[VIDEO] SBA Q&A: Tips and Tools to Help Your Business Move Forward

Happy National Small Business Week! This year’s theme is celebrating your resilience and renewal, a great reminder to take a step back and be proud of yourself for making it this far. We know it hasn’t been easy, but you’ve risen to the occasion in unbelievable ways. And we’re so grateful to be a part of this community.

To help you move forward despite uncertainties, our CEO Eric Groves sat down with Victoria Guerrero from the SBA to talk about the path ahead—resources to guide you, programs to support you, and tips to progress in your recovery. 

Watch the interview below to find out how the SBA can help you succeed, no matter your struggles.

Transcript

Eric Groves:

Hello, everyone. My name is Eric Groves, and I'm the co-founder of Alignable. And I'd like to welcome you to a series of discussions that we're having with small business leaders who are literally helping small business owners navigate their personal courses towards recovery. 

Today, our topic is all about resilience and renewal with Victoria Guerrero, who is a district director at the US Small Business Administration in South Florida. A lot warmer than we are up here in Boston. Welcome, Victoria. It's wonderful to have you here today.

Victoria Guerrero:
Thank you so much, Eric. I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you and with your members and thank you for the warm welcome.

Eric Groves:
It's a pleasure, and you've got a fascinating background. I guess the first question I'd love to ask you is, what was it back in 2018 that got you so excited about it going over and moving into the Small Business Administration and filling this incredible role there?

Victoria Guerrero:
Absolutely. Well, my father and my grandfather and my grandmother, they were all entrepreneurs back in the day. I think it's in my blood, and I have a big heart for service. I've worked both in private and public sector. I've worked for global companies. I've worked for different government entities at the state local, and now at the federal level, and I always come back to service. 

I think that is something that's within my blood, and I have a background in business administration, and what better thing to do than to marry both? 

I myself was a small business entrepreneur, and I used to coach individuals on getting started and growing and creating strategic plans and recruitment plans and things of that nature. It was a great marriage, and that's what attracted me to the small business administration.

Victoria Guerrero:
The SBA has a lot of programs that a lot of people don't know about. One of the things that I was told when I came on board is, it's my mission to get the information out there. 

Currently, I am a district director for the South Florida office, as you mentioned, but I'm on special assignment right now to headquarters. I'm helping our administrator get the word out to our communities, our small business communities, our underserved markets about the programs that we all offer and how people can utilize these programs.

What Little-Known SBA Resources Should Small Business Owners Take Advantage Of?

Eric Groves:
That's awesome. What are the three best-kept secrets? I love this notion of stealth marketed. What can we tell our audience, made up of some 7 million small business owners that they should really know about not only the SBA but the other elements that are part of the SBA ecosystem and the fact that so many of these resources are available to them for free?

Victoria Guerrero:
Absolutely. Because of the pandemic that we're in, we're no longer a kept secret. Many people are starting to know what we can do for them. 

The services that the SBA offers are at no cost to our small businesses.

One of the things I want to say is the SBA is here 365 days a year for our small businesses. The services that the SBA offers are at no cost to our small businesses and a lot of people don't realize that. 

If you're starting a business, one of the first things that business owners need is access to capital. They need money to be able to start their business. 

Well, if you can't get a loan on your own with a private bank, you can come to the SBA, and we work with multiple banks across the nation, and we'll be able to find that loan for you and give you access to capital.

Victoria Guerrero:
We have different loan programs in our portfolio so depending what you need. If you need a loan to buy a building or to buy equipment, or to hire more people, depending on the business needs. We can guide you to that particular program and work with the banks to be able to get you approved. 

Basically, the SBA is not a bank. We are not the lender of record when it comes to these programs, but we will guarantee those loans with the bank so the bank will feel more secure in providing you with those fundings. 

Again, this is a service that we provide free of cost to our small business owners, and that's just one of the services amongst a portfolio of different programs that we have available. But a lot of times that's one of the most important ones because we all need money to get our business started.

Eric Groves:
Absolutely. There is that misconception of, oh, I'm getting an SBA loan, but it's not really an SBA loan. You're getting an SBA guaranteed loan with one of the local lenders or one of the major money center banks. 

What the SBA is doing is really standing in there with you in a way to help you get access to capital, which is just a tremendous resource that people should really understand. 

Now, if I'm trying to figure this out and I'm just getting started and I've got an idea for a business, but I'm not yet ready for the financial aspect of it. What other resources can I tap at the SBA to really vet my idea, build out that business plan that's going to help me get a loan? Who can I turn to?

What Resources Are Available for New Business Owners?

Victoria Guerrero:
Well, we have our SBA resource partners. They are wonderful entities that they work alongside with the SBA. SBA funds these organizations. 

We have our Small Business Development Centers throughout the nation SBDC is for short. We have our women business centers. We have our veteran business outreach centers, and we have our SCORE chapters, which many people are familiar with. 

Each of these entities, they all provide assistance to small business owners. If you need help in vetting your idea or creating a strategic plan or a recruitment plan, or if you need somebody just to review your finances and make sure that you understand your numbers, that was very important. 

Everybody needs to understand their numbers now when we're going through this pandemic, and people are applying for loans. Anything that you need as far as counseling and coaching, our resource partners can provide to you. Again, this is at no cost.

Victoria Guerrero:
Now our resource partners do have training sessions that are offered at a low to no cost. These are training sessions in a group setting, and people could come in, but the one-on-one counseling, which is the most important thing, in my opinion, is at no cost.

We're going to provide you with different links, so your audience members can go to it, but you can find all of this on sba.gov, and if you're looking for a specific resource partner, just go to sba.gov/local-assistance, and that will take you straight to a page that you put your zip code.

It'll give you a list of all of your local resources and how to contact them.

Eric Groves:
That's awesome. One of the things I've met a lot of the SCORE counselors and the folks at the SBDCs over the years, and the thing that I think people don't realize is that these folks are retired executives. These are people who have run businesses and actually applied all of this learning to real-life situations, and they're there for you for free to talk with. 

Literally, you can have somebody who has had phenomenal experience in accounting, helping you think through how to set up your accounting stuff. It's such an incredible resource.

Victoria Guerrero:
Absolutely.

What Loan Programs Are Still Available for Covid Relief?

Eric Groves:
Well, let's talk a little bit more about some of the specific programs because over the last 19 months. Many of these small business owners have been pushed to the brink, and the SBA has diligently behind the scenes been running and orchestrating many different programs. 

I mean, names that people have heard of obviously like the PPP loans, but even some of the shuttered venue things and restaurant assistance, and many of those programs have wound their way down other than for the forgiveness part, which we should probably talk about in a second. 

But there are still programs available to small business owners who may for one reason or another are still feeling the financial impact or the Delta variant is causing more challenges. 

What are those programs that are still available that people should be thinking about from a recovery standpoint?

Victoria Guerrero:
Absolutely. One of the main programs that we still have available for small businesses to apply is our COVID Economic Injury, Disaster Loan. We love acronyms at the federal government, so we call it our COVID EIDL, E-I-D-L loan, and this program is available. 

Folks can apply until the end of the calendar year, so December 31st, 2021. This is a traditional loan in the sense that it does have to be paid back, but the good thing is it's over a 30 year period. 

You can use the funds of this loan to pay for your business expenses, any commercial or federal business expenses that you've received. You can use it for payroll. You can use it for anything that is associated with your business, which is great. 

The loan itself is at a 3.75% interest rate for profit entities and 2.75 interest rate for nonprofit entities.

Victoria Guerrero:
The best place to go to learn more about the program is to go to sba.gov/EIDL, E-I-D-L, and that will take you to the landing page where it'll explain more about the program. 

Now, one thing Eric, I would love to talk a little bit about is a component of that program, which is a grant component, which means that people don't have to pay this portion back. 

That particular grant component is called our targeted EIDL advance program, and we also have a supplemental advanced program. 

There's a certain specific criteria that people need to follow and need to be in a low-income area and have either 30% or 50% reduction in revenue, depending on which program we're speaking off. If they fall into this certain criteria, they can apply to get up to $15,000 in grants. 

For the targeted EIDL, you can get up to $10,000 in grant, and if you also qualify for the supplemental advance, you get an additional $5,000 in grants. That's money. People don't have to pay back. Again, all that information is on our website sba.gov/EIDL E-I-D-L.

Eric Groves:
That's awesome. I also noticed when I was playing around on that site. If you don't know whether or not you're in one of those low-income communities, there's a little finder in their app that you can click on. You put in your zip code again, and it'll tell you whether or not you're actually in one of those regions. 

All of the resources there encourage people to go take a look at those and take advantage of them.

Victoria Guerrero:
One of the things I wanted to notice about our websites, some folks don't realize it, but it can be translated in multiple languages. If folks go on there, maybe English is not their primary language. 

Just look for the translate button on the top right-hand corner, click on that and select your language, and the pages will be translated for you.

What’s your top advice for small business owners?

Eric Groves:
Fantastic. Well, let's wrap things up with a little bit of your advice for some small business owners. Right now, they're heading into the fourth quarter. They just are exhaling after this summer. A lot of the businesses that were most hard hit during COVID, whether it's the restaurants or the retail or personal services folks. These business owners are thinking about how to make that trade-off of. 

Should I be spending a whole bunch of money trying to purchase inventory to get ready for the fourth quarter, or what's going to happen with a Delta variant and how is that going to affect my ability to recover? 

A lot of these things are things that it's very difficult to work through on your own, and we've created these industry groups on Alignable that are places where you can go and you can ask other people. They're almost like survival groups in many ways where people can go and share advice.

Eric Groves:
If you were talking to the average business owner and either thinking about it from the standpoint of resources that they could talk to at the SBA or your own personal advice.

How should small business owners really think about trying to wrap their heads around this challenge of this big unknown of driving towards recovery and any advice that you might have for them as they walk down that path this fall?

Victoria Guerrero:
Absolutely. No. I realize that it's been challenging times, and it's been over a year now with the pandemic, and one of the things that we've noticed is that if small business owners can take a look at the services that they provide and see if there's a way that they can expand their services or pivot a little bit. 

We saw this a lot with restaurant owners. People couldn't come to the restaurants so they got a little bit creative, and they decided to start doing takeout.

If business owners can think outside the box and see how they can deliver their services and products in ways that they've never thought about in the past, that might be a lifeline for them. 

Another thing I want to mention, just to go back to a few of the things that we've spoken of here today is, remember you're not alone. SBA be through with you. Our resource partners are here with you.

Victoria Guerrero:
If you need help in trying to navigate these waters and seeing how you can expand your products or your services, contact your local resource partners. That's what they're there for. 

You can sit with a SCORE counselor. Eric, as you mentioned, they have industry knowledge and different areas. These are retired executives. They can help you navigate these troubling waters that we're all going through. 

Another thing is, take a moment to really look into our website, the SBAs website. We have so many programs. We have a federal contracting program that if you are eligible, you can set it as a once-in-a-lifetime program. 

You can sell your services and your products to the federal government, which we are the number one purchaser in the world of products for nine years. 

We purchased everything: paperclips, toilet paper, napkins. We purchase everything. If this is something that interests you, you go to sba.gov and look for federal contracting. We have these services for you. 

If you can land these contracts, one contract and get you up to $4 million in work for your company. This is just one of the programs that we provide to our small business center.

Victoria Guerrero:
I think if you can take a three-prong approach: Really think outside the box, how you can expand your services or pivot, utilize our resource partners to help you navigate that, and draw out a plan on how you want to move forward in this next coming year. 

Finally, take some time to learn what SBA is all about and the programs that we're here to offer. We're here for you every day of the year. We're open every day of the year, and our services are here for you and anything that we can do to assist you. 

That's what our role here is, so I want everyone to take advantage of that.

Eric Groves:
Well, that's fantastic. I think that's a perfect way to sum up today, is that you are not alone, and we are all here in support of you, and you've got a community on Alignable. You've got a community at the Small Business Administration. 

Take advantage of it, and we'll all get through this together. Thank you so much, Victoria, for being here with us today and for all of the work that you do behind the scenes and in front of the scenes. We look forward to chatting with you again in the not too distant future.

Victoria Guerrero:
Absolutely. Thank you again, Eric, for the opportunity to be here with you and with your members. Thank you and again, anything that you might need from us, please reach out.

Eric Groves:
It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much.

Helpful Resources from the SBA

Want to explore the resources Victoria mentions in the interview? Here’s where you can learn more:

• Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL)  
• Find SBA resources in your area
• How to build your business resilience
• Small Business Development Centers

How has your business shown resilience since the pandemic hit? What tools have helped you move forward? Share in the comments.

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Check out these resources to help you on your path to recovery:

• Hiring Solutions for Your Small Business
• New Resources to Help You Get PPP Loan Forgiveness
• Chapter 11 Bankruptcy: How the Small Business Reorganization Act Can Save Your Business