The Small Business Development Center is in partnership with Utah State University Eastern that offers a broad range of resources to assist small business owners in entrepreneurial education, advocacy and business development. Castle Country Focus caught up with Regional Director of Small Business Development, Ryan Murray who took some time to reflect on the past year and share plans for the new year.
“Obviously it depends on what business you’re in, but I’ll tell you this 2017 was probably a better year than what a lot of people think. There was a lot of growth in our local small businesses. Some of the other small business sectors, you know the light manufacturing, engineering, those types of services, we actually saw some growth coming out of some of our businesses,” said Murray. This is great news considering the closure of retail businesses that have taken place in our community over the last few years.
Our community is unique in so many ways that businesses can build on this to offer outside of the area their product and services. “I’m really optimistic for 2018, I see some good things happening. The businesses that are doing really well are those businesses that are finding ways to sell outside of the area. They’re able to do business up on the Wasatch front, they can sell their goods and services. We even have people that are selling nationally and internationally,” said Murray. The most commonly way to sell outside of the area is through online sales, expanding services and operations.
Coming up this month is a free Entrepreneurship Networking Meeting that is opened to all businesses new and old. “A lot of times you can gain tons of insight from talking to people who are outside of your field but also have a solid understanding of business,” said Murray. This 12-week program has shown business owners tips on becoming more successful business owners. The program will run simultaneously beginning January 22 in Huntington and on January 23 in Helper. Individuals are welcomed to attend the both meetings to get a different perspective from the two different groups.
The SBDC provides services at no cost to residents of Carbon and Emery Counties with an entrepreneurial spirit seeking to start a business or evaluate the current business practices and company directions. To seek more information on valuable workshops, conferences and training programs visit the agency’s website at https://utahsbdc.org/