99.9% of businesses in the US are considered small businesses, employing over 61 million Americans, or nearly half of private sector employees. This makes small businesses a critical part of the business world and the communities they serve.
I’m Susan Soroko, Director of Creative Economy at Arlington Economic Development in Arlington Virginia. The role of Economic Development is to retain and attract businesses where workers can live and thrive in a great community even when the work world is changing. We support (small) business through programs like BizLaunch and value the importance of placemaking and a sector devoted to creative economy and the arts.
Today we’re going to talk about small business/big economic impact.
To help me discuss the role of small businesses, I’d like to welcome Larry G. Webb, District Director, Small Business Administration (SBA)
Resources
Arlington Economic Development BizLaunch Division: https://www.arlingtoneconomicdevelopment.com/Small-Business
General information about the Small Business Administration (SBA): https://www.sba.gov/
SBA resources locally: https://www.sba.gov/local-assistance
SCORE Counseling and other resources: https://www.arlingtoneconomicdevelopment.com/Small-Business/Small-Business-Programs/One-on-One-Counseling
Small Business Saturday, November 30, 2024
The Innovation Economy Website: https://www.innovationeconomy.show
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https://www.arlingtoneconomicdevelopment.com
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Transcript
Susan Soroko: 99% of businesses in the U.S. are considered small businesses employing over 61 million Americans or nearly half of private sector employees. This makes small businesses a critical part of the business world and the communities they serve. I’m Susan Soroko, Director of Creative Economy at Arlington Economic Development in Arlington, Virginia. A role of economic development is to retain and attract businesses where workers can live and thrive in a great community, even when the work world is changing. We support small businesses through programs like BizLaunch, and we value the importance of placemaking and a sector devoted to creative economy and the arts. Today, we’re going to talk about small business, big economic impact. To help me discuss the role of small businesses, I’d like to welcome Larry G. Webb, District Director, Small Business Administration. Mr. Webb, Larry, welcome to the show.
Larry G. Webb: Thank you for having me, Susan. It’s great to be here this morning.
Susan Soroko: Oh, delighted to have you. We hear you’re like the royalty of small business support. So why don’t we start with you giving a little background on yourself and what brought you to the SBA?
Larry G. Webb: Well, thank you for the for the kind words. I came to the SBA in 2011. after having practiced law, both as a criminal defense attorney, as a civil litigator for the city of Cleveland, and having other roles prior to my practicing of law. So I came to the SBA as an attorney. My title then, in 2011, was Senior Legal Counsel, so I worked with the general counsel of the agency and the leadership, working on a variety of projects, like fraud, waste, and abuse, and other projects for the agency. Around 2014, I started moving over to what we call public-private partnerships using our outreach tools that the SBA has that are somewhat different than other agencies, and so they gave me even more access to the ways in which the agency works, the ways in which the agency is able to leverage partnerships and ecosystems and collaboration. And that led me to the role as a district director in 2021. So I’ve been in the role for about three years. And it has been an interesting transition from being sort of a behind the scenes attorney to being the face of the SBA for the DMV.
Susan Soroko: Wow, you’ve got a giant role to play. And we’re really appreciative of all the things that the SBA does. So tell us a little bit what district area management really means.
Larry G. Webb: Oh, I’m happy to. In a lot of ways, every district is different because the state in which it is located, it may be a very rural state. It may be a very metropolitan area. It may have a lot of tech. It may have a lot of manufacturing. Each office sort of tailors its response and its connection based upon the community in which it serves. However, with that being said, the offerings and the ways in which the SBA supports small businesses really don’t change. We you know, you may pick different items off the shelf. of offerings, but ultimately the responsibility of a district office is to support small businesses in its area to help them as it pertains to government contracting and ways in which a small business may be able to take advantage of those opportunities. as it pertains to access to capital and the variety of ways in which the SBA and its partners provide support and create capital opportunities for small businesses. And ultimately, I believe the thing that I believe is the most important thing is to provide counseling and mentoring to small businesses, because if you don’t know how to access capital and if you don’t know how to take advantage of government contracting, it is that education piece, that outreach and education piece that SBA provides itself and through its partners that I think really can turn the tide for a lot of small businesses.
Susan Soroko: Well, that’s really important to hear because we have a lot of small businesses that are always looking for procurement opportunities. And when we think of the SBA or when we think of the DMV area, of course, we’re going to think a lot about big organizations, you know, big federal agencies, big federal offices. And we don’t often necessarily think about the small businesses that are going to be eligible for some procurement opportunities. So we’d love to hear a little bit about how the SBA really positions itself to be able to help these small businesses in our area, because I’m sure there are plenty of them. Do you have some statistics about that?
Larry G. Webb: Well, I can talk about the Washington Metropolitan Area District Office specifically. There’s two things that you mentioned. One, you mentioned obviously the ways in which small businesses can access federal procurement. And obviously, that is where the SBA fits and one of its chief responsibilities. But I always like to talk to small businesses about two things. One, obviously, those things that exist at the federal level, but also about all of those procurement opportunities that exist at city level, at state level, at county level as well. Because as with all things, you know, one should want to diversify their portfolio. And one of the ways in which a small business can do that is obviously taking advantage of government procurement, but also looking at that at different levels and also in the private sector. Because if you’re able to do accounting for the federal government, then surely you can do it for Amazon potentially, or Facebook, or Salesforce, or Deloitte and Touche, or subcontracting, what have you. And so that’s the one piece that I wanted to sort of pivot to. Obviously in this area, speaking of federal contracting, this is the center. All of the headquarters are here for the most part, and this is the center of federal contracting. And so one of the things that we are responsible for as the Washington Metropolitan Area District Office is the business development support for all of our 8As. Here we have a quarter of all 8As. And for those listening, an 8A is a certification program for economically and socially disadvantaged small business owners. And so once again, we have a quarter of that. So from our perspective, that is really one of our chief foci, is to support those small businesses and to help them move forward. That particular program is only a nine-year program. All of our other certifications and most other certifications at the state and local level tend to be certifications for life as long as you still qualify. But this is a specific program where you are able to, if you qualify, be deemed an 8A, and that means that you then have less competition for contracts. The other thing I would say for those who are not necessarily familiar, the federal government sets aside 23% of all federal procurement dollars for small businesses. That’s 23%. of around $700 billion that goes specifically to small businesses. And that could be a women-owned small business, a men-owned small business, socially, economically disadvantaged small business, et cetera. And so just a few statistics, not, I don’t want to overwhelm, but just a few statistics about the types of dollars that are out there, how they are focused on small businesses. And then the last thing I would say about that is that like the federal government, States, counties, and local governments also quite often put aside money specifically for small businesses so that they can help grow their local economies.
Susan Soroko: You’ve talked about the evidence of what impact these kinds of government contracts can have on small businesses. Maybe you can tell us a little bit more about what people should consider a small business, because clearly if 99% of businesses in the U.S. are considered small, What are the misconceptions? What about a mom and pop business? How big or how small do you have to be to be considered a small business?
Larry G. Webb: That’s a really great question. So small depends on a variety of factors. From a federal government perspective, small depends on the type of industry you’re in. So that can be size can be how many employees you have or size can be how much money, how much money you’re making as a company. And so it depends. And so. Anytime there’s a whole analysis that goes into what makes a small now a mom and pop storefront, you know, four or five employees. Not making millions upon millions of dollars is likely going to always be small. A sole proprietorship typically is always going to be small. And a lot of small businesses are indeed sole proprietorships. People have decided they have a skill, they have a background that they can monetize and go out on their own. There’s a lot of small businesses that qualify as small from that perspective as well. But you can get a, you know, a sizable number of employees, say 100 employees, depending on the industry that you’re in, you could still be considered small. So it really just depends on the industry, the difference between a tech company and a manufacturing company, a community farm versus a mom and pop store. So it just depends on the the type of company.
Susan Soroko: Well, it sounds as though there are probably a lot of lost opportunities that are floating around out there for businesses that may not really think about whether they’re eligible for some of these opportunities. We’re in November and November is certainly the season for thinking about small business, particularly in the retail arena. And we have a focus, Arlington has put a new focus on shopping local. So from the standpoint of the SBA, what does shop local mean to the economy?
Larry G. Webb: This is, once again, a really great question. Shop local really is a movement that exist in a lot of communities because, and I believe your listeners will obviously get this, if you are a mom and pop or a mom and mom or a pop and pop, in Arlington and you are hiring folks that live and reside in Arlington, then those dollars can continue to stay within the Arlington community and the ecosystem, right? If you are traveling outside of the city and outside of the county, and even outside of the state, then those dollars are going elsewhere. They’re helping someone else. And so the tax dollars, the receipts for the small businesses, et cetera, won’t be in that community. That’s the other reason why so many communities also like to procure their talent within their borders. Once again, that those dollars can multiply within the community multiple times as opposed to just going once. And from a federal perspective, obviously, we try not to put our fingers on the scale to say, you know, you should you should shop here. We absolutely want to put our fingers on the scale of small businesses, though. And we have it. And that’s one of the reasons that the SBA exists. The SBA has been around for over 70 years. It was created under Eisenhower. And it is it is there specifically to support, advocate and provide resources for small businesses. And so We support all small businesses regardless of what community they’re in.
Susan Soroko: So the SBA has a really important role in Small Business Saturday, which is coming up on November 30th. And that was originally started by American Express. So just a little bit about the what really made the SBA want to form that kind of important partnership with American Express to support Small Business Saturday and really not get in the way of Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
Larry G. Webb: Yeah, so we are happy to partner with American Express. I mentioned earlier that one of my roles was being an advisor to the Agency on Public-Private Partnerships, and this is one of them. This is an opportunity for us to partner with and, quite frankly, leverage the resources of private industry to raise the education, raise the information, and raise the outreach. to small businesses and to the community that supports them. And so we’ve been doing this for over a decade now and really excited about the ways in which small businesses are highlighted, both through advertisement, both through local business outreach. And it’s just been a really great partnership.
Susan Soroko: What I’m hearing in you is that the SBA is open for business and that we want to make sure that our local and area small businesses understand how accessible the SBA is. Can you just mention a couple of or talk about a few of the programs that you’re familiar with that would welcome small businesses to get some input, some advice, some support from the SBA? Maybe like SCORE.
Larry G. Webb: Yeah, for one, we are absolutely open for business. And one of the ways in which, you know, being a small agency, we have to leverage communities, our both federal partners, our community partners, et cetera, in order to to get out the information. You mentioned one of the ways in which we do that is through SCORE, which is a volunteer organization, SCORE, that’s S-C-O-R-E dot org specifically. And they are a an organization of retired executives that partners with the SBA. They are a grantee of the SBA, and they specifically provide free mentoring to small businesses. I cannot say enough about how important Having a mentor who has been in an industry, if you are a bookseller, wouldn’t it be great to have a mentor who was in a C suite at Amazon or Barnes and Noble? If you are a baker. Wouldn’t it be great if you had someone who worked at Pillsbury or Intimates as a large company? How do you imagine scaling to a large size company or even a medium sized company if you’re small, if you don’t see it, if you don’t have that understanding? And so speaking with people who have been there, who have literally done that, and having an opportunity to talk to them about the things that keep you up at night, And that’s the one thing I do know about small businesses. Once again, that can be a singular exercise. And so having someone to talk to either at SCORE or small business development centers or women’s business centers, veterans business outreach centers, Those are our four sort of main grantees of the SBA. That is a tool that small businesses should not overlook. You should not be trying to recreate the will. The will is already out there. You should try to get on it and move a little further than maybe the person that put the will together.
Susan Soroko: Well, you know that here in Arlington at BizLaunch, we are very, very excited to be longstanding partners with the SBA and particularly the SCORE program and how we have so many great stories about who’s been helped by those relationships. So I think you probably answered my last question is, do you think that’s part of Arlington’s superpower for attracting small businesses?
Larry G. Webb: I think Arlington just has such a great and rich history of supporting small businesses and supporting the business community writ large. I mean, obviously bringing in businesses to Arlington, bringing in foreign investment, growing businesses of whatever size, I think it’s part of the history of Arlington. We, as you said, have been a partner with Arlington Economic Development for many, many years, specifically through the BizLaunch program. And just the partnerships that I see, I was just going through your calendar in preparation for this, and your partnerships with other local organizations like WAKEIF, which is in DC, or the Latino Economic Development. which is also in DC, but has reaches within Northern Virginia, et cetera. Those are the types of partnerships, you know, the webinars on everything from marketing to how do you start a business, what types of requirements and licenses that a small business may need to have. Once again, this process of starting a small business is not intuitive and the fact that you have a great innovation or a great idea or that you’re a talented lawyer or accountant, once again, or baker, doesn’t necessarily mean that you will know everything about running a business. And so leveraging and going to organizations like BizLaunch with AED is a really important tool that will save you lots of time and potentially lots of heartache, right? as you navigate this world of licenses and what type of company you should be. And once you get large enough to have HR and human relations, and when do you hire and how do you set up benefits for that? And then how do you find the client base? That’s the type of thing that you will have to understand. And an organization like AAD is there to support.
Susan Soroko: Well, we couldn’t agree with you more. And as we wrap up, we want people to learn more about small business support all year long. So in the show notes, we will be giving you links to the SBA, Arlington Economic Development, small business, about BizLaunch. I think that we are excited that people are looking to support small businesses and retail well past the high holiday of Saturday, November 30th for Small Business Saturday. So we’re so grateful and excited to have had you give us all of your wisdom and input and look forward to working with you some more. So stay tuned for the show notes. Is there anything, any parting words you’d like to leave with our audience today?
Larry G. Webb: Thank you so much for having me today. I really do appreciate that you’re going to be providing those links. One specific link that I would like to highlight for the listeners is, once again, obviously sba.gov, but specifically sba.gov forward slash local dash assistance. You can find it at the sba.gov, but that particular link and that particular page allows you to put your zip code in and then find within 5, 10, 20 miles of your home or your business, all of the resources of the SBA. And that includes our partners, other entities within the business ecosystem, so that you don’t have to go and find each one of those. They will be there for you. And that’s that’s the really important thing. The last thing I would say is learning about how to run a business, how to support a business and specifically how to grow a business is key to your success. One of the ways you do that is to partner, but the other way that you do that is to make sure that you are maintaining and growing relationships. So that’s relationships with these resource partners, that’s relationship with local chambers, that’s relationship with other small business owners. so that people know you, people do business with people that they like and with people that they trust. And so go out there, be challenged, be accessible and build those relationships.
