Susan Ball & SBDC – Helping Small Businesses Start Right & Grow Strong

UMW hosts a Small Business Development Center – the SBDC.  The UMW SBDC provides abundant services to a LARGE region including the Greater Fredericksburg Area, Northern Neck and the Middle Peninsula. Among the services provided:

• direct counseling services
• best practices in business plan writing
• resources on how to connect with other entrepreneurs
• education and direct assistance in registering for state and federal contracting opportunities
• Attend free seminars/workshops (some workshops have a nominal fee).

Susan Ball has been providing these resources for Small Businesses for 17 years, recently she shared her background at the October’s UMW Coffee Talk – a monthly educational/networking opportunity from the Women’s Leadership Colloquium.

Ball has been in the region since 6th grade.  Prior to that, she was the daughter of a Marine and attended six different elementary schools in four states.  While attending Stafford High School, she took French over the summer – and fell in love with Mary Washington’s campus.  She attended, met her husband Steve, and they graduated in 1981 and married within the month.

Steve and Susan moved to Florida for graduate school. Susan got an MBA and made friends with a couple who owned food franchises.  She and Steve did much investigating before investing in a Pizza franchise and moved “closer to home” in Orange. Susan’s business degree paid off as they negotiated terms of lease, and also simultaneously learned from the school of “hard knocks” about things like food inventory with a short shelf life.

Susan recalls it was a busy but happy few years, they ran the business, raised their children who helped out with all aspects of the business. When they later decided to sell the business, that was another learning opportunity.  How to value the book of business, how to market it.  Each chapter of her own business adventure prepared her to know, first hand, how best to assist the eager entrepreneurs who seek the services of the SBDC.

The multiple services offered by the SBDC really do add up.  Susan is celebrating 17 years of helping individuals – and have had several repeat clients.  People don’t just get started via the SBDC – it is a continuing resource.  Susan recalled helping a lady who visited, she was listed in the system as Client #1.  Ten years later she visited again, and receive support for the next phase of her business.

An impressive and important fact – since 1999 – 4,880 clients have spent 36,800 hours with the SBDC.  This assistance resulted 134.6M in Capital Formation.