Brooks Highlights Services Provided by the ASBTDC

Hardin Young: Welcome to Short Talks from The Hill, a podcast from the University of Arkansas. I’m Hardin Young, a research and economic development writer here at the university. Today I’d like to welcome Mary Beth Brooks, director of the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Center at the University of Arkansas. Brooks has held this position since 2018. Prior to that, she worked in banking for 28 years, including more than a decade as president and CEO of the Bank of Fayetteville. A graduate of the University of Arkansas, Brooks also holds a master’s degree in business administration in finance and banking from the University of Wisconsin.

Mary Beth Brooks, welcome to Short Talks.

Mary Beth Brooks: Thanks. It’s great to be here.

HY: First, can you give us a little background on the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Center?

MBB: You bet. There are about over 1,000 small business development centers across the country. We are all housed at various universities throughout the country. We have 10 different locations in the state of Arkansas, so we all work as a network, but each university houses their own small business development center. At the University of Arkansas, or at the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center, we have this little T in our name – the technology piece because we assist with a lot of technology, customers and clients, as well. But we have 10 centers across Arkansas, so we truly cover every single county in Arkansas.

HY: So is this a federally supported program?

MBB: We are supported by the Small Business Administration at all centers and then at our center we are supported by the University of Arkansas, by the SBA, and then we also get a lot of really generous funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

HY: Gotcha. OK, so what are some of the basic services you provide to small businesses?

MBB: It’s so broad, it’s amazing. We help folks both get started with their businesses – and that’s a business plan that is really detailed financial forecasting and projections. We work on a lot of strategy. I mean, people can come to us, Hardin, with just an idea, and we help them really vet that idea and to see if there is truly a problem that they’re trying to solve, and if it’s a viable concept that can work for them but also make money for them. So, we help folks get started. We help people grow their businesses. Probably about 30% of what we do are businesses that are already existing – people who are looking to add a new location, folks who are adding new product lines, or just trying to grow, and then sometimes some who are just looking to survive. We can really work through cash flow and try to make some adjustments and try to give them advice that way. And then the remaining, probably 15% or so, are people who are buying and selling businesses.

HY: Some of this sounds like it could be kind of labor-intensive, or it could take a little bit of time. Do any of these services require a payment or is it strictly pro bono?

MBB: No, everything we do is complimentary as an outreach program of the University of Arkansas, and we even offer training programs. So, you name it, it’s free to our clients. Occasionally we’ll offer a training that might cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 bucks. That’s usually a couple of times a year for some of those bootcamp-type things that are six or seven hours long, and we hire somebody to come in to help. Otherwise, everything is complimentary as an outreach. What’s interesting, though, is when you talk about labor intensive. Yeah, so many times, many of our clients, we will spend 20 hours over the course of time with them just to help them get their business open. So our average for a new business, for example, is 20 hours with someone. Just to just to make sure they’re getting all their I’s dotted and T’s crossed to make sure that they have financial capabilities set up and that they understand how they’re going to market it, and they understand their branding strategy and those kind of things.

HY: Would that all come under the umbrella of a business plan?

MBB: Well, part of it is a business plan, but it’s also within our scope at the University of Arkansas Center, we have different specialists. So like I am an old banker as you mentioned. So I focus a lot on strategy and on financing and on making sure that someone understands how many products they have to sell in order to break even. We have other folks on our team who really focus in other areas because that’s their background. So like we have a marketing group who can help clients focus on everything from social media, to search engine optimization, to analyzing websites and those kind of things. Oftentimes, a client will come in, work with me, for example initially, but then I might pass them to someone else who’s better suited for that particular need.

HY: What are the most common reasons small business owners come in to see you?

MBB: It’s really interesting. It depends on where they are in their business cycle, often, or what their background is, and what their comfort level is. You know, I mentioned that we help folks who are buying a business. If it’s someone who has been an executive, we have a lot of great companies in our market, and if they have been a corporate executive for 20 years, they’re really comfortable with certain parts of it, but they’re not as comfortable with others. So sometimes it’s just we have to help fill in those gaps with whatever they’re not as good at. Quite often we see the gap that we get the most questions on, I guess, would be on the financial side and definitely on the marketing front. Especially those folks who are buying businesses – if they’re say, 55, and they’ve been in the business world for 30 years, they’re not as comfortable with social media often. So our folks, you can imagine, can really help with that. But then others who have created a product and they’re exceptionally artistic – they understand their product, they understand their company – but the financial side is their biggest struggle. So then we can help on that front, as well.

HY: So what’s an easily fixable or preventable mistake a lot of small businesses make?

MBB: So often what we see, again, I guess it probably correlates with what your last question was, in that we have people who don’t understand their finances and their biggest concern is if they have money in their commercial checking account. So really understanding margins and how much it costs to produce their product, how much they’re selling their product for. And then having the financials to where they can compare where they are in comparison to their budget, in comparison to the previous year, so that they can make changes and shifts accordingly to both their pricing as well as whatever it’s costing them to create the product or to buy the product. That’s where we often see the lapse is not having that information readily available. And then if it’s six months later when they get a financial statement, say from their accountant, then it’s too late, or they’ve missed six months’ worth of opportunities. So a lot of times the bookkeeping side is a really tough struggle for our clients.

HY: So do you find companies are kind of coming in for periodic tune-ups with you to kind of just check in and see where they’re at or see if they’re on schedule or whatever the case may be?

MBB: It’s really interesting, you know? I think I had the perception as a banker prior to joining our center. I always thought that this was something that they would just help you get started. I didn’t realize the real breadth of our services. But I can’t tell you how many clients I talked to that have been in business for 15 years. But I am that kind of safe place for them to come, have someone else provide them feedback. I don’t have a dog in the hunt, as they say, so I’m a safe person who’s managed a lot of people and run companies to where I can help them make those decisions. So there are countless clients who I have that I see every three or four months, sometimes five-six months, sometimes once a year, just to get that tune-up-type conversation.

HY: Sure. OK, so can you kind of tell us about maybe a recent success story?

MBB: Sure. We have a small team, we call us a small but mighty team of 12. And we had in 2022 over 900 clients. So it is – we are really busy. So it’s hard to single out just one. But I can just tell you a few. And also everything we do is confidential. So everything from a really nice restaurant in Bentonville. Matthew Cooper, who is a really renowned chef, started his own restaurant up there and we helped him with that. To a food truck in Springdale, to like a bike school in Bentonville, a lot of folks who focus on some outdoor projects and some biking. We’ve had a lot of work in that area, too. I’ve recently done a lot of work with medical clinics, both PT, OT, speech therapy-type folks, who are either buying out the previous owners or starting anew, as well as I have an urgent care clinic going on. I have a dental office – someone starting up a dental office, and folks buying and selling those type businesses, as well. So it really runs a pretty broad gamut: from a restaurant to a food truck, to some folks that have employees, probably 50 or to 75 employees, so it runs a full gamut and we cover all of Northwest Arkansas.

HY: Fifty to 75 is starting to get fairly big there.

MBB: That’s getting big. That’s getting larger.

HY: Yeah, it’s getting fairly complicated.

MBB: Yes, right.

HY: OK, so what would be the best way to get in contact with the center? And this is assuming that the business is located in Northwest Arkansas and not needing to reach out to a different center.

MBB: Right. Again, we cover or the ASDC covers across the across the state. But for our center, you can reach us at area code 479-575-5148. You can look at us online: sbtdc.uark.edu. My e-mail is mebrooks@uark.edu. So any of those avenues to reach us. Get registered as a client and we can help.

HY: OK, before we wrap it up, is there anything else you think would be good to share with prospective clients?

MBB: I just think that any business can always use another ear, another set of opinions to try to help somebody vet. That’s been a really – I feel like when clients come back to us and give us feedback on how we perform, it’s often just having somebody else that’s not related to them, that doesn’t have, you know, an investment in it, just to give them some real feedback, both on the financial front, because that’s really my goal is always to make sure that if people are going into business, and they’re trying to make money out of it,  they’re going to get out of it what they’re hoping to with all their hard work and effort. So reach out to us, we can help.

HY: Mary Beth Brooks, thanks for coming in today. We appreciate it.

MBB: Thanks so much, Hardin. It’s been great.

Matt McGowan: Short Talks from the Hill is now available wherever you get your podcasts. For more information and additional podcasts, visit arkansasresearch.uark.edu, the home of research and economic development news at the University of Arkansas. Music for Short Talks from the Hill was written and performed by local musician Ben Harris.