[0:01] [Music]

[0:08] uh and we're going to now ask uh Mr Tim cop who is the executive director of the

[0:14] Texas City Lamar Chamber of Commerce uh to come forward and lead us in this

[0:18] discussion M Mr Co thank you mayor Bell appreciate it y'all can give the mayor a

[0:23] big round of applause because he's doing a pretty good job I'm going to tell you

[0:26] that Mandy I'm going to sit this up here am I doing a good job putting there CU

[0:30] are you hearing me hearing us now I can hear awesome

[0:34] awesome well again we're glad to have each and every one of you here I I was

[0:38] visiting with many of you as you came in the room uh and talking to you about

[0:42] your individual businesses and your and your goal some of your goals and

[0:45] objectives uh uh for your own entrepreneurship and and I can tell you

[0:50] that it's exciting uh this is what I enjoy most about my job uh you as small

[0:57] business owners looking to either maybe you've been in business for 6 months

[1:02] maybe a year maybe you've got a brainstorming an idea and I know there's

[1:05] some of you in this room that just got you've got that idea in the back of your

[1:08] mind that you feel like you may have something that that the community can

[1:12] use as a whole how do you grow that how do you how does that Blossom how does

[1:17] that develop and so that's what we're here to to do tonight and I am very

[1:21] excited about it I've been doing Chamber of Commerce work for a little over 30

[1:24] years uh but prior to getting into the chamber I was just like you I was a

[1:29] small business owner uh I started out as a oneman shop uh doing medical equipment

[1:36] we provided durable medical equipment to about a 250 M radius around my hometown

[1:42] I know what it feels like to be sitting in a room like this wondering what in

[1:46] the world am I going to do is this idea even going to possibly work uh and we

[1:51] grew that from I I tell people this story I had

[1:55] $1,000 I had two two wheelchairs three hospital beds heads and an oxygen

[2:01] machine that's what I started uh I won't divulge all the information but uh I can

[2:07] tell you this when we sold that business 15 years later uh that was we had 10

[2:12] employees that were working for us uh and we uh we were able to make a nice

[2:16] sale on that building and that business when we grew that and we did that over

[2:20] about a 15-year period uh and actually I was in that's how I got involved in

[2:25] chamber work uh is I was part of the Chamber of Commerce I got involved I got

[2:31] dedicated and what does that mean uh what is a chamber of commerce quite

[2:36] frankly we are the one organization that works daily on the behalf of our members

[2:43] we like to consider ourselves your least paid but yet most

[2:48] productive employee we are a membership organization I'll tell you that straight

[2:53] up we are a membership organization that pays due you pay du membership dues uh

[2:58] but it's also ran by volunteers years our entire board of directors here at

[3:02] the Texas City Lamar Chamber of Commerce is made up of 30 individuals that

[3:07] represent their own individual businesses uh I was visiting earlier uh

[3:12] and we were talking one of the business ideas was they needed to have contact

[3:17] with the port of Texas City uh they wanted to do some business with them uh

[3:22] our chairman next year will be Romero Barbara who is the president of the port

[3:27] of Texas city so to give you an example I can't think of a better example to

[3:31] give than the one that was just brought up earlier is we're going to be able to

[3:35] make that connection that otherwise you as an individual may not be able to make

[3:40] uh on your own uh you just may not know the person to talk to but what you can

[3:44] do is you can come to our chamber meetings and the events that we have I

[3:48] think the last number that I heard was something around 65 events that we host

[3:53] throughout the year uh of different types it may be a luncheon uh it may be

[3:57] a golf tournament uh there's there's an array of different events that we do but

[4:02] it gives us the opportunity to connect you with someone that otherwise you may

[4:06] not have that opportunity to do or have that opportunity to connect with uh the

[4:11] resources that you're going to find here today and the and the wonderful speakers

[4:15] and the information that you're going to find out that's that's a part of our

[4:18] connecting the puzzle pieces I like to say that we just have a great big puzzle

[4:22] and we never get it put together we're always re we're always moving the pieces

[4:26] around to make that connection chambers of commment have been around since the

[4:31] the the late 1700s uh they started actually over in England and and then

[4:35] they moved over here uh in the United States uh the first Chamber of Commerce

[4:40] as you might imagine was actually formed in New York City uh and so again the

[4:44] idea behind us is we want to advance the uh economic prosperity of our local

[4:51] community we like to consider ourselves a problem solver uh if there's a a

[4:56] problem going on within our communities we want to try to help solve that

[5:00] initiative and solve that problem and there's no better way to do that than

[5:04] with the business men and women of that Community because you're the one that's

[5:09] putting back into the Blood Sweat and Tears the dollars back into that

[5:14] Community you're hiring them individuals to come and to work for you to help you

[5:18] grow your business and to help you be successful we want to help you make

[5:22] those connections uh within the chamber is how we is how we do that there's you

[5:27] should have all received if you didn't please make sure that you pick up uh one

[5:32] of these packets uh out in the front on the front forer if you didn't get one

[5:36] there's a lot of information in here I'm not going to go through all of every bit

[5:40] of this uh we do have everybody on a Time clock and they those folks in the

[5:44] back know that if I get a microphone I could talk all night long and eat up all

[5:48] this time and they're like nope we're not going to let him do that so they did

[5:51] put me on a clock but uh just to kind of give you some examples a lot of the

[5:55] stuff that you can get when you when you're become a member or a part of the

[6:00] Chamber of Commerce is there's some free marketing opportunities for you uh a lot

[6:05] of those you'll find in that packet uh that we have there the other piece is is

[6:09] that we're we're constantly working to promote your business so again

[6:14] especially as a startup we can help connect you and do some marketing pieces

[6:19] for you that will be either in some cases no charge or a very minimal charge

[6:25] to be able to advertise and tell people about your business the other thing that

[6:30] we do and that and again it's the the fun part of my business and I mentioned

[6:34] to some of you earlier is you've got an idea you you you think you know uh

[6:40] something that you want to start a business venture that you would like to

[6:43] get into what we like to do is we like to just be a sounding board so schedule

[6:47] of time come in sit down visit with us talk to us uh and let's just be a

[6:52] sounding board and let's you know we'll we're very transparent here uh and we're

[6:57] going to push back a little and make you think about about the decisions and the

[7:00] and the thought processes that you're having and then we're going to encourage

[7:03] you once you make that decision that you want to move forward with that

[7:06] particular business venture we're going to encourage you and try to help again

[7:10] be those be that connector of those those puzzle pieces uh that we talked

[7:14] about uh marketing piece is a big part of what we do uh networking is a huge

[7:21] piece uh we've got different programs from our ambassador program which we

[7:25] call the Chamber Champs uh to just our regular monthly lunches

[7:29] again those opportunities you get to network with folks the other thing that

[7:33] we do a lot of is advocacy we Advocate on your behalf as a small business owner

[7:38] what does that mean what that means is is that we're looking at legislation

[7:42] that might be taking place uh on the local level at the county level at the

[7:47] state level and at the federal level uh and and we're monitoring those decisions

[7:52] that those lawmakers are making and how is it going to impact and how is it

[7:56] going to affect business uh if it's going to affect business in a positive

[8:00] way then we're going to get behind it we're going to endorse that situation or

[8:03] that that piece of legislation or that idea that that maybe even council is is

[8:09] considering uh but if it's going to adversely affect business then we're

[8:13] going to be opposed to that and we're going to and we're going to voice that

[8:17] opinion based on what our members tell us okay and so again we represent you uh

[8:25] as as an organization and so again we're going to Advocate on on your behalf and

[8:31] so I'm excited about today uh again I could go through every little bitty

[8:35] piece of of of of the information that we have here but the the charge today

[8:40] was was to inform you and maybe give you just a little bit of information of why

[8:46] you should be a part of our organization you've got right now you see our website

[8:50] I'm not going to go through all of this pieces because we would be here again

[8:54] all night long but you can see the different pieces that we go through

[8:58] membership events resources visiting our communities if you've got people that

[9:03] are we like to attract those visitors because we know when people come to our

[9:06] community and they eat in our restaurants and they sleep in our hotels

[9:10] and they fill up with gas what's that doing I like to call it and I think the

[9:14] mayor would agree with me that's free money that's free money that we get into

[9:18] our community when people come and do that and they spend those dollars here

[9:22] those are the kinds of things that we will help with as we go along so I'm not

[9:26] going to open it up for too many questions are we going to do questions

[9:29] answer do we talk we're going to do questions now or we're going to do it at

[9:31] the end we decided to do it at the end okay I couldn't remember so we'll do

[9:34] questions Q&A at the end but uh thank you for being here thank you for being a

[9:38] part we're excited uh I hope to uh sit down and get an opportunity to visit

[9:43] with each and every one of you uh and talk to you about your own individual

[9:47] business as we go along so I'm going to move on down our list here I think I

[9:53] have uh I was volen told that I was going to get to be the uh MC for this

[9:58] event if you will and so but that's fine I I like doing this Kathleen van Starvin

[10:03] the director of development services for the city of Lamar is going to come up to

[10:08] us and talk about those those benefits so

[10:12] Kathleen how's [Applause]

[10:18] everyone first I want to thank you all for being here we appreciate it my

[10:23] name's Kathleen van stav as you said I am the director of development services

[10:27] for the city of Lamar I'm not sure what if people understand what development

[10:31] services is but actually what we are is we're a department in the city that you

[10:36] come to if you have a dream of a business if you have an idea if you just

[10:41] had someone tell you hey you ought to do this come see us come talk to us we'll

[10:45] help walk you through it my department consists of the development and

[10:50] permitting so it's kind of a One-Stop shop you come in we'll talk to you we'll

[10:55] meet with you we'll we'll help guide you through the process proces of Permitting

[11:00] or platting or zoning or whatever it is you happen to want to do and guide you

[11:05] through it to make it as simple and as quick as it possibly

[11:09] can um one of the biggest things we do is we have

[11:14] pre-development meetings those meetings are where we have City staff we have our

[11:19] city engineer we have our fire marshal we have myself we have the EDC

[11:24] director and our and we're all we all meet with you we go through the Z we go

[11:29] through everything you tell us what you want to do and we help walk you through

[11:33] what you'll need to get there we're the beginning if if you think I just don't

[11:39] think I can do that there I think it's too complicated give me a call or give

[11:43] us a call we'll help you that's what we're here for we want you we want small

[11:47] businesses large businesses if you just want to open a coffee shop call

[11:52] us because we we're here to help you don't look at us as just permitting or

[11:57] somebody that's just you know trying to drag business into the city because

[12:00] we're not we want you to prosper we want to get that dream to come true for

[12:04] you um and we have a lot of people that come and talk to us and they just want

[12:08] to say hey I'm thinking about something and I said tell us what your idea is let

[12:12] us help you with that we can expand on it maybe we can help you find property

[12:16] somewhere we can give you all the forms you need we can explain zoning to you we

[12:20] can explain the building regulations to you but that's what we're here for if

[12:27] um we we can do it on a oneon-one basis you can call me my cards are at the

[12:32] front and I'll be happy to talk to you or you can email me if you want to say

[12:37] Kathleen you know I know it's probably a stupid idea but I want to I want to open

[12:41] up a hot dog stand okay let's do it just tell me where you want to do it and and

[12:45] we'll talk about it permitting is all done in the same office we've

[12:51] streamlined our permitting department now so that if you submit your plans and

[12:55] reviews and everything everything is normally turned around within 10 days

[12:59] our inspections are pretty much on a 24hour turnaround on those so we're

[13:04] trying to do everything to help anyone with a small business or large business

[13:08] to come to Lamar to make it as easy and as welcoming as we possibly

[13:13] can um you're going to do questions at the end y I'll be available if you'd

[13:19] like to to ask me any any questions concerning the development process or if

[13:25] you U have an idea right now tonight talk to me about

[13:29] it and I'll set you a meeting with the PDM meeting so you can come and sit and

[13:34] talk with everyone from the city but that's that's all about all I

[13:39] have thank you so much there's also back anybody

[13:47] wants I I I don't want watch some of the stuff that she just said to go go go

[13:52] unnoticed now here here now I'm putting on my full chamber hat the opportunity I

[13:56] get to to kind of connect those pieces pces don't miss out on what Kathleen

[14:01] just said about the fact of the permitting side and the turnaround side

[14:04] those time frames 10 days and 24 hours inspections those are phenomenal numbers

[14:10] I mean and and so again most of you if you're a homebased business one of these

[14:14] days you're going to want to get out on your own in get in your own building if

[14:17] you're looking for a building currently uh you're going to want to have those

[14:21] convers you're going to have to have those conversations at some point in

[14:24] time with the city to know that you're number one you're you're putting the

[14:28] business in the proper location and and that you're your everything meets to

[14:32] code and that's for safety uh and so again those turnaround numbers that's

[14:37] phenomenal 10 days and 24 hours uh there's I can tell you there's lots of

[14:41] cities around us that do not function that rapidly so that's that's great to

[14:48] have that kind of a turnaround so again K I appreciate you I appreciate what the

[14:52] work that you guys do that always ends at the fun place to go because the

[14:57] people have made it out to be but folks like that make it a good place to go and

[15:01] visit and to be able to share your ideas so hats off to you with that I'm going

[15:05] to introduce next I'm going to in introduce to you uh the director of the

[15:09] Lamar Economic Development Corporation and a good friend Alex Getty Alex also

[15:13] serves on our board of directors here at the Chamber of the Texas City Lark

[15:17] Chamber of Commerce so Alex let's talk about EDC all right thank

[15:25] you where

[15:29] yeah okay thank you appreciate the introduction thank you mayor um for your

[15:34] support of this and and we uh we're hopeful that it'll be beneficial uh I'm

[15:39] going to throw a lot of information at you in about the next 15 minutes or so I

[15:43] have cards back there um and we'll have a Q&A at the end and I'll I'll try to

[15:48] answer some questions that you do have as well U my name is Alex Getty I'm the

[15:52] executive director of Lark Economic Development Corporation I think I had a

[15:55] chance to to meet each one of you on your way in to and kind of get a feel

[15:59] for uh you know who we have in the audience and what you're trying to do um

[16:03] so some of these slides I'll kind of walk through quicker than others because

[16:07] I think you know based upon the audience of what you what you're wanting to to

[16:10] know we'll try to to do that uh I am from Lamark uh I've been serving in this

[16:16] position for 14 years now uh it's a it's a wonderful uh job it's a wonderful City

[16:22] uh and what I like about it is every day is a little bit different you never know

[16:27] who you're going to connect with who's going to walk through the door what idea

[16:30] you're going to hear it it's just really a lot of fun to talk with entrepreneurs

[16:35] about their ideas it excites me because when you're talking to people who are

[16:39] passionate about something it's just a lot of fun it's it's

[16:43] contagious so a little bit about the EDC before I go to the next slide we are a

[16:48] government nonprofit corporation I like to say that we're first cousins are

[16:52] closer to the city of Lamar what I mean by that is I work for the corporation I

[16:57] work for a board of five my board is appointed by city council

[17:01] and we have a city councilman here with us tonight Mr Ross obviously mayor is

[17:05] here as well and so you know that's kind of how it works uh in a nutshell U I

[17:10] work for the board the board is appointed by councel um

[17:15] and our job is to try to create wealth essentially for the city a little bit of

[17:19] history about economic development in Lamar uh we originally the Lamar

[17:24] Industrial Development Corporation we are Incorporated in 1982 uh but not much

[17:29] happened then because there was no funding mechanism uh it wasn't until a

[17:33] few legislative sessions later that uh it

[17:38] was approved for municipalities to go to the tax to the voters and and get a

[17:43] corporation or the the the half cent sales tax at that time approved and so

[17:49] uh May 7th 1990 uh the voters approved it in Lamar

[17:54] uh we are one of the first municipalities to approve the half cent

[17:57] sales tax and we've been working on on that ever since I think year one um we

[18:03] it generated about $300 to $350,000 um the half cent sales tax

[18:08] did here's our mission statement um it was originally approved in 2013 I

[18:15] believe it was actually approved again this morning uh we we were working on

[18:18] some Mission Vision goals statement stuff and uh I'll just read it for you

[18:23] here the primary goal of Lamar Economic Development Corporation is to assist in

[18:27] the development of a strong Diversified economy for the city of Lamar this can

[18:31] be accomplished with a multifaceted approach that consists of efforts that

[18:35] help promote business retention business expansion and business recruitment U and

[18:40] so we're firing on some of those cylinders tonight but what is it Alex I

[18:45] understand it's funded we got a half cent sales tax and that's great but but

[18:49] what really you know what is it so I borrowed this quick definition from the

[18:53] Texas Economic Development Council which we have a slide in in a couple minutes a

[18:57] little bit more about who they are but it's the intentional practice of

[19:01] improving a community's economic well-being and quality of life so that

[19:05] it covers a lot of ground you could spend a few minutes breaking that down

[19:09] um but for the Economic Development Corporation Lamar we're trying to find

[19:13] projects that are beneficial and meaningful to our community and um we're

[19:19] really looking at at three things that are the most important capital

[19:23] investment so let's say you take a piece of property that doesn't have any

[19:27] infrastructure or a building and so you're just getting the avalum tax of

[19:30] the property itself you put a new building on it there's a lift there on

[19:34] the avalum side but also true maybe you have a dilapidated structure that you

[19:38] want to improve and again lift the tax uh role so capital investment job

[19:45] creation is Paramount we want to we want to be able to create jobs we want to tie

[19:49] any sales tax dollars that we provide to jobs um and last but not least is is

[19:55] sales tax that's how we're funded and we'll touch on that here in a second it

[20:00] includes a broad range of activities to retain create and attack attract jobs um

[20:07] it is helping to build new infrastructure and real estate

[20:10] opportunities to improve a community couple of examples uh the EDC and Lamar

[20:16] brought Water and Sewer to the west side of I45 years ago that opened up the west

[20:21] side for development all right uh we didn't necessarily have a a specific

[20:25] thing that drove that at that time but it was very necessary and needed and

[20:30] then now you see what all is happening over there uh we also I like to say that

[20:35] we're good at things that are 6 in tall and shorter we're able to build

[20:39] infrastructure is what I mean by that so one project that we did we built fliming

[20:44] extension uh water sewer Paving and drainage that brought in Mainland

[20:50] Kawasaki U again they fire on all three cylinders that I just mentioned capital

[20:54] investment job creation sales tax and out of that we got a Bonus so a few

[20:58] years later we got team manuso Power Sports located there because the

[21:01] infrastructure was there etc those are two high sales tax drivers for our

[21:06] community and so those are kind of projects that that we do and why U but

[21:12] we do much more some of the core activities and

[21:16] this is not a comprehensive list this is just a few of the things that we do uh

[21:20] business expansion and uh business retention and expansion I've touched on

[21:25] that we want businesses that are in Lamar to stay in Lamar um and if they

[21:29] don't stay in Lamar we certainly want to stay in our area we want some of these

[21:35] businesses are Regional you know just because they're not in Lamar doesn't

[21:38] mean they don't impact Lamar in a positive way uh so we want to try to

[21:42] retain the businesses that we have and it's a a lot easier to retain a business

[21:48] than it is to recruit a new one uh marketing and recruitment don't

[21:52] want to steal any of Mandy's Thunder she's going to have some slides on

[21:55] marketing in a minute we do a lot uh to try to promote Lamar to let people know

[21:59] what our assets are and what our opportunities are uh strategic planning

[22:04] not just a strategic plan uh like the 2015 to 2022 plan that the city had and

[22:09] we worked on uh but strategic planning like we need to look at where we need

[22:17] infrastructure we need to look at putting these properties together to

[22:21] make them highest best use for our community so there's a lot of things

[22:24] that we sit back and think about what are some things that we can do

[22:27] strategically in order to improve our community to have uh more and better

[22:32] businesses down the road a little bit of forecasting we look at look at the

[22:36] opportunities in the climate as well Small Business Development this is one

[22:40] thing um but there are other things that we do but our job just like many other

[22:44] of the the speakers tonight are try to connect you to resources whether it's a

[22:49] link or whether it's a connection with a person because those are important

[22:53] networking is very important uh so that's that's some of the things that we

[22:57] do uh connect people to jobs and projects uh in the last year or so we've

[23:03] tried to help existing Lamar businesses find employees that are qualified what

[23:09] that what they want to to do and that that helps the business in Lamar it

[23:12] helps that uh that person again just connecting folks and then last but not

[23:16] least education uh we spent a lot of time educating um about Lamark and who

[23:22] we are and what we do and here some resources and things just like this but

[23:26] it's not always in a setting like this we're always teaching and

[23:31] educating so I mentioned tedc a little bit earlier um this is me uh with board

[23:38] member Tracy steens and longtime president of the tedc uh Carlton Schwab

[23:43] and I put this slide in here to let you know that that we we practice best

[23:47] practices in Lamar we we do a lot of things well are we perfect not even

[23:51] close but we try really hard to do well and we've won a few Awards a few years

[23:56] in a row for that uh we're one of 15 of about a thousand members that have have

[24:01] received this award the last six years running and so we're we're proud of that

[24:05] and that's the importance of this slide to know when you're you're working with

[24:08] us connecting with us we're trying to go about things uh the right

[24:12] way um I was talking to a couple of you and and this is this slide um will fit

[24:18] right in with what you were looking for because you want to know about the

[24:20] growth and what's happening in Lamar and and this is one of the drivers um you

[24:25] know we've had record sales tax for the last 6 years in a row

[24:28] uh one of the drivers is for the last decade Lamar has just been blowing up I

[24:33] mean we are uh the second fastest growing uh City in the county um we have

[24:39] been for a long time and where it all started was with painted Meadows there

[24:43] in the middle so we worked with um the developer we actually owned the real

[24:48] estate at Lamark EDC we sold the real estate uh to the

[24:53] developer uh the city ultimately ended up setting up a pit do any anybody know

[24:58] what a pit is dorine does um so that's a public

[25:02] improvement district and basically what that is it's a it's a financing tool to

[25:07] help pay for the water sewer Paving and drainage to help mitigate the risk if

[25:11] you will for a developer so they're going to get paid back over time you've

[25:15] probably heard mud there's a little difference in the mid a pit and a mud

[25:20] mud can continue to take on debt once the debt is paid off from the pit it it

[25:24] goes away and so that's what we had here and it's kind of like hitting in

[25:28] baseball is contagious so before painted Meadows came along Lamar was starving

[25:35] for residential development we hadn't had it we were trying to get it couldn't

[25:39] get it but as soon as the city uh worked with uh developer of painted Meadows

[25:45] then we saw Delaney Cove come that was a lenar development largest home builder

[25:50] at the time in America Salt Grass Crossing came Sunset Grove and now we

[25:54] have trails at Wood Haven lakes that just kicked off and so when all those

[25:58] are done we'll have roughly 2500 3,000 new homes new new stock uh in Lamar and

[26:05] that is really uh helping to drive and so this next side really really sums it

[26:11] up we're very proud uh and excited when this these numbers came out because it

[26:16] was the first time we made the list um so second quarter of the year we were

[26:20] named one of the 10 hottest communities in the Houston area and you see on the

[26:23] map there the only one south of downtown and this is year-over-year I'm

[26:29] surprised we hadn't made it before when I saw the numbers I'm like I think we've

[26:32] met that before but we're glad to make it now uh but

[26:36] anyway the result is the Mark is growing and thriving and and doing really

[26:42] well couple projects uh just got a couple more slides here then we'll walk

[26:47] through some some websites that I think might be beneficial for some of the

[26:50] conversations that I heard us have uh before the meeting uh we're working on a

[26:53] Renaissance District we talked about strategic planning just a little bit

[26:56] this another example of that well we worked through the Texas coastal

[27:00] Watershed program through Texas A&M University a few years ago we had

[27:04] stakeholder meetings we worked with uh the community and and different uh

[27:09] public meetings to find out what is the vision for downtown Lamar and so out of

[27:13] that came this plan um and these are some of the things that we've done this

[27:18] is what the building will look like right now uh if you go and and drive

[27:22] through downtown Lamark if you haven't been in a while there's been a lot of

[27:24] improvements uh we'll take a look at those on the next slide but this will be

[27:28] the EDC office U it looks a little bit different now it's originally built in

[27:32] 1959 it was uh the flagship bank for GU guarantee Federal bank and it was very

[27:38] well built we're glad to have it and it kind of stimulated some of the other

[27:41] things that you see going on now but our goal is to make it more walkable bikable

[27:45] pedestrian friendly making a greater economic engine for small businesses in

[27:50] Lamar and that's why it's that's why it's important but here's some other

[27:53] things we're doing top left that's another building

[27:56] that we own that we're renovating concurrently with our building uh it is

[28:00] currently fully occupied we've got uh Lugar which is an event center and we

[28:05] got Innovation Safety Solutions which is a uh a support business for industry uh

[28:11] very glad to have both of those top right is 401 Laurel uh that's where

[28:16] Artic coffee is we do have space on the incap we got about 2700 sare fet there

[28:21] uh we are looking and actually the board uh voted this morning to to for me to

[28:25] get some quotes to to build out the inside make it more of a just a ready to

[28:30] go space it'll still need some some things but sheet rock lighting flooring

[28:35] those kind of thing so that's that's in the works um I picked that picture

[28:38] because our our intersection pavers for those who haven't seen them they' turned

[28:42] out really nice and it's a compass that's that's oriented to True North and

[28:47] that was I think the last day or very close to when they were about to finish

[28:50] that turned out good you can see how it did on the on the bottom left and then

[28:54] the bottom right is just a picture where you got all fired up the first night the

[28:58] the lights burned and so we went out there and took a bunch of pictures and

[29:01] all that so anyway it's a kind of a it's fun to work in your hometown downtown

[29:07] and then and that's that's I'm passionate about it and I'm excited

[29:10] about it and there's Mandy I warned her that she was on

[29:15] here so we're always trying to think of innovative ways that we can help small

[29:19] businesses in Lamar and so for those of you that I talked to tonight who are

[29:23] ready to open a business once you get open um this is something that we want

[29:27] to try to do for you uh we created it just this year in about June uh we

[29:33] didn't know of anyone else that we'd ever heard of that had done one I think

[29:37] we've had seven recipients now top right is Evelyn George with uh Evelyn's

[29:42] alterations longtime Lamar downtown business a great lady bottom right is

[29:47] Kenny Blakey and his business laser Marine there at I45 and so those are

[29:52] just three that have taken advantage we actually approved one this morning uh I

[29:55] say we the board approved one this morning we're excited about that so

[29:59] we're going to continue to push this and I'll show you how to find it on our

[30:02] website here in a minute and I would be remiss this really

[30:06] doesn't have anything to do with anything except for uh I wanted to make

[30:10] sure y'all know about Bayou Fest on Saturday and um so I apologize for this

[30:15] slide but um so we've got Amanda siss coming she's uh doing a really great job

[30:21] she's a Texas City native uh I've seen her twice this year already she puts a

[30:25] high energy show out um she she's a a Selena tribute artist and she does a lot

[30:30] of good things there Wayne tupes will be in the second slot he's a Grammy award

[30:34] winner he has a z occasion feel if you've never seen him it's dance music

[30:38] exciting stuff a lot of a lot of people love Wayne and then we've got Neil McCoy

[30:42] two-time Entertainer of the Year um he's really excited to be out there and uh

[30:47] we're looking forward to it it's all free and so come out uh enjoy yourselves

[30:52] please it's a way particularly when you're thinking about uh opening a

[30:56] business in Lar Mark uh come come check us out uh this is a little taste of what

[31:01] Lamar has to offer and uh so we'll do I'll just leave that real quick while I

[31:07] get my mouse oh yeah she took care of me and she put it over

[31:13] here so we'll get the the websites up I've just got four things to show you

[31:17] real quick and then I'll be done so this this is going to be old hat to some I

[31:22] know Dorene is going to know all about this but this is a tool that I use every

[31:25] day um this this is the gson Central Appraisal District website um it's a

[31:31] it's a great source for a lot of different things uh what I use

[31:36] most is the mapping capabilities okay the website recently

[31:41] changed but you go here for the interactive map It'll ask you to say

[31:46] okay and there's all kind of layers on here uh the world imagery works pretty

[31:51] good but what I primarily use it for is try to figure out who owns a piece of

[31:56] property or or maybe did it change hands maybe it did and I can look at the deed

[32:00] records U but once we get into a certain level here and I'll go to the central

[32:05] fire station on the west side this is 1765 and

[32:10] 2004 um you'll see a number there on the map but then you'll see it it's here as

[32:14] well tells you who the owner is the the home address if it's

[32:18] different than the actual physical location but then on uh the cus

[32:26] here it will show you the the physical address and that's helpful but you can

[32:31] you can go and use this number the 60143 number go to property

[32:52] search and you can click on that and you can get some additional information um

[32:56] the taxing entities uh what what year a building

[33:00] was built might be important for you um this one doesn't show it but it'll show

[33:06] uh the deed records U so you can see the last three Deeds typically uh we'll do

[33:12] one more really quickly so let's look at this one uh

[33:25] 60114

[33:29] tells you who owns it and I pull this one up because it has

[33:33] the last four Deeds on this one so you can kind of track and it gives you the

[33:38] the volume and page number if you want to look at the county clerk's website

[33:42] and that sort of thing uh so that's that one another one that you may be

[33:46] interested in again dorine's going to know all about this but this is loot net

[33:50] um I've got Lamark queued in here so you see the the city limits of Lamar uh you

[33:54] can zoom in and toggle between a bunch of different things but if you're

[33:58] looking for a a For Lease space you can do that or a for sale space but you can

[34:03] kind of Click around and then you can click on the actual deal you can get the

[34:09] the uh the property flyer Etc so that's always

[34:14] nice and then back to the city website I'm going to show you a couple of things

[34:18] that that the EDC uh has U so you go to departments here on the main page

[34:23] Economic Development

[34:28] um we've got several resources like loot net we have our own uh database this is

[34:34] new for us this year as well um it's kind of living and breathing it'll it'll

[34:38] update and change but just like the other one you can toggle between for

[34:42] sale and for lease and get the the information of uh the realtor

[34:47] information Etc um so both of those are good for commercial properties loot net

[34:52] and then now the EDC website and back to resources uh applications for incentives

[34:59] this is these are our local incentives and you see there uh we've

[35:03] got four one the bottom one was just approved this morning uh by The Economic

[35:08] Development Corporation so that's why you see the coming soon um we're going

[35:12] to we're going to write up and it'll be there probably by the end of next week

[35:16] and that is for sign Improvement funds and so we had a a joint meeting with

[35:22] Council on the 25th of September and that was one of the things that that we

[35:26] talked about out that we thought would be helpful again for small businesses

[35:29] and so uh I wrote the application uh we wrote a grant agreement uh it was

[35:34] approved this morning by the board and so now we're just going to keep fleshing

[35:38] out and start promoting it once we get it up here um you'll see right above

[35:42] that is the texc Lamar chamber membership grant that we had a slide

[35:46] about so you can click on that and and get that application above that is a

[35:50] business Improvement fund Grant um it's really designed for for major thorough

[35:54] fares but it could be like Cedar Bayou Etc ET um and it's really just a

[35:59] matching Grant uh for materials to in improve your your curb appeal uh that's

[36:04] something that I wrote probably a decade ago uh probably need to revisit that at

[36:08] some point and make sure the pricing still makes sense but it's there and

[36:11] it's a it's an opportunity and then the first one the application for incentives

[36:16] it's a little bit more in depth uh it's a pretty straightforward but it is a

[36:19] seven-page application uh it asks for finance information Etc but look through

[36:26] them on your own time if you have questions about them by all means call

[36:30] me again I've got cards in the back grab one uh we're here to help and here to

[36:34] serve just like Kathleen uh we work very closely together we communicate very

[36:39] well together um and it's because we want to benefit businesses in Lamar so

[36:44] uh that's all I have for now I really appreciate your attention and time and

[36:47] and thank youall again for being here

[36:52] [Applause] tonight

[36:58] so again looking at those takeaways from that I get I'll go back to how do we all

[37:02] connect uh you between never speaker I'm going to do this so y'all just get used

[37:06] to it but but how do you connect the I can tell you this you heard Alex say in

[37:11] the very beginning of his presentation uh talking about how the half cent sales

[37:15] tax uh was created that it was passed by the Texas legislature that was an

[37:20] initiative that Chambers of Commerce across the state started pushing that

[37:24] initi because they knew that we needed to be be able to fund these

[37:27] organizations those Economic Development corporations to be able to find to

[37:31] provide those incentives to businesses and so we helped push that legislation

[37:37] we advocated on its behalf and then it came to it came to into existence as

[37:41] Alex was pointing out uh and so again the the benefits that you can receive

[37:46] there and you say wait a minute all of these things are available to you as a

[37:50] business owner uh you're not going to you know we're not going to get down I

[37:53] told somebody earlier we're we're going to be at we're going to be at about

[37:55] 30,000 ft tonight okay we're not going to get down in the weeds but we're going

[37:59] to be here to give you the resources that are available to you so uh are and

[38:04] make sure I'm looking here right I've got uh Mandy and Marielle are y'all up

[38:09] next are y'all ready so this is Alex and I will both tell you the same thing

[38:15] these are the two ladies that make both of us look really good because they're

[38:19] the ones that put these websites and and marketing pieces together respectively

[38:23] for our uh for our organization so I'm going to turn it over to them and let

[38:26] talk about our

[38:30] website uh my name is Mandy I'm the public relations specialist for the

[38:34] Lamar Economic Development Corporation oh and I'm Mariel mcor I'm with the

[38:38] director of communications with the the chamber so awesome all right so we're

[38:43] going to talk to you a little bit about marketing for your business uh I can

[38:47] tell you right now I already see a couple of you in here that do a really

[38:50] good job at marketing on your Facebook pages and any other business profile

[38:55] that you have the the best advice I can give for starting businesses is that

[39:01] social media is free most of the time uh creating a business profile on any of

[39:07] these is free uh Facebook's a good one you can

[39:11] create a business profile a lot of people are on Facebook especially older

[39:15] people are on Facebook you could try Tik Tok I'm not even on on the Tik Tok too

[39:20] much so uh but Instagram and Linkedin that's a good one um and if you don't

[39:27] have social media I do recommend at least doing two and that's Facebook and

[39:32] Instagram because those are my I think the most important cuz if you're a a

[39:37] boutique or a store Instagram's really great cuz you can connect it to your

[39:43] website um same with Facebook everything can connect to your website and bring

[39:47] you um more of a following per se cuz that's the new thing to get new

[39:54] customers is to get a following on online

[39:57] yeah um definitely yeah as as much as as much as we like it or hate it social

[40:03] media is a thing now and we got to get on it so uh just a couple little notes

[40:09] for this one um am I on slide too yeah so it's cost-effective marketing we I

[40:14] went over that a little bit you can reach a very broad audience think about

[40:18] how many people are on social media billions and if you get you know a

[40:23] really good following that's just more eyes on your page

[40:26] those eyes and those people can share your page to get you more eyes on that

[40:31] page um Community Building small businesses can use social media to build

[40:35] and engage with your community so it just shows that you have a presence in

[40:39] the community as well uh you can drive to your website like what Marielle said

[40:45] uh you can get feedback and marketing research small businesses can use

[40:49] surveys and polls and uh comments from customers to understand what they're

[40:54] what they're wanting what they want to see what they like um and uh keeping

[41:00] your social media up to date that's very important updating your hours if you've

[41:05] got a close for a day social media is a good way to tell them hey on Tuesday

[41:09] this day we're going to be closed for renovations or hey we're changing our

[41:13] hours as of next month you know we're we're Clos Mondays and Tuesdays instead

[41:18] of Wednesdays now uh and then uh on that changing if you change your website and

[41:24] you don't tell anyone that you change your website

[41:27] people could still have your website saved somewhere but you know just have

[41:31] be can still change it on the your link and stuff but just promote hey we've

[41:36] changed this check it out now like our new site and Google too right you talked

[41:40] about Google and then if you um sign up with Google that way you can get like

[41:44] your Google Business Suite um and then you'll you'll show up when you someone I

[41:50] going to pick on you again Mandy Mandy's closet if I Google Mandy's closet and

[41:54] you have a Google Business it'll pop up with your map your logo photos of your

[41:59] business your location of your business phone number hours everything on Google

[42:04] so Google's really important because that's people Google everything so I

[42:09] know really important and I try to put a list together of all the business and

[42:12] businesses in Lamar it's it's hard sometimes because a lot of these

[42:16] businesses don't update their Google and so their phone numbers aren't up to date

[42:20] you go to their Facebook nobody has posted since 2019 and you're like well

[42:25] they still in business so you don't know so keeping all that up to date is very

[42:29] very important the next one so a couple social media tips and

[42:35] tricks this is mainly social media is what we're going to be talking about

[42:38] with marketing since it is kind of a a big thing with what we do as well

[42:44] uh just real quick grammar grammar is a very very important thing on social

[42:49] media I see a couple um posts sometimes that are

[42:54] misspelled there's no punctuation there's no

[42:57] capitalization and are you taking those people seriously like you're like I

[43:01] can't even read that so uh a good tool to use is grammarly I don't know if

[43:06] anybody has grammarly but there is a free version of it and you can it's so

[43:11] easy to copy and paste what you're putting in there and paste it in

[43:14] grammarly it'll come up with hey you missed a punctuation here maybe change

[43:19] this to this here's a suggestion just copy and paste that to your post L bam

[43:24] yeah um you want to go over consistency yeah so consistency is you know maintain

[43:31] a posting schedule um Regular and predictable content keeps your audience

[43:36] engaged so basically I mean don't post a few times and then go completely dead on

[43:43] social media because then people will think your business is no no more uh it

[43:48] doesn't have to be every day if you do once a week twice a week um keep it just

[43:53] keep it up um and then I know I I'm going to talk about that in a

[43:57] little bit but um just be consistent because typically if you just you stop

[44:04] people will think your business is stopped yeah and then you can I mean

[44:08] more eyes think about it the more repetitive you are on posting the more

[44:12] eyes are going to see your post they're going to be like oh Andy's closet I'm

[44:15] just going to keep picking on you yeah you're a great example on how well you

[44:19] do your social media um if anybody needs a good example go go to Mandy's closet

[44:25] on on Facebook uh she posts regularly she posts her inventory fun little

[44:30] videos I mean and I always see it so it's like and once you click on it and

[44:35] once you see it and get those Impressions on your say Facebook page

[44:39] it'll see that you spend more time Facebook is so funky I'm not going to

[44:43] lie it it shows that you're spending more time on this post it'll keep

[44:49] posting that it'll keep coming up on your timeline so just think about that

[44:53] with your business and then and um let's see and

[44:57] that's going over to visuals um

[45:01] photos uh video is King if you've seen any of the shineon videos you look at

[45:06] those uh they we do that for the Lamar Facebook page um and those do really

[45:12] well I mean just grabbing even if it's just

[45:17] like a a slide that says visuals you know like you're still going to see it

[45:22] because it's colorful it's not just words yes and and then also on social

[45:27] media it's a new thing it's reals and videos like your algorithms nowadays

[45:33] that's basically where your post shows up on anyone's Instagram or Facebook uh

[45:39] right now it's based on reals and a real will go higher than a a photo photo post

[45:46] um they are a little harder to do but they are probably worth doing especially

[45:52] for small businesses cuz it'll put you further up and it it can be a real of

[45:58] photos I've seen people do still photos and then they just kind of slide like a

[46:02] photo slider but it it's important yep and we'll go over we'll go over some

[46:07] things too on how to create those as well uh just easy tools you can use that

[46:12] are free and then again just telling stories connecting with your audience on

[46:16] a personal and emotional level uh post reviews if you get a good review post it

[46:23] I mean be like look this person had a great experience

[46:26] and they found the dress they were looking for for prom here here's a

[46:29] picture of them I mean it's just showing showing people they may know in the

[46:34] community yeah testimonials are a great thing if you ever get one um there's

[46:38] this a new thing I know it's called broadcast channel um on Instagram we

[46:44] create a broadcast channel you can literally connect to your people just

[46:47] one on not they can't respond but you can literally be very personal in there

[46:52] and just be like hey we got a new item in store hey we running a new promotion

[46:57] you know but it goes direct and the people can follow that and they can stay

[47:00] up to date constantly much

[47:04] you one okay a couple more uh engaging with your audience you want to respond

[47:10] to comments and messages promptly uh Foster a sense of community by

[47:14] interacting with followers so if they comment and

[47:17] say when when do you open on Sunday you know if you don't respawn back they're

[47:22] not going to know that you're open from 10 to two on Sunday you know so just

[47:28] responding back liking somebody's comment it shows that you care um you

[47:34] want promotions and contests yeah so promotions and contests um basically

[47:39] promotions but that's what you can um run giveaways contests any promotional

[47:44] campaigns that you have going on um and this doing that encourages engagement um

[47:50] it kind of goes along with our call to action kind of cuz you can do them both

[47:54] together um if you make a post and you say like our post give us a follow tag a

[48:01] friend it'll gain more people to you and then also if you're running that

[48:07] promotion you know everyone can see it all your friends yeah giveaways uh you

[48:11] know uh um Wednesday is Military Appreciation

[48:16] so military people get 10% off that kind of thing um and that goes yeah like you

[48:21] said into call to action which is if anybody know what a call to action is

[48:25] it's asking the person that's reading your post to do something uh like follow

[48:30] or share this this post you'll get more engagement on it which will boost your

[48:34] post which will get more eyes on it uh tell them to visit your website and

[48:39] leave a link so always give them something to do um yeah cuz those two go

[48:45] really hand in hand I know people always say um we're giving this away like

[48:50] follow and then we'll we'll they do a little drawing and that person gets

[48:54] picked and then you tell them to share about it and you know it gets more

[48:58] people to your page exactly and like I said the more people like your page and

[49:04] uh like that post it's going to go to the top of other people's timelines so

[49:09] they will see it more uh quality over quantity focus on creating a high

[49:15] quality content rather than turning out post value and relevance matter so don't

[49:20] just post hey guys and then that's it you know and then post it again in an

[49:25] hour you know or post the same thing 2 hours from then post good things on a

[49:29] consistent basis not a lot not you don't want to overpower people are going to

[49:33] get sick of it and they're going to unfollow you so anything you want to add

[49:36] to that one Prett self-explain for me I I post once a day on our social medias

[49:41] um sometimes a few more if I have something important I need to get out

[49:44] but typically I try to say at least once a day something people are hearing from

[49:50] us once a day at least so you know I can give an example I used to work at San

[49:54] Antonio Zoo and I worked on their uh in their marketing department and we had a

[49:59] social media person and they posted at least I think their quota was supposed

[50:05] to be quot like per our vice president was five or six times a day to post

[50:10] that's different it's a big company it's a big it's a big organization but we saw

[50:15] that you only got like one or two likes per post you know if you post really

[50:20] good things this what we started doing is we posted really funny videos or

[50:24] really funny picture or something to get people talking and that post got 50 100

[50:31] and then we went up to a million views on on videos and it just boosted and

[50:35] boosted so as soon as we changed what we were posting rather than promotions all

[50:40] the time uh you know $8 local day over and over and over again three times in

[50:46] one day we didn't get any followers and then all of a sudden it it skyrocketed

[50:51] when we started posting better stuff MH

[50:57] yes all right you want to go over some canva stuff so canva this is a program

[51:03] that anyone can use um you can either use it for free or you can pay for the

[51:07] premium which is highly recommended because you get a lot of Cool Tools in

[51:12] it um I believe it's $120 a year which to be honest it's way worth it and it's

[51:19] pretty cheap compared to a lot of other programs out there um it's very user

[51:23] friendly um I use it on a daily basis I know she

[51:28] uses it on a daily basis I made this slideshow with canva yes like it's

[51:33] they're templates I mean they have templates like all I had to do is change

[51:37] the words and also The Branding consistency on here canva is a really

[51:43] great tool because you can save your brand basically you can save your logos

[51:47] your colors your fonts your Siz of fonts your types of fonts all on there and it

[51:53] knows you can use those tools and you won't look like your business is all

[51:58] over the place and you have like a one consistent brand it it looks clean to

[52:03] the you like to the other eye I don't yeah yeah and then I don't know canvas

[52:09] super easy and I know I've I've recommended it to a few people that have

[52:13] just started out and they've tried it out and they absolutely loved it and he

[52:16] used like the free version of it and he used a template but I mean he had really

[52:23] fun with it cuz a lot of people they say that they're not good at making ads but

[52:27] canva will help you make those ads yeah and they they look good definitely and

[52:32] I've known of several people that have created their logos on canva I mean they

[52:37] have you put in Bookshop and it comes up with logos for you and all you do is

[52:44] change you can change the colors you can change the font and you've got a logo

[52:47] it's got a cute little dog on it with a book in its hands you know like it's

[52:52] it's super easy it's it's probably the thing that I recommend the most for

[52:55] people to use if they're trying to create their own brand

[53:00] create social media post I mean you can create it has a thing in there for

[53:04] Facebook post it has a thing for Facebook reals it has uh a template

[53:09] templates for videos so you can put your videos in there and it'll put it in for

[53:14] you and it'll just create this video kind of like what Tik Tok does um which

[53:18] I know canva way better than I know Tik Tok cuz I'm old now but and canva you

[53:24] can use it also in con function with a lot of other programs I know uh there's

[53:29] a whole bunch of things of say connect to canva and you can connect to canva

[53:33] and you can drag your stuff over to another program if you're using any sort

[53:37] of email list sort of thing a lot of them use it um the QR codes and they use

[53:43] uh canva uses QR codes and um there's a whole bunch of different little apps

[53:48] within canva that you can use another thing too is really cool if y'all have

[53:53] hand handheld leaflets that y'all need to give out you can create your flyer on

[53:58] canva and order them straight through canva and they're really high quality I

[54:01] know I've done it before um but it's all really good yeah it is we're we're not

[54:08] we're not we're not getting paid by canvas or anything but it honestly it's

[54:12] a helpful tool for all of us and I think a really helpful tool for any of y'all

[54:16] to use there's free options for it it's highly recommended and it'll make your

[54:20] brand look really good yeah it's very user friendly it's for the non techsavvy

[54:27] person who I may seem like I'm techsavvy but I'm a little bit Tex savy but I mean

[54:35] this it makes you look like you know what you're doing and that's what people

[54:39] want to see on on your social media yes um and then I think we're doing

[54:43] questions at the end oh we'll doing questions at the end yeah we'll come

[54:45] back to that we had a question slide but we'll come back to that without

[54:48] have right thank you L appreciate you very

[54:54] much take advantage of that information they're giving you they're giving you a

[54:58] great a great tool there and uh and I do know that uh Marielle does for for our

[55:04] office I know Mandy does as well uh she's on Cana all the time and and

[55:08] constantly creating stuff and I can just about throw anything at her and she's

[55:11] she's creating it so uh using that so uh everybody doing okay do we need to take

[55:16] a a quick five minute break or we we going to keep rolling everybody good all

[55:21] right just wanted to make that offer next is uh I I'm excited about this next

[55:26] presenter as well Amy Reid uh is with the uh is the director of the Galveston

[55:31] County Small Business Development Center uh Amy actually is in our office here

[55:36] every Tuesday uh every every every Tuesday uh one time a week she's here

[55:42] she sets up in the front she sets her appointments uh this is where the rubber

[55:48] meets the road is is the way I can put it uh the resources that she's going to

[55:52] talk to you about what she has available is phenomenal and and it's it's it helps

[55:58] going through her and the next program we're going to hear in just a second

[56:00] about SBA it helps us help you and so uh I'm excited for you to hear from Amy and

[56:07] hear what she's got to talk about so

[56:12] Amy evening everyone um thank you to the Texas City Lamar Chamber of Commerce and

[56:17] to the city of Lamar for including me in this today I'm sorry guess I need to get

[56:21] closer to the microphone I'm used to standing in front of a podium okay um so

[56:27] as I said I'm the director of the Small Business Development Center how many of

[56:30] you have heard of the sbdc oh that's quite a few great so all

[56:34] of you know that all of the services that we offer are at no cost right so

[56:39] whether you are a startup or you're trying to grow your business you can

[56:43] work with us once you can work with us a hundred times and there never cost you a

[56:47] penny so how many of you are startups how many of you haven't quite

[56:53] started yet how many of you have been in business

[56:57] for more than two years generally anything less than two years is

[57:00] considered a startup so more than two years okay so some of the things that

[57:07] come in when you want to work with us is strategic planning how do I get from

[57:11] point A to point B and this goes for whether you're a startup or if you're an

[57:15] existing business sometimes you have to start small you start out of your house

[57:19] and then you scale up how do you get there we can sit down with you and help

[57:23] you through that process so that you have a plan for your business access to

[57:27] Capital you're going to hear from the SBA here in a little while that's one of

[57:30] the ways that we help connect you with funding for your business another is

[57:34] being in the community so I regularly am networking through the Chambers of

[57:39] Commerce and other ways to talk to lenders to find out what kind of person

[57:44] they want to work with what kind of loans are they giving where are we on

[57:47] our interest rates those types of things so when you come to me you say okayy I'm

[57:52] ready to scale up my business but I need money to do that I can step you through

[57:55] that process better because I have those connections and I can inform you before

[58:00] you start sales and marketing you just heard from our Dynamic Doo back there

[58:04] about sales and marketing we also help with that one of the big things that I'm

[58:08] helping people with right now is AI how can you use AI to help you with your

[58:12] marketing how many of you when you do your social media I hope everybody in

[58:16] the room is doing social media for your business how many of you don't know what

[58:19] to post how many of you look at it and

[58:22] you're like I know I need to post on Facebook today but I don't know what I

[58:25] should post anybody if you're like most people

[58:29] knowing what to post on social media is one of the hardest things how many of

[58:33] you know that you can use AI to help you with content for your social media did

[58:38] you know that you can go to chat GPT and you can put a question in like give me

[58:45] five social media posts that I can use on Facebook that talk about my Plumbing

[58:50] business make them content-based

[58:55] and make them fun and within about 30 seconds chat GPT will print out or or

[59:02] not print out but it will put out that content that you can use and then you

[59:07] can add on to your question and say this is great can you also give me some

[59:11] hashtags I can use and then within a couple seconds it spits those out and

[59:15] then you can say oh and by the way which emojis would be best for these posts and

[59:20] it'll spit that out and you can use that for all different types of content posts

[59:25] so if you are trying to do engagement like maybe you're wanting to um talk

[59:31] about DIY in a plumbing business what are some things that you should do in

[59:35] the summertime for your plumbing what are some things that you can do to

[59:38] winterize um your plumbing those types of things and these are things that chat

[59:44] GPT if you give it just a little bit of the information can give you a lot of

[59:49] content and then you can simply humanize it a little bit um it's never perfect

[59:54] perfect so you have to take that into consideration but you can take that

[59:57] content and then you can put that into your social media and did you know that

[1:00:02] you can schedule your social media post did you know that you can use meta and

[1:00:07] you can sit down this is what I tell my clients I tell them give social media

[1:00:13] two to four hours a week sit down on a Sunday or a Monday or whatever your your

[1:00:18] slow day is where you have a little more time than other days schedule all of

[1:00:22] your posts in meta and instead of when you do the post instead of posting right

[1:00:27] then schedule it but you need to know who your target audience is when are

[1:00:32] they on meta when are they on Facebook and Instagram um what do they like to

[1:00:37] see uh not everybody if you know if you post at midnight most people aren't on

[1:00:43] Facebook at that time most people um depending on who your client base or who

[1:00:47] your Target demographic is of course but maybe there's someone um in that that AG

[1:00:53] age range that when they first get to work they

[1:00:56] look at it or first thing in the morning they look at it so what I tell people is

[1:01:00] try a few different scheduling times and um try each one for a month like post

[1:01:06] every Monday Wednesday and Saturday at a specific time see how that works look at

[1:01:11] your insights and if you're not getting a lot of Engagement but you know you

[1:01:15] have really good content and images with that content then maybe you should try a

[1:01:20] different time a day or a different day of the week that type of thing so a lot

[1:01:24] of marketing is trial and error and you can't say oh I've tried it but you've

[1:01:28] only tried it for like three days you have to try it for about three months to

[1:01:33] really get some good insights in addition to that if you do schedule out

[1:01:37] your posts the algorithms that are out there um they also want you to have

[1:01:41] organic post so if you are at a chamber event take a selfie and post it and say

[1:01:47] love being out in our community hashtag Texas City Lamar Chamber of Commerce

[1:01:51] hashtag Community First those types of of things um because those organic posts

[1:01:57] will also boost your your algorithm and your Reach For Those social medias so

[1:02:01] those are the types of things that we can help with in regards to social media

[1:02:05] and then we also help with access to Capital so if you are at the stage of

[1:02:09] your business where it's time to apply for a loan we can help you you through

[1:02:13] that process so it it can be very overwhelming to small business owners

[1:02:17] when they go to a bank and the bank gives them a lot of paperwork or a

[1:02:20] checklist and they don't understand everything maybe they're they're the

[1:02:24] best Chef that's out there but they don't understand all the business side

[1:02:28] yet um so let us help you through that process and we also know which lenders

[1:02:33] in the area like which types of Industries what they're looking for as

[1:02:37] far as credit scores collateral um debt ratios that type of thing because not

[1:02:42] all lenders are the same so you want to make sure that when you put yourself

[1:02:46] forward into that situation that you're with you're not only putting your best

[1:02:50] foot forward but you're with the lender that is going to be maybe the best fit

[1:02:55] for you at that particular time in addition to this one of the things that

[1:03:00] um we have is market research so if you have tried to research the competition

[1:03:04] for your business or maybe you want to know what the industry looks like for

[1:03:08] your business it's really hard to get a good report on that um on the internet

[1:03:13] without paying a lot of money or without doing a lot of digging a lot of

[1:03:16] different sites and that sort of thing so we have access to a lot of different

[1:03:20] databases where we can give you these reports and again it costs nothing to

[1:03:25] you all of this is provided to you at no cost so accounting assistance is another

[1:03:31] thing that we offer as far as if you um are using QuickBooks or maybe you're

[1:03:36] using Wave apps which is a great app that's out there for small business

[1:03:40] owners who um are on a budget wave apps is is free unless you have payroll or a

[1:03:46] few other add-ons so you can keep your books like any other business and have

[1:03:51] financial reporting which is something we definitely recommend for your

[1:03:55] business and we can help you um set up your chart of accounts we can help you

[1:03:59] to reconcile how to send invoices um how to look like a big company on a small

[1:04:04] budget and then when it comes to um take if you've created a product and you try

[1:04:10] to take that to Market we can help you through through that process sometimes

[1:04:13] SBI are um some of the government programs are involved in that one thing

[1:04:20] that's really important is a Financial Health checkup so for those of you who

[1:04:24] have been in business for a few years when's the last time you had someone

[1:04:27] look at your books I'm not talking about you gave your books to your accountant

[1:04:30] for them to prepare your taxes when is the last time that you had someone

[1:04:34] actually look at your books and look at your profit margin how much profit are

[1:04:39] you making are you making a profit could you be making more profit what's your

[1:04:43] overhead look like where's the money that you're leaving on the table um if

[1:04:48] you're running a restaurant it could be your waste um it could be that alcohol

[1:04:52] is um walking out the door and you you don't realize it because you're so busy

[1:04:56] running the business that you're not looking within the business um it could

[1:05:00] be that you're paying too much for um a supplier and maybe you haven't shopped

[1:05:07] suppliers in 5 years and they keep raising their rates and you had no idea

[1:05:10] that there were other suppliers that you could look at by the way if you are in

[1:05:15] any kind of industry where you use suppliers you should always have three

[1:05:18] suppliers that you regularly get quotes from at least annually if not

[1:05:23] semiannually just keeps um everything in line and

[1:05:27] helps things to um helps you to make sure that you're staying on top of those

[1:05:32] costs International Trade exporting and importing is a really um important thing

[1:05:38] to our economy especially the exporting you know um I bet a lot of y'all didn't

[1:05:43] know that farmers export our excess vegetables um like our corn and even our

[1:05:49] cotton and those sort of things are exported to other countries and that

[1:05:51] brings a lot of income into our country in addition to that you can have

[1:05:57] products that that you export and if you import that's fine too um exporting is

[1:06:02] just a way for us to bring a lot of Revenue into our

[1:06:05] country and lastly Apex accelerator is something I want to touch on so for any

[1:06:10] of you who have ever considered doing business with the government Apex

[1:06:14] accelerator is a great option for you to work with so they're just like us as far

[1:06:18] as they don't charge anything a lot of what they do is is a lot like what we do

[1:06:24] only they take you through that process um of of working with the government so

[1:06:29] there's certain certifications you may want or need um to have a leg up in

[1:06:33] Government Contracting you need to have um registration in Sam and not a lot of

[1:06:38] people know how to do that you need to know what your next code is and cage

[1:06:41] code is and I'm probably saying things that are totally foreign to you because

[1:06:46] you haven't been through this process but just know that if you get to the

[1:06:49] point that you have something you want to sell to the government and when I say

[1:06:52] the government I'm talking about Municipal State um uh Federal so it it

[1:06:58] could also be school districts a lot of those also are looking for people from

[1:07:02] the Sam or they have to do business with those who are um minority veteran uh um

[1:07:09] service disabled veteran those women owned those types of businesses they

[1:07:14] they're required to get quotes from vendors who have that certification so

[1:07:19] Apex accelerator um is located in Houston and they are a great group to

[1:07:24] work with um just so you know we have 13 centers um anywhere from College Station

[1:07:29] all the way down here to Boliver and then over to as far as um Lake Jackson

[1:07:35] Fort Bend and then out to um almost almost to the Louisiana border

[1:07:43] so um not only that the sbdc is Nationwide so if you start a business

[1:07:48] here and you moved to Utah why would you want to do that but if you did um if you

[1:07:52] move to somewhere else in the the country you can just pick up with

[1:07:55] another sbdc and like I said we all offer our services at no cost we do have

[1:08:00] a lot of online webinars and a lot of in-person classes that we offer some of

[1:08:05] those inperson classes do have a a small nominal fee um but we offer all of our

[1:08:11] on demand um through our website is at no charge to you and you can learn

[1:08:14] anything from marketing tips to bookkeeping um Human Resources um how to

[1:08:20] do business with the government um how to export

[1:08:24] commercialization just about anything is available on our on

[1:08:28] demand and in our mission um like I said our mission is to help grow the economy

[1:08:34] through small business so one small business at a time if you hire someone

[1:08:39] and that's one job then you're helping to grow the economy um if you get a loan

[1:08:46] you're helping to put money into the economy so that's what we are here to do

[1:08:50] um how do we do this at no cost um we are federal funded um through the

[1:08:55] support of the small business administration also known as the SBA

[1:08:58] we're also a resource partner of the SBA um and then also my particular Center is

[1:09:05] supported through um State funds from the University of Houston most sdc's are

[1:09:11] connected to um a higher ed and that moves us into just five quick things

[1:09:16] about business plans so a business plan how many of you have a business

[1:09:22] plan so every one who is in business or about to start a business should have a

[1:09:27] business plan because anytime you put something in writing you're more likely

[1:09:30] to succeed and this is It's a map it's a map for your business right it it talks

[1:09:36] about your goals it talks about where you are now it talks about where you

[1:09:39] want to be where where you want to go who are the people that are going to go

[1:09:42] with you so business plan is extremely important so if you're get if you're

[1:09:48] having a business plan um because it's time to apply for a loan you have to

[1:09:52] have a business plan when you apply for for a business loan so one of the the

[1:09:56] most important parts there um is the executive summary so the executive

[1:10:00] summary is the hook this is what makes that lender want to to dig in to your

[1:10:07] business plan to read more does anyone know how many seconds you have to make

[1:10:11] an impression on someone three you have three seconds to

[1:10:16] make an impression think about the executive summary as that 3 seconds to

[1:10:20] hook that lender or an investor to read more of your business plan also really

[1:10:26] important in the business plan is your market research so what I was talking

[1:10:30] about early those competitive reports those industry reports you have to show

[1:10:34] why is this a good time for me to start this business why am I at good risk and

[1:10:38] then who's your Target demographic so if I um first time I meet with someone and

[1:10:43] we start talking about their business one of the things I always ask is you

[1:10:47] know who's your Target customer and does anybody know what people generally say

[1:10:53] um is their Target customer they usually say everybody but

[1:10:58] that's not really it you'll sell to everybody you're you're you'll do

[1:11:03] business with everybody but your target you have to dig a Little Deeper what do

[1:11:07] they look like what's that Persona are they a male or they female are they 20

[1:11:12] 30 40 50 do they rent or do they own are they educated what do they like to do um

[1:11:18] where do they work where do they live do um there's all these things are they

[1:11:22] married do they have kids right so the more you know about your target when

[1:11:27] we're talking about marketing and marketing budgets and that sort of thing

[1:11:30] your marketing budget is only so big so the more you know about your target the

[1:11:35] farther that marketing budget will reach so instead of throwing out a net to just

[1:11:40] anybody to buy from you you actually end up creating a sales funnel so it's

[1:11:45] really important to be able to dig into that Persona and that is part of your

[1:11:50] business plan as well and then your management profile is extremely

[1:11:54] important so why you why are you a good risk or why is your CEO a good risk or

[1:11:58] why is your wife who's going to be doing the bookkeeping a good risk this is

[1:12:02] where the one time that it's really good to talk yourself up so you would um you

[1:12:08] would basically just take some things off your resume and apply it to this

[1:12:12] business so like say you were in sales forever right retail or something and

[1:12:18] number one thing when you're in retail sales we all know the number one trait

[1:12:22] and skill that you need for that is customer service right so how would that

[1:12:26] customer service that you had years developing and that you perfected

[1:12:31] pertain to say a food truck right we all have eaten a food truck so we know how

[1:12:37] important customer service is right you know even if it's going to take a minute

[1:12:40] for my food to come out give me a big smile you know make me feel good about

[1:12:43] it and that is important so those are some really important things that go

[1:12:48] into a business plan you have to have a marketing plan you have to have a

[1:12:52] marketing budget without those it's just not as effective

[1:12:57] and just some common mistakes um with a business plan is basically not having

[1:13:01] one if you don't have a written goal for your business the chance of your

[1:13:04] business being successful goes down dramatically so just have a plan even if

[1:13:09] it's a onepage business plan called a lean plan or if you're a visual person

[1:13:13] there's something called business model canvas so just to recap that you can do

[1:13:18] a lean plan that's one page you can do business model canvas that is um

[1:13:24] basically two pages in it it visually has step by steps that are written out

[1:13:28] you can find all this on Google if you want to look it up or you can become a

[1:13:31] client of sbdc and I can help you through that or you can do a full-blown

[1:13:35] business plan that's no more than 10 pages so have have that plan it's it's

[1:13:41] uh it's definitely a good tool for your business and then being unrealistic so

[1:13:46] one thing that's my job is to always tell the truth so even if it's not

[1:13:51] something you want to hear I try to find a way way to say it I don't want to

[1:13:54] crush anyone's dreams but if you come to me and and you tell me um this grand

[1:14:02] grand plan and I just I just can't see it I'm going to tell you I just can't

[1:14:06] see it and I'm going to tell you why I can't see it and then maybe you can turn

[1:14:10] me around or I'm going to say okay let's let's see where we can work with this

[1:14:15] and let's see how this turns out but I'm not going to tell you to invest a bunch

[1:14:20] of money um into something that I I'm worried that you're going to lose your

[1:14:25] money that sort of thing so um being unrealistic in your business plan can

[1:14:29] actually hurt you so I will always tell you that um poor executive summary if

[1:14:34] you don't have that hook if you don't if you don't get them to read more that's a

[1:14:38] definitely a mistake having it too long you don't want to go past 10 pages

[1:14:41] remember that three seconds that we talked about earlier nobody wants to

[1:14:45] read more than 10 pages the lenders you need to get to the meet you need to get

[1:14:48] your point across um and and say what needs to be said and then not talking

[1:14:54] about your team and your role how you are going to be a part of exra remember

[1:14:57] we have to alleviate that risk in a business plan and then um not including

[1:15:02] that marketing research so for those of you um who want a copy of this

[1:15:06] presentation you can scan this QR code and then also if you'd like to become a

[1:15:11] client of the galeston county sbdc we have a QR code for that we also have a

[1:15:17] QR codes for our region um for our workshops and those types of things

[1:15:23] things um and just as a reminder I office at the marmo in Galveston on

[1:15:28] Mondays the Texas City Lamar chamber on Tuesdays and in League City um the rest

[1:15:34] of the week we are by appointment only so if you would um like to meet with me

[1:15:39] you just have to become a client and then schedule a time thank you so

[1:15:44] much uh I've had the opportunity to work with s spdc i told yall about my medical

[1:15:48] equipment business that I started years ago one of the first conversations I had

[1:15:52] was with at BDC counselor and and and it it saved me a lot of time a lot of

[1:15:57] headache a lot of money it saved me a lot of waste of money what I love about

[1:16:02] Amy is she said it she's going to be truthful with you sometimes you may not

[1:16:07] really like what she says when she says it but after you go home and you think

[1:16:11] about it you're going to be wow I'm really glad she told me that so uh great

[1:16:16] resource take advantage of of of Amy and now we're going to uh before we get to

[1:16:22] the Q&A we got a another really good presentation and and someone that knows

[1:16:26] a lot about business uh it's Mark Winchester who is the Deputy uh District

[1:16:30] director for the Houston district office of the US small business administration

[1:16:35] everybody knows it as SBA mark thank

[1:16:40] [Applause] you thank

[1:16:52] you

[1:16:55] [Music] you know before I get started here just

[1:17:00] want to um well I want to thank uh Mr Tim cul thank you for inviting SBA and

[1:17:08] also um Alex Mr Alex Getty thank you so much Alex and uh I also have to thank

[1:17:14] Amy Reid where are you Amy back there with the uh the phone so

[1:17:20] Amy thank you so much for invi in me my name is Mark Winchester I'm the deputy

[1:17:25] director of the United States small business

[1:17:29] administration and uh just a little bit about me I have uh 20 years of federal

[1:17:35] service 20 years of Economic Development um I am a Gulf War veteran I really

[1:17:42] appreciated uh the flag up here and then also uh this frame with the flag of the

[1:17:47] United States so do we have any other veterans uh besides myself uh um thank

[1:17:54] you so much really appreciate your service and uh uh I'd be remissed if I

[1:17:58] didn't also recognize the mayor uh Bell thank you for being here uh tonight um

[1:18:05] so I'm here to talk about SBA and uh uh next slide

[1:18:10] please yeah if you could control yeah that that that would be great and you

[1:18:15] know what you know before I get started before I get started I just want to uh

[1:18:20] share one thing well actually maybe two things but

[1:18:23] um I wanted to comment on uh Mandy and Marielle Mandy and Marielle talked about

[1:18:30] social media I want you to write this down there's um and and they're so right

[1:18:36] there is a gentleman his name is uh Shan Warner so what it was was uh there was

[1:18:43] this uh this writer he wrote his first book ever and it was in Arlington did

[1:18:50] anybody else hear that story besides me okay so anyways this fictional writer

[1:18:57] wrote a book he was in a book story he he had all these books behind him and

[1:19:03] there was no one there was no one there at the book signing and so there there's

[1:19:08] gentleman his con there was a gentleman content creator his name was red and uh

[1:19:15] he felt so bad for Mr Shawn Warner that he put the story of Shawn Warner on Tik

[1:19:21] Tok and overnight he became an Amazon writer sensation and over 17 million

[1:19:29] people have viewed his story so this gentleman was in a store there was

[1:19:33] clothing behind him he had a stack of books no one was in line and uh this red

[1:19:39] felt so much compassion for this gentleman that he posted a video it went

[1:19:45] viral on Tik Tok 7 17 million views and uh became an Amazon Rider sensation so I

[1:19:52] really just appreciated what Mandy and Marielle talked about social media and

[1:19:59] what the impact it is so now I'll I'll go to SBA but I just had to tell that

[1:20:03] story because it can make a difference uh for your business so SBA SBA is a

[1:20:11] federal agency and it was created in 1953 sba's mission is to make the

[1:20:17] American dream of business o ownership a reality and they do that by helping

[1:20:22] small businesses start grow expand and recover next slide

[1:20:28] please so want to let you know there are 68 district offices across the country

[1:20:33] there are six district offices in Texas you have the Houston district office and

[1:20:38] we cover 32 counties next slide please you know uh to to utilize SBA

[1:20:46] Services you need to be a small business 99% of all businesses are small and

[1:20:53] there's really two measurements to determine whether a small business is

[1:20:57] small either you have 1500 employees or 47 million in sales and as long as

[1:21:03] you're below that number you're considered small now I I I liked I liked

[1:21:08] Amy uh she she took several polls there she talked about business plans let me

[1:21:14] ask you how many of you know your NES code raise your hand if you know your

[1:21:19] nakes code we have one in individual so uh you need to get with Amy to get to

[1:21:26] know your next code for your businesses number one to make sure you're small and

[1:21:31] number two you need to utilize that next code to Benchmark who can tell me what

[1:21:36] Benchmark means

[1:21:40] anyone so Benchmark is comparing yourself to the rest of the industry how

[1:21:45] can you measure how you're Pro progressing if you don't know where you

[1:21:49] are or where you need to go so you need to know your ni code so you can know

[1:21:54] where you stand compared to similar businesses in your industry naics it's a

[1:22:00] six-digit code and Amy can assist with that next slide

[1:22:04] please so now you know everything about SBA there are four components counseling

[1:22:11] Capital Contracting and Crisis crisis and I'm going to briefly cover each next

[1:22:16] slide please so Amy did an outstanding job the bottom line here is you you

[1:22:22] don't have to go It Alone there were several of you that raised your hand

[1:22:26] that you're a starting business you're a nent business you're thinking about

[1:22:30] starting a business you don't have to go It Alone there are over 1,400 Partners

[1:22:37] Nationwide right here in Houston there are over 200

[1:22:41] advisors 200 advisors that can work with you on your business either mentoring

[1:22:46] your business or provide business counseling and if you want to know where

[1:22:51] those 200 advisers are are just visit sba.gov

[1:22:55] looc assistance next slide please score I just want to Bri briefly

[1:23:01] talk about score how many of you there there was like three or four of you that

[1:23:06] are business owners those of you who are business owners how many have a mentor

[1:23:11] raise your hand if you have a mentor oh that's

[1:23:14] outstanding that is outstanding so what it is is whether you're startup business

[1:23:20] or an existing business you need to have have a mentor in the first place to look

[1:23:24] I would say is your family and friends those in the in your industry but you if

[1:23:30] you don't have a family or friend or those in the industry that can mentor

[1:23:34] you the score is a great place uh great resource for mentors they here in

[1:23:40] Houston they have a uh I need to be precise here they have 160 mentors uh

[1:23:45] they have 130 advisers they have expertise in 63 Industries and as Amy

[1:23:52] shared it's at no cost and it's confidential and it's like having an

[1:23:57] exop ficial board exofficio is just a fancy term is it's they're they're

[1:24:03] volunteers and they and they can advise you it's like having your own board you

[1:24:08] need to have a mentor I thought uh Amy did an outstanding job on sbdc just

[1:24:15] outstanding everything she talked about from strategic planning to business

[1:24:20] planning to financial ratios I'd like to who I'd like to ask how many of you had

[1:24:25] a financial tuneup raise your hand if you've had you you get your card tuned

[1:24:30] up have you ever had a financial tuneup raise your hand there's one one you need

[1:24:36] to get connected with Amy and do a financial tune tuneup you uh Amy will

[1:24:43] look at your financial statements your income uh sheet your balance sheet your

[1:24:48] cash flow sheet she will look at your next code she will look at your

[1:24:52] financial ratios you need a financial tuneup um another thing that I like

[1:24:59] about the spdc is the vast array of information you can get from the spdc on

[1:25:06] Market Research they have a clearing house sptc.net sptc.net you can get

[1:25:12] customized uh business plans you can get demographic information you can get just

[1:25:18] a SWAT analysis who can tell me what SW SWAT stands for

[1:25:24] anyone yeah the gentleman with a a jacket and tie like myself your first

[1:25:29] name Caesar strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats yes you need

[1:25:35] to know your strengths weaknesses opportunities and threat and uh Amy and

[1:25:40] the spdc N you can get customized market research including SWAT analysis uh

[1:25:47] women business centers ladies there are there are 137 women business centers

[1:25:53] across the country and Houston has two the wbea Women's Business Center and the

[1:25:58] Greater Houston Women's Chamber Women's Business Center and obviously ladies for

[1:26:04] the WBC they primarily Council ladies and uh the wbea 750 women-owned

[1:26:11] businesses who do business with corporations the uh women the Greater

[1:26:15] Houston Women's Chamber they have an an event monthly called Golden seeds if you

[1:26:20] want Equity investment into your business the Greater Houston Women's

[1:26:25] Chamber Women's Business Center that you it's ladies investing in women own

[1:26:30] businesses so ladies investing in ladies and that's with the Women's Business

[1:26:34] Center next slide please thank you Marielle so much the

[1:26:39] impact right here in Houston Amy Reid and the sbdc score and Women's Business

[1:26:44] Center 29,000 assisted there's no reason no reason that one of you should not be

[1:26:51] leveraging the S SP PDC and the resources and that lady right back there

[1:26:55] Amy Reid next slide please and if you can't tell I get a

[1:27:00] little excited about this cap capital capital um I there's a saying that score

[1:27:07] shares we are with you for the life of your business well with SBA we are with

[1:27:12] you regarding capital for the life of your business uh I was just at a I was

[1:27:17] sharing with Amy I was at a micr loan fair and so these were micr lenders who

[1:27:24] offer um Tim uh they offer from $100 to $500 ,000

[1:27:31] $10,000 $115,000 um all the way up to $50,000 I

[1:27:37] bet you didn't know that the buay you micr fund offers micro loans at 0%

[1:27:44] interest did you know that zero who who in the world offers a 0% interest rate

[1:27:49] the Bayou micr fund has $50,000 to lend in micr lending for small

[1:27:54] businesses at a 0% interest rate so my point is no matter where you are whether

[1:28:01] you're a microenterprise whether you're uh like

[1:28:04] Mandy uh with the uh clothing store or no matter where you are there's capital

[1:28:11] for you from $100 we go all the way up to

[1:28:14] 13,750 th000 Alex was talking about properties on Loop net and identifying

[1:28:21] uh uh acquir ing property well we have Capital to assist Alex clients to either

[1:28:27] retain or uh grow or yeah so we can help you next slide

[1:28:34] please um I I like I I want you to write this down sba's Main program is the 7A

[1:28:41] program I got put this bottle down or I'm going

[1:28:46] to spill it SBA sba's main program is the 7A

[1:28:52] program and the 7A program I call it the Swiss Army knce because you can use it

[1:28:58] to start lease hold improvements working capital purchase and renovate your

[1:29:03] facility uh Alex was talking about renovation uh sheetrock lighting we we

[1:29:10] have funds for that inventory land and building and even exporting did you know

[1:29:16] did you know that 96% of the purchase power is outside of the United States do

[1:29:21] you know that you have opportunity not only here but abroad and we can help you

[1:29:26] with that next slide please the right here uh FY

[1:29:32] 2022 uh we had I think it was around there it is 1.1 billion and and this

[1:29:39] year $1.2 billion $1.2 billion and a lot of that is due to folks like Amy Reid

[1:29:46] who work with you that work with you a business plan do you have I call it the

[1:29:51] go or noo is your business viable is it going to be sustainable and if it is how

[1:29:57] can you grow that business and if you're going to grow it you're going to need

[1:30:01] capital and am is the person to see next slide

[1:30:06] please Federal Contracting the federal government spends 700 not

[1:30:12] million I got to get this right $700 billion of federal government um federal

[1:30:19] agencies are required by law to provide contract opportunities for small

[1:30:24] business if you want to learn more about Contracting go to sba.gov

[1:30:29] uh Contracting next slide please so SBA we have programs including

[1:30:36] 8A hubzone women owned and uh veteran the veterans in the room we have a

[1:30:42] certification just for veteran owned small businesses uh to to do business

[1:30:48] with the federal government and I want you to write these down there uh I call

[1:30:52] it the 8020 rule the uh it's the 20% that are really taking the notes here

[1:30:57] and those of you who are the 20 that uh that are initiative they're showing

[1:31:02] initiative and taking notes you're going to write down their their are soul

[1:31:07] source and set asides Soul source and set asides Soul source is

[1:31:12] non-competitive contracts SBA has non-competitive contracts right here in

[1:31:18] Houston uh Tim 66 million dollars in Soul Source contracts it' be Tim let's

[1:31:25] say you're a business owner you're an adaa firm and let's say I don't know uh

[1:31:30] USDA USDA Tim will call SBA and say um Mark we know that Tim is an ADA firm and

[1:31:38] we know that Tim uh has uh Logistics he provides Logistics we need help with

[1:31:44] Logistics we want to do business with Tim and it's nobody else it's sole

[1:31:50] source and then I contact Tim Tim USDA just contacted us you're an adaa firm

[1:31:55] they'd like to do business with you do you think you have the resources to do

[1:31:58] this project if so you'll get awarded that Soul Source contracts and that's

[1:32:03] what SBA has Soul Source contracts we also have stide contracts ladies

[1:32:09] women-owned businesses I like to get this straight over $200 million in

[1:32:15] contracts to women owned small businesses and there are opportunities

[1:32:18] for soul source and set aside contracts okay

[1:32:23] slide and Amy already talked about it the sbdc is the host for the Apex

[1:32:29] accelerator I call it the three Rs research register respond research

[1:32:35] register and respond and the Apex can help you whether it's federal state

[1:32:41] local or corporate um uh Contracting the Apex can help you next slide please yeah

[1:32:48] these are the numbers right here you well I can see get from up here but 200

[1:32:53] million for women own uh you for those of you that are in business you may be

[1:32:58] sitting in a hub zone right now and there are opportunities for set aside

[1:33:03] contracts as a hub Zone firm uh sdb small disadvantaged business nearly 400

[1:33:09] million and for the veterans uh veteran and vet and service disabled veteran 200

[1:33:14] million in contracts next slide please thank you so we're on the final C

[1:33:20] here we I we've talked about uh Capital uh Contracting uh counseling and the

[1:33:26] fourth one is Crisis and Amy did a good job the bottom line here Tim every time

[1:33:32] I speak I share this is an important statistic 40% 40% of all businesses that

[1:33:39] close after a disaster never reopen you do not want to be one of the four out of

[1:33:45] 10 that do not reopen and so you need we talked about a business plan you need to

[1:33:51] have a coup plan and Amy can help you with that continuity of operations plan

[1:33:55] and if you want more information you can go to sba.gov SL prepare next slide

[1:34:02] please but if you don't prepare if you don't prepare if you don't have a coupe

[1:34:07] Coupe plan we do have disaster loans we have a personal property Tim just went

[1:34:13] up to 100,000 previously we had a a disaster loan for personal property for

[1:34:19] 40,000 it's now up to 100,000 uh if you own your own home if you own your own

[1:34:25] home um SBA has a disas these aren't grants I need to clarify these are not

[1:34:31] grants these are loans we have up to a half a million now it used to be 200,000

[1:34:37] Alex but it's now 500,000 for homeowners for the residents in a disaster loan and

[1:34:43] business owners we do have up to $2 million in in loan assistance either

[1:34:50] property damage or working capital next slide please you know uh U Amy I was

[1:34:57] reviewing this reviewing my slides um before coming up here um Texas City

[1:35:03] Lamar Chamber of Commerce you you could be in National Small Business Week every

[1:35:10] year since 1963 SBA has celebrated small business success mayor Bell talked about

[1:35:17] the importance and significance of small business and we celebrate that every

[1:35:22] year first week in May and um we would like for Texas City Lamar nominate some

[1:35:29] businesses for national uh Small Business Week in May and so we're right

[1:35:34] now Alex and Tim we're accepting nominations for small business person of

[1:35:39] the year small business exporter minority owned business veteran owned

[1:35:43] business women owned business rule small business Innovation and uh Alex and Tim

[1:35:50] we also have small small business Community partner of the year or small

[1:35:54] business um Marielle and uh Mandy we also have small Business Media advocate

[1:36:01] of the year as well and um uh Texas City Lamar chamber we every week we're giving

[1:36:08] a presentation on how you can nominate your business to celebrate the national

[1:36:14] celebration for small businesses next slide please this is our contact

[1:36:20] information every resource that we talked talked about uh it's right there

[1:36:25] one more slide uh uh like like Amy we've gone to these QRC codes and you can uh

[1:36:33] just use your smartphone and get the information and uh this concludes my uh

[1:36:38] slides and presentation thank you very

[1:36:43] [Applause] much well thank you Mark that was uh

[1:36:49] that was exciting I thought I had a lot of energy and typically I'm told that

[1:36:52] I'm the one Mark just Trump me that's that's impressive so uh uh well we are

[1:36:58] kind of in that Q&A point and we're actually right on time uh uh clockwise

[1:37:01] looking at the clock so we're doing well there uh I just want to start off and

[1:37:05] say this I mentioned earlier uh when I started my conversation the fact that I

[1:37:10] uh was in business myself I was much like each and every one of you in this

[1:37:13] room what I can tell you is is I took advantage at that point in

[1:37:20] time at some point in time with my small business I took advantage of a lot of

[1:37:24] the programs that have been talked about tonight the 7A program that Mark

[1:37:29] mentioned earlier visiting with my sbdc advisor uh I was one of the first 7A

[1:37:36] programs that ever took place in Houston County uh back where I used to live took

[1:37:40] advantage of that it was a great resource for me to be able to have

[1:37:45] access to those funds at a low interest rate uh to be able to sit down again

[1:37:50] with my PDC advisor and go over that business plan um it sounds harsh

[1:37:57] sometimes when we say that but you we want you to understand the importance of

[1:38:01] having that information that's what's going to make you successful and then

[1:38:06] you're just able to move up the chain you you you're able to sit down with

[1:38:10] with Alex and you're able to sit down with his group and visit about you know

[1:38:14] the potential of growing your business within Lamar then you're able to come

[1:38:17] and visit with the chamber and participate with us and let us help you

[1:38:20] make those connections to the people that you need we've just again we've

[1:38:25] been at that 30,000 ft view right now there's a lot of detail of getting into

[1:38:30] the weeds that we want to help you do I just want to say again before we get the

[1:38:35] Q&A thank you again mayor Bell for this initiative and your desire to have this

[1:38:39] and put this together and making sure that we all as a group came together and

[1:38:43] formed this uh we hope that it's been beneficial to

[1:38:50] you

Mayor Bell's Small Business Summit - October 17, 2023

Transcript