What do you think of SBA Small Business Administration) and what services available to small business owners from the Small Business Administration.

If you’re looking to go into a very established, regulated, and formalized field, it can be a good resource to get a feel for what’s expected. I think if you’re trying to get into government contracts or provide business services to much larger corporations, it can be a good checklist to cover your bases. But the requirements (like reporting or record keeping) on any help they provide don’t seem to be worth it unless you have a group you can dedicate to the process.

By that time, you’re on the larger side of “small business”.

I’m sure there are cases where they really help out, perhaps if you have money but don’t know what to do with it, or are doing business in a focus area for a government initiative, but for most hands-on business owners I don’t think they offer much targeted at that group.

Well, my experience with them wasn’t very positive. Their goal seemed to be to encourage me to go further and further into debt…to THEM.

And the gal who was assigned to me personally had no idea what owning a small business was all about. She had the same misinformed stereotype that so many have, that if you own your own business you’re raking in the cash. That just ain’t true.
And one time she came in, sure that she was smarter than I was, and proceeded to move accounts around in my Quikbooks. She was moving really, really fast. I got the impression that she was trying to show off her speed more than anything.
After she left I realized that whatever she had done had left me with $12,000 in sales tax to pay! And I was current on my sales tax! When I talked to her, at first she blew it off, so I talked to her super. Then later she called, almost crying, saying she’d spend the entire weekend fixing it.
I just said, “No. I’ll take care of it.” You touch my books again you die!

So, proceed with caution.

I know nothing says “small business” like a multi-billion dollar global corporation that has bought up practically every competitor to give themselves a virtual monopoly over their industry.