Business plans, start-up financing, legal issues, and growth strategies can be very confusing for the novice entrepreneur. Perhaps you have a great business idea, but no clue where to begin to put it into practice, or you are in the early years of small business ownership and simply need sound advice. SCORE can help.
SCORE is a non-profit organization that provides free business mentoring services, often working in conjunction with the Small Business Association (SBA) and, locally, the Mansfield-Richland Area Chamber of Commerce.
SCORE, once an acronym for Service Corps of Retired Executives, is now known simply as SCORE, “Counselors to America’s Small Business”. The change came about, according to Thomas Bowers, President of SCORE North Central Ohio Chapter 384, due to more volunteers that were not yet retired executives. Many successful businesspeople, still at the helm of thriving ventures, volunteer their time and expertise to assist entrepreneurs.
A retired Consulting Engineer, Bowers has been with SCORE for five years as a Small Business Mentor. “We are volunteers,” said Bowers, “We all have broad backgrounds: banking, finance, accounting, legal.”
Bowers said, “We counsel either people that are thinking of starting up a business and have a business plan, we help them through that process. Or, like in Susan’s case, she’d already started and wanted some help. It’s all confidential.”
Susan Vander Maas was assisted by SCORE in the early years of her business venture to open Doc’s Deli in Mansfield.
“They helped me with some cost control measures,” Vander Maas said of SCORE,” Their website is great. You can download templates for business plans. That’s how I built our business plan.”
“Our niche in the market, which I think is important to have,” said Vander Maas,” is that we let people create their own sandwich and they can name it. We save the recipe in our POS system, so every time they come in, they can get their own sandwich.”
“I think that sometimes when people open a small business,” added Vander Maas, “they don’t look for their niche in the market.”
“Susan [Vander Maas] obviously is looking to be different,” said Bowers, “and provide something that others don’t, and that’s one of the success factors of business – providing that niche.”
In business over six years now, Vander Maas appreciates SCORE, not only for business advice but also for the networking opportunities provided. Doc’s Deli has been asked to cater events for SCORE, and Vander Maas has starred as keynote speaker at SCORE’s Small Business Workshop.
SCORE’s local chapter has approximately twenty active members and covers five counties, Richland, Ashland, Wyandotte, Crawford, and Knox. Counseling is available online as well as in person.
The local chapter of SCORE can be found at their website, or by calling the Mansfield-Richland Area Chamber of Commerce at 419-522-3211 ext. 226. Counseling is available Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Templates for business plans and other pertinent paperwork may be found at the main website www.score.org.
Doc’s Deli is located at 424 Glessner Avenue, Mansfield, Ohio. Hours and menu can be found at http://www.docsdelimansfield.com/
“We counsel either people that are thinking of starting up a business and have a business plan, we help them through that process,” said Thomas Bowers.
