Posted on March 19, 2008 by Teri Rasmussen

SBA Resources for Small Businesses

 

Joel Labiva has written a useful post over at the Small Business Trends blog, complete with links, about a variety of free tools for business folk available on the Small Business Administration's website. They include information on:

  • Small Business Planner (with information about what it means to be an entreprenuer anyway and including resources to help you write a business plan)
  • Starting Your Business (including practical, legal, and financial issues)
  • Managing Your Business (conceptual and practical advice about a variety of issues you're likely to face on a day-to-day basis)
  • Exit Strategies (useful information about getting out of the business both when it has been successful and when it has not)
  • Other Tools (audio, video, and written materials covering a wide array of issues)

There's also links to local SBA offices across the country, including Central Ohio, which contain information about local programming, resources, and success stories.

In addition, a related Business.gov website also published by SBA is worth a click.  Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends blog wrote about "Ten Ways Business.gov Helps Your Business" several months ago. 

I wholeheartedly agree with Anita's assessment of this website.  It has a tremendous amount of well organized information about governmental regulation and resources, as well as general information about a variety of concerns business owners may have.  In addition, one thing I thought was especially useful was the available links to state and local governmental regulation and resources.  See what there is for Ohio.  There's even a link to the Ohio Business Gateway which does a good job of aggregating information about conducting a business in Ohio in an accessible manner.

As Joel suggests, the SBA website (and the information available there), as well as Business.gov, are much improved from even a few years ago.  Check out all that these websites now have to offer.

N.B. - For those of you who think you saw this post before and then it was gone and now it's back, you're right.  I had a really bad day with the blog yesterday in which I accidentally managed inextricably to delete my biographical information, three draft posts (including a nearly complete one about franchising which is next up), and this post.  So basically I had to rewrite this entire post.   

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