Did You Know the Local Extension SBTDC can do that for You?

I was reading an article on marketing research recently and it stated that many small business owners and budding entrepreneurs make decisions without really putting any thought behind it.  I agreed with the article, but what have I done to let the business community know what my local center can do to help them?  My answer was disappointing and the result is this article. 

Financially

Financially, we are able to assist entrepreneurs with financial projections, business planning, preparing to grow and comparisons to their industry. We use software to help make these activities happen and often the client is able to obtain funding or figure out what needs to be changed to fix the problem.  Software like Profit Cents and BizMiner provide us with a great resource to make these services available to the local business community. With BizMiner, we are able to look at a business’s industry financials the same size and as close to the same service area as we can get plus deliver key dashboard information. So basically, we can look at the business owner’s back yard to help make decisions.

Areas of Interest

We also offer heat mapping (a fancy way of saying birds of a feather flock together), customer profiling, retail studies, demographics and media studies.  This information can be used to flush out a business plan or get a better handle on where the customer’s live or where to open a new business.  By subscribing to ESRI, we have the ability to map many different characteristics plus profile geographical areas and help a business owner make a more informed decision.

Client Satisfaction

We also do a lot of secondary research for clients on a variety of topics where we search the web for information related to the client’s request. But through a partnership with a local marketing research class, we also do primary research for clients on customer satisfaction, pricing, and many other topics.

Marketing

Marketing wise, we can do media efficiency studies where we analyze which media delivers the most target audience at the most efficient price.  We also can help a retailer grow the advertising budget by looking up co-op funds or putting together a vendor market development opportunity. The ability to help a retailer put together an annual marketing opportunity calendar is also a service provided.

Internships

Our internship program includes students in advertising, public relations, sales, marketing, management, human resources, agriculture, accounting and graphic design also help business owners.  In the past, they have created logos for clients, came up with advertising campaign ideas, wrote news stories for distribution, developed HR manuals and job descriptions and many other activities.  Since it is student work, it is closely supervised and each week meetings are held to help the student stay focused and able to deliver client focused work.

Plus we do the work we traditionally have done, helping people get the legal structure figured out, intellectual property guidance, counseling and training for many topics. 

If you feel your business might benefit from one or more of these services give Richard Proffer a call at 573-243-3581 or email him at profferrd@missouri.edu.