ARIZONA SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CENTER NETWORK

Arizona’s Small Business Development Center Network is an innovative partnership between the state’s community college districts, the Microbusiness Advancement Center and the U.S. Small Business Administration. The network is the largest and most accessible source of assistance to Arizona businesses with fewer than 200 employees. It was formed in 1988 and reached its present size in 2009.

One-on-one confidential counseling is at the heart of SBDC work. Counselors use their real-life business ownership and management experience to give clients advice that is relevant and practical. Programs and seminars often complement the counseling. Training content, while developed within the overall mission of the SBDC, is customized and tailored to meet the diverse needs of business owners in metropolitan and non-urban areas of the state.

The network is a collaboration between education and government. Participating institutions have wide latitude in developing programs that meet their communities’ needs. Network-wide policies and strategies are developed by consensus among the participants. An SBDC director is likely to report to an administrator who is two levels removed from the college’s president or chancellor. Maricopa Community Colleges is responsible to the SBA for the overall quality of the network’s services.

SBDCs provide free, one-on-one counseling designed to find practical solutions to business problems. Our job is one of education and guidance.

Below is a partial list of services:

Business Plan Assistance, Business Certifications (MBE, WBE, 8a), Cash Flow Analysis, Financial Projection Development, Government Procurement Opportunities, Human Resource Activity Assessment, Identification of Sources of Capital/Financing, Market Research Assistance, Marketing Plan Development, Review of Advertising Strategies, Review of Inventory Control Procedures.

The SBA offers podcast feeds to you on a range of small business topics. Podcast feeds deliver audio broadcasts to your desktop. You can listen to these files on your computer or download them to your MP3 player and take them with you. For your convenience, we will be adding additional feeds every month on small business topics.