Business Mentor Resources

Welcome back to the Richer Geek podcast. Have you ever thought about buying or starting a business? And maybe you checked out bizbuysell? And then you see a business for sale? And you're looking at the numbers and then you start to wonder, gosh, how can I get a second set of eyes on this? And where can I find a mentor that could help guide me and kind of help me the pros and cons and what to watch out for? There's absolutely fantastic news for you on this on where you can get help and access to resources. Today's guest Ken Yancey is CEO of Score. The Score is a nonprofit organization that provides business mentoring services to help small business owners. Ken serves on the Small Business Advisory Council of the US Chamber of Commerce and he also speaks throughout the United States on topics of entrepreneurship and small business trends. Welcome to the show, Ken.

Nichole, thanks for having me. Nice to be on the Richer Geek.

Tell us a little bit about score overall, the background and your mission.

Sure. score was actually founded in the late 1950s, early 1960s, in Wilmington, Delaware, it was a DuPont, Maurice DuPont Lee, who retired from DuPont and felt that he could give back to his community based on all that he had learned and the experience he had gained over career in business. And he began to mentor and work with local small business owners to help them be more successful, get started, succeed, etc. He encouraged some of his retiree friends and a group started. Surprisingly, the Reader's Digest wrote about it, and it became popular around the country. And about that time, the SBA was looking at it some of the chapters petition SBA asking that score become a part of their program. And in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed an act or added to the Small Business Act, the opportunity for the SBA to work with a volunteer corps of businessmen and women from around the country, to support small business owners. So we've been doing it since 64. Today, we're 11,000 businessmen and women who provide mentoring coaching and counseling for small business owners and people that want to start in their communities. We work with any type of business, regardless of business stage. So from, gosh, I've always wanted to have a small business, but I'm not sure what I should do to, you know, I'm the third generation in this business. And I think it's time to sell - can you help us, we really have quite a talent in 11,000 volunteers over 300,000 years of experience that your listeners and anybody else can tap into no cost. So it's a really terrific service. Thanks to those generous volunteers, like your grandfather, by the way.

That's how I actually became aware of Score. And it's so interesting, because I don't know if a lot of our listeners are aware of these resources and what you provide. And there's several pieces, there's a mentoring that you talked about, but there's other pieces, can you kind of share what are the overall resources that are available through Score?

Happy to our hallmark service is the mentoring and it's available, as I've said to anybody that's interested, you can find us online at score. org. Typically, if you went to your local Chamber of Commerce, the SBA, they would for you to Score, you can ask any question will serve you online via email will serve you via Skype or zoom or other video conferencing opportunity and have the ability and communities where we're located and we're in about 1800 communities around the country to sit and work with you face to face. We also do a series of workshops or seminars last year, our chapters put on roughly 13,000 live seminars around the country. Those are on a variety of topics related to business. But some of them have a small charge associated with them that averages about $45. Nationally, these are 1-2-3 hour session, sometimes multiple days. And again, on a variety of topics. We have workshops available on the website as score.org. They're free, there's over 300 titles that you can take advantage of at anytime we do two live webinars a week, we're averaging about 700 people per call on these webinars, they're terrific you can sign for them, they're free, we put them on using our own volunteers, and also using partners and other organizations that are supporting small business.

And then twice a year we do a virtual conference, it's a terrific experience, just like attending a normal conference where there's an exhibit area and a networking area, their breakout sessions, there's a main stage where people speak, it's free, they typically run for hours, we have excellent attendance, our largest one so far had 25,000 people pre registered. And we were really pleased with the results getting great quality feedback. And those are just a number of the ways that you can take advantage of these, these really tremendous knowledgeable volunteers that really makes Score work as an organization.

I love that there's so many different ways like if you're in a community that doesn't have a chapter, you can do online conference calls with your mentors that you're paired up with. And then the webinars if you don't even really, maybe you just want to pop in and listen. But you don't really want to talk with anyone yet. Sounds like those webinars would be a great opportunity as well.

Absolutely. And again, you know, the fact that they're low cost, with the exception of your time, of course, which is, is one of your most valuable assets, it's a great opportunity to take advantage of the knowledge of others. And even if you just realize through interaction with one of the mentors that you're on the right track, and that you're making good decisions, and that you're going to experience the results that you anticipated, you know, if that prevents a sleepless night or two, that's where the worth, the time that you've invested. So it can be as I've mentioned, as detailed as helping you put together a budget or forecast related to the addition of your first salesperson or as broad as you know, I thought I might have a restaurant, what do you think? And what are the steps that I need to go through if that's the case? And we're happy to help in any and all of those situations.

Yeah, it's so great that there's a very broad spectrum. And you had talked about in the beginning, any stage, whether it's, hey, I'm thinking about it, to I want to make improvements to I want to exit and that's I think that's such a valuable resource. Now, how does the mentoring program work? And what I mean by this is, are you meeting with this person, you know, every week? What are you know, kind of what are the expectations? How does that actually work in real life?

We really do want to provide whatever services on whatever frequency our client requires, if they have a very short timeline on an important decision about adding a product or expanding or, you know, moving across town, or to another county or even International, we can help and we can be involved, you know, on a daily basis, if that's what's required, the best way we believe, is to work with a mentor, on a periodic basis, it might be weekly or monthly. In between sessions, we're going to suggest that you do some things, you know, go on to the website and find the business plan template that you prefer, and work through these components of it, bring it next week when you come. And let's sit down and talk about, you know, what's there, what's missing, if anything, let us help you test some of your thoughts and ideas, we can do that on feasibility for a new business, we can do that on basic business planning, we can help people analyze the value and the break even point on new investments, maybe it's equipment, or whatever, all of those types of things. And we really do like to have multiple sessions with the client. And we like to have work that gets completed, that's directly related to their strategic vision and their goals for their business between sessions. And then from that point, our success is your success. So if we're providing what you need, and the timeframe and the way that you need it, and you achieve your goals, then we've we've done a great thing.

It's absolutely fantastic. And it sounds like the other thing is when you talked about resources available on the website was kind of online support and mentoring and webinars, but there's also a lot of templates, you just mentioned kind of business plan, some of those types of worksheets, which I think are, are really helpful, especially for our listeners that, you know, they're working full time, and they might be looking at, you know, some type of business and it might be a franchise or it might be, you know, kind of semi absentee type of business, that's still going to require some involvement. And, you know, just really understanding this the right thing to do, is this really going to fit in, I think that's extremely valuable.

Absolutely. And we're big fans of checklists, you know, a checklist for going in the business a checklist to ensure that you have, you know, the proper cyber security controls. There's a myriad of tools and opportunities our volunteers are familiar with that can help you negotiate it, search function works really well. The website is intended to be a service site. So as you move through things, we're going to ask you regularly, if you would like to set up an appointment with a mentor, or if you would like to take an online workshop or a webinar, so there are plenty of opportunities to engage. And if you choose not to them, again, a lot of things that you can research and read that will add to your knowledge and understanding. And when the time comes to sit down with someone, then we're ready and available.

Also, when it when it's time to make recommendations for other professional services. Can you share a little bit about how that works?

Of course, we're not in the business of giving legal advice. We know that's an industry and a discipline that changes so often, you need as a small business owner to engage a professional attorney and it might be an accountant, a tax accountant, as you look for the ways to generate tax benefits from investments or from sale or whatever it happens to be. And we can help you choose the right attorney for your business. We don't make recommendations, but what we will do is talk about what you need. So what your needs are, help you develop the kinds of questions that you should ask three or four different professionals that you want to engage with. And you know, help you do some of that assessment. We don't make decisions for our clients. But what we do is ask questions and push and shove and help them to make the very best possible decisions that they can make. We recognize that we're not the right ones to review your lease, we'd be happy to take a quick look and say, Gosh, this doesn't look quite right, or this indemnity or this liability coverage seems a little out of whack. Let's get you an attorney that specializes in this so that you can make sure you're getting up to the second advice on a transaction that can have a major impact either positive or negative on your business. So those are the times when we do that if you're selling your business and you're interested in doing, you know, an Aesop or something like that those are relatively complex transactions. And you don't want to do that kind of thing without professionals on your side. If you want to sell your business, one of the first things you need to do is is have evaluation, we work with a couple of different organizations to provide information around how to value your business Mass Mutual is a is a good example, though, they helped us develop some materials that we use to work with clients that are exiting, it's an important time, if you're selling you want your valuation to be as high as possible, if you're passing on the business to relative, and maybe you want it to be as low as possible. And there's strategy in that and you need a professional to help you through that. And so we would certainly give high level advice, and not the least of that advice being let's surround yourself with really good quality people that understand these transactions. And I'll make sure that you don't get in trouble.

Perfect. Thank you. And I love that you help create the vetting questions, right so that people can make the right decision. So you don't make the recommendation. But you certainly will give you know, these are the kinds of questions you should ask. So you get the right kind of professional. That's fantastic. Tell us how should listeners get in touch with Score? And actually, you know, engage?

Sure easiest thing to do is to Google Score or Google business mentoring we'll come up first, typically score.org is the website. As I mentioned, it's a service site. So the first things that you're going to see is how to get mentoring, how to sign up for a workshop, or how to find your nearest chapter, you can feel free to walk into a chapter and make an appointment, you can call them locally or our national office, we certainly answer an 800 number at 800-634-0245. And tell the person what you're interested in the type of business that you either have or that you want to have, what your issue is. And we'll work at the chapter level or through the website to match you with a mentor that has the specific skill or ability that you're looking for. We're happy to do it. And again, the mentoring is, is free, with the exception of the investment of your time.

For more information, check out episode # 9 here.