in business, his hungry competitors outworked him and outsmarted him. Business today is extremely competitive and competing retailers are working damn hard to make their businesses work. Going into that marketplace, without the willingness to work hard or invest the money required, he could never have succeeded. More HERE .

When he was in the Air Force, while traveling extensively throughout Asia, Europe, Middle East, and the United States, Peter DelCotto developed a wealth of knowledge about food and exotic cultures. He came to believe that food tells a certain story about the people and their environment. He decided to become a chef to share his experiences in other cuisines by highlighting the most popular dishes of each respective culture. In 2011, Peter expressed his passion for cooking in an essay submitted to a ChefUniforms.com contest and won a trip to the National Restaurant Association conference. After earning a degree in Hospitality Management from the Russell J. Salvatore School of Hospitality and Business at Trocaire College in Buffalo, Peter consulted the SBDC for assistance in refining his business plan and financing. With the help of Business Advisor John McKeone, he got funding and founded The Woodshed , a family owned and operated restaurant that serves up traditional Southern style

Lending commitment will support estimated 2,000 Veteran-Owned Small Businesses, Add $475 Million in Capital WASHINGTON – The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced the SBA Veteran Pledge Initiative, a commitment by its top national, regional and community lenders to collectively increase their lending activity to veterans by five percent per year for the next five years. Oftentimes, veterans face challenges in raising capital or have trouble receiving a conventional loan. With the support of SBA’s top 20 national lending partners, and approximately 100 additional regional and community lending partners across the United States, SBA expects to assist an additional 2,000 veterans obtain loans to start or expand small businesses by increasing lending by $475 million over the next five years. This equals a five percent increase above historic veteran lending activity by the SBA. The initiative also complements SBA’s existing partnership with the National Association o

In 2011, Jason DiBenedetto and Leo Rentzis, friends with a shared vision, started Noble Wood Shavings (NWS). NWS is Central New York’s only manufacturing facility dedicated to producing the absolute best quality bedding for horses. They use an exclusive recipe of soft wood species to ensure a top quality product that is consistent, super absorbent, and rot free. The product is super-heated during the drying process to kill bacteria, fungus, and molds. Business Advisor David Lerman worked extensively with the partners to draft a solid business plan and projections. The business plan included several letters of interest from prospective customers, which proved to be key to the successful funding of the project. Locating the business in Sherrill Manufacturing Park with low cost power and overhead helped keep NWS’ operating costs competitive, as did an abundance of local low cost raw material. NWS opened for business with financing from Alliance Bank (an SBA guaranteed loan), Mohawk V

"A lot (of our business) we found out is word of mouth and repeat customers," Lynn Burkdorf said, but she's hoping participating in Herkimer County Chamber of Commerce's Small Business Week May 19-25 will draw new customers to her establishment, which opened late last year. Throughout the state and the nation, chambers of commerce and business organizations celebrate, honor and promote small businesses through small business weeks or days. During last year's Small Business Saturday - which began in 2010 and takes place the Saturday after Thanksgiving - U.S. consumers spent $5.5 billion at small businesses, American Express spokesman Scott Krugman said. He said no statistics were kept in the two prior years. Of the tens of millions of Americans familiar with the event, 67 percent planned to “shop small” last year, according to the Small Business Saturday Consumer Insights Survey. About 44 percent of those surveyed said they shopped small in 2011... At the

Graduate of Monroe Community College, Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College, Kaye holds an A.S. degree in Computer Science, a B.S. degree in Computational Mathematics and an M.B.A. In 2011 Kaye retired from a 25-year career at Xerox Corporation where she spent several years as a senior executive in their North American Service organization. In late 2011, she and her husband Ross formed Stone Goose Enterprises, Inc. and in February 2012, Stone Goose Enterprise, Inc. purchased Smith’s Gravel Pit in Sodus, New York . Kaye is currently the President / CEO of Stone Goose Enterprises, Inc. and President / Owner of Smith’s Gravel Pit. In her roles she runs the day-to-day operations of Smith’s Gravel Pit, an aggregate mining facility; which also provides trucking and excavation services and works strategic development / business expansion for Stone Goose Enterprises, Inc. Kaye was one of the Rochester Business Journal 40 under Forty recipients in 2004 and in 20

From US Citizenship and Immigration Services : Form I-9 is used for verifying the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired for employment in the United States. All U.S. employers must ensure proper completion of Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States. This includes citizens and noncitizens. Both employees and employers (or authorized representatives of the employer) must complete the form. On the form, an employee must attest to his or her employment authorization. The employee must also present his or her employer with acceptable documents evidencing identity and employment authorization. The employer must examine the employment eligibility and identity document(s) an employee presents to determine whether the document(s) reasonably appear to be genuine and to relate to the employee and record the document information on the Form I-9. The list of acceptable documents can be found on the last page of the form. Employers must retai

Founded in 1986 by Roger and Shelley Gray, Center Line Studios (CLS) builds scenery for Broadway shows, opera, and television. After 9/11, the industry went into a recession. They downsized and moved to a smaller location. They were limited by physical space constraints and were unable to accept projects that would enable the company to grow. In March 2011, they purchased a large building. Vacant for many years, it needed substantial work. They spent the summer cleaning and doing construction. In August 2011, with Hurricane Irene, the creek flooded by taking the most direct path, through the building, delaying their move. In January 2012, their small shop caught on fire. They moved the office to their dining room table. The shop continued to function in the area where the fire damage wasn’t as bad. In February 2012, they met with Mid-Hudson SBDC adviser Myriam Bouchard with the goal of securing a loan to finish the renovations. A few months later, they moved the office out

WASHINGTON – A global climate expert from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will share the 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season forecast during a free webinar Tuesday, May 28 hosted by SBA and Agility Recovery. After the weather discussion, disaster preparedness tips will be presented by Agility. Dr. Gerry Bell has been the lead scientist of NOAA’s Long-Range Hurricane Outlook Team since 1998. He was instrumental in developing NOAA’s Atlantic and East Pacific hurricane activity outlook, and has done weather analysis on CNN and The Weather Channel. The Atlantic Hurricane Season begins June 1. Last year’s season ended memorably when Hurricane Sandy pounded the Eastern Seaboard in late October. The storm caused billions of dollars in damages, and so far the SBA has approved about $370 million in disaster loans to more than 3,500 businesses affected by Sandy. Now is a good time to protect your employees, customers and business from the devastating physical and econom

From SLATE . The Internet, in the popular imagination, is supposed to be free... But you don’t have to be a right-winger to recoil at the idea of an Internet sales tax. People who shop online have always gotten a free ride... Many states require you to pay that extra sales tax on your tax return, but who does that? Nobody, that’s who. The net effect is that shopping online earns you a big, permanent discount. If you’re buying anything big, it almost always makes sense to avoid physical stores. At least, it did until recently. During the last two years, Amazon, which had long led the charge against efforts to collect sales tax on online purchases, suddenly began striking tax deals with states. This was a strategic capitulation—by agreeing to collect taxes, Amazon can now build huge warehouses across the country. (It had previously avoided setting up warehouses in many states in an effort to avoid creating a “tax nexus.”) The warehouses allow Amazon to significantly increase its shi