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Freeing Small Businesses from Unnecessary Paperwork
Karen Mills
Post date: 02/04/2011 - 17:31

It’s great news that the U.S. Senate voted yesterday to remove a burdensome tax-related reporting requirement that could hit small businesses starting in 2012.

Shortly after the Affordable Care Act passed, we heard from small business owners who said that one provision of the new law – the expanded 1099 reporting requirement – would create too much of a paperwork burden when it went into effect in 2012.

The Administration immediately took steps to lower the future burden this might have, but as we continued to hear from small business owners like you, the President decided that the burden would simply be too great. That’s why we supported a proposal to relax the requirement in September and called for repeal of this provision in November.

We’ll continue to work with Congress to get the job done.

In the meantime, if you haven’t already, I encourage you to check out the new tax credits and other benefits of the Affordable Care Act that are already helping small business owners start or continue providing health insurance coverage. You can hear some of their stories here, here, here and here.

Empowering America’s Entrepreneurs: Startup America
Karen Mills
Post date: 01/31/2011 - 14:33

For the past 50 years at SBA, we’ve always been proud to serve not only “Main Street” small businesses, but also the small, high-growth firms that drive the lion’s share of net new job creation each year in America. In fact, SBA played a significant role in the early years of firms like Intel, FedEx and Apple. Today, through a new initiative called Startup America, the entire Administration is joining us in supporting these firms in order to help drive innovation, competitiveness, and good jobs here at home.

What is Startup America?

Startup America is a nationwide effort to increase the number of successful startups and to help promising young companies grow to the next level. It’s a call to action for leaders in business, academia, the investment community, and the nonprofit sector – and entrepreneurs themselves – to do more to support entrepreneurship. Startup America will push for more investment in promising startups, more mentoring of entrepreneurs, more commercialization of new discoveries, and fewer regulatory barriers to innovation.

One of our first steps will be to infuse up to $1 billion over the next five years in underserved communities and emerging industries through a new Impact Investment Fund. This fund will be based on SBA’s Small Business Investment Company program that just had a record year.

If you watched the State of the Union, you may have heard of a firm that benefited from the SBIC program: Center Rock, Inc., in Berlin, Pennsylvania. In 2005, an SBIC invested $4 million in Center Rock, which helped the company grow from 20 to 70 employees and shift from distributing to manufacturing of drilling equipment. Last summer, one of Center Rock’s drill bits helped rescue the 33 Chilean miners.

Today, there are thousands more entrepreneurs and small, high-growth firms like Center Rock that are poised to grow and create more good American jobs. They’re ready to “do big things.” If you’re one of those entrepreneurs, I encourage you to talk with your local SBA office about how we can help give you the tools you need to succeed… and keep an eye out for new Startup America initiatives being rolled out in the coming weeks and months.

 

A Regulatory Environment that Fosters More Small Business Growth and Job Creation
Karen Mills
Post date: 01/24/2011 - 10:36

Now more than ever, the government must work to ensure that we have a regulatory environment that encourages and supports entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to grow, create jobs, and continue leading our economic recovery. That means we need to take a hard look at regulations – both new and existing – to ensure that they aren’t a burden on small businesses, and to make changes as necessary.

Last week, President Obama directed federal agencies to do just that.

There are a number of ways agencies can ease regulatory burdens on small businesses. They can extend compliance deadlines for small businesses. They can allow more online filing of forms.  They can create different, more achievable requirements for small firms. And sometimes, they can exempt small firms altogether.

Also, when agencies think about implementing a new rule, the President has now ordered them to give serious consideration as to what impact the new rule might have on small businesses ability to grow and innovate. And if an agency does not provide flexibility to small businesses when they have opportunity to do so, the President is now mandating that they explain why not.

This is part of a larger effort that will help ensure that the regulatory process is more transparent, coordinated, and simplified. For example, there will be a government-wide effort to remove outdated regulations and clarify those that overlap. In addition, agencies will work to simplify existing rules, identifying places where we can ease burdens and help strengthen entrepreneurship.

That’s good news for entrepreneurs and small business owners who don’t have the time or resources to wade through rules that can sometimes be complex or confusing. The new approach will also give small businesses more opportunities – including online tools – to speak up when they see a proposed rule that could hurt their business.

Overall, as the President said, we need to “make it our mission to root out regulations that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb.”

Through the federal government’s new focus on this critical issue, we can help reinvigorate America’s entrepreneurial spirit while preserving a common-sense approach to regulations that could impact small business owners. In turn, we can free them to do what they do best: move our economy forward.

Growing a Business Online
Karen Mills
Post date: 01/10/2011 - 11:26

Part of the reason we rolled out the new SBA.gov and our new SBA social media tools is that we know that small business owners themselves are going online in order to grow their business. These days, a strong online presence is a “must,” even for the smallest shops on Main Street.

That’s why SBA recently partnered with Google to put more online tools in the hands of small business owners.

In fact, one-fifth of Google searches are related to location. That means people often go to their computer or smartphone first when making decisions about where to go, what to do, and which products and services to buy.

With that in mind, we rolled out a series of tutorials, video testimonials, and tips from savvy small business people who have used the web to become more efficient, more cost-effective, and more successful. Here’s the Tools for Online Success site, and I’m embedding the first testimonial, which is about a salon that needed to take the first step to establish their presence online:

I’ll leave you with four quick tips for small business owners looking to leverage the web:

  • Establish your online presence. Most local online listings like Yelp and Google Places are free. If your business doesn’t have a website, there are ready-made templates and free hosting services that make establishing an online presence easy.

  • Use free marketing to reach customers. You can build a fan base with free services like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter that keep your customers in-the-know about new products, specials, and promotions. This is the modern day version of “word-of-mouth.”

  • Know your customers. Easy-to-use analytics tools can tell you a lot about why people go to your website and which of your web pages they like the most. This can help you make smart decisions about what you feature on your site and which search terms you should emphasize if and when you buy online ads.

  • Keep an eye on the latest trends. The growing popularity of smartphones means that more and more customers are searching for local information on-the-go. It’s important that your online presence is accurate and up-to-date. You can give users driving directions and even post digital coupons.

We at the SBA look forward to growing our own online presence as you grow yours.

Take a Tour of the New SBA.gov
Karen Mills
Post date: 12/21/2010 - 17:53

Hello. I’m Karen Mills, the head of the SBA. Welcome to the SBA’s new website and blog. I’ve worked with a lot of small business owners over the years, and if there is one thing I know about them, it’s this: They never have enough time in the day to get everything done. That was a big reason why, last year, we decided to overhaul www.sba.gov.

Our focus was to make sure that when anyone comes here, you find what you’re looking for as quickly as possible, whether that’s information about SBA loans, government contracting programs, our free counselors in every state, how to partner with SBA, or anything else. 

We think the result is a more streamlined, effective, customized, and dynamic website for America’s small business community. And we hope you agree.  I’ve asked Joe Zepecki, one of our web gurus, to give you a tour:

In the coming months, we’ll continue to make improvements to our site and this blog (including adding a comments section capability). For now, please give us some feedback on our Facebook or Twitter pages or email us at websupport@sba.gov… and please become our friend and follower so that we can keep you in the loop. Thanks and have a great week!