What is SBA Direct?
SBA Direct is a dynamic Web tool that allows users to personalize their experience on SBA.gov. Just by answering a few simple questions about your business, SBA Direct brings the targeted resources you need to start, operate and grow your small business – directly to your desktop.
How Does SBA Direct Work?
Users complete a series of three questions: ‘Location,’ ‘Tell Us About You,’ and ‘Learn More About.’ Each question provides relevant content based upon the answers provided.
Location refers to the geographical location of your business. By entering your business ZIP Code, relevant SBA offices, resources, and partner locations are provided on a Google map visualization page.
Tell Us About You is a series of options referring to the type of business, stage of business, and business groups that may be applicable to your small business. By selecting from these options, you are able to receive the most relevant information based on your small business profile.
Learn More About contains a second series of small business topics about which you, as a small business owner, may be interested in finding more information. By selecting from these options, users are able to review information that applies only to their interests without searching or navigating to unrelated topics.
How to Navigate SBA Direct?
SBA Direct presents information in a specific layout. The left-side of the page contains the Tell Us About You and Learn More About categories. These categories contain a series of sub-categories with checkboxes; you may select as many checkboxes as you wish based on your business profile and interests, and use the ’Show All’ and ’Hide All’ buttons to view the sub-categories.
By clicking any ‘Update Results’ button located on the left side of the page, previews of our most relevant articles and information are returned and displayed down the middle of SBA Direct.
In order to read the entire article, click either the article title or the ‘Read More’ link. Once you are finished reviewing the article, you can either select the back button in your browser or click ‘SBA Direct Home’ in the breadcrumb bar located at the top of the article to return to your results.
The right-side of the page contains SBA Local Resources and displays the business ZIP Code you submitted on entry to SBA Direct. This module returns a prioritized list of SBA offices, resources, and partner locations based on the ZIP code you provided.
By clicking either the ‘Map Your Results’ button or the ‘View All’ link, a new Local Resources page displays with a Google map and a full listing of all applicable resources based on your geographical location. At the top of the page, a series of checkboxes appears where you can refine the types of local resources that display. Selecting any combination of checkboxes and clicking ‘Update Selections’ will refresh the map and display results for those selected local resources.
Once you are done navigating the Local Resources page, you can either select the back button in your browser or click ‘SBA Direct Home’ in the breadcrumb bar located at the top of the page to return to your results.