OXFORD, Miss. – The Mississippi Small Business Development
Centers headquartered at the University of Mississippi
recently completed an economic impact study on small
businesses around the state and learned several key
points.
“We track economic impact and what we do internally every
year but we wanted an objective outside of opinion,” said
Associate State Director Mike Vanderlip. “Advice alone
doesn’t make a difference, but applying good management
principles, understanding what the current best practices
are for small business and a complete grasp of the
regulatory requirements make a difference.”
The study looked at the financial information of small
businesses around the state that worked with the center and
those that did not, then compared the information to
determine each group’s economic impact, Vanderlip said.
Results showed that MSBDC clients, in comparison to
non-clients, did the following: created more jobs for
Mississippi residents in 2006, were more likely to secure a
small business administration loan and showed steady rates
of sales growth.
Stephanie Noble, UM associate professor of marketing,
oversaw the study, which involved two undergraduate
business school students who conducted personal telephone
surveys with 303 business owners.
“I was very pleased. The results speak for themselves and
show the Mississippi Small Business Development Centers are
making an economic impact in the state,” Noble said.
The office located at UM is MSBDC’s state headquarters, and
there are nine service centers throughout the state, as
well as second locations and satellite offices. They
provide technical assistance to small business owners and
entrepreneurs throughout the state.
“We help them make the management decisions they need to
make for their business to help them get better, be better
and stay better,” said Vanderlip. “We provide good,
high-quality, meaningful advice that the client can
understand and use.”
MSBDC is working on a number of other projects. “We are
doing some work right now with the people in Kansas,
putting together some federal proposals to get them some
extra money to help them respond to the disaster they have
had there,” said Vanderlip. “We are extremely blessed that
our national association is as strong as it is, so when
Hurricane Katrina hit, we could pick the phone up and call
North Carolina, New York and friends in Florida and see
what they did as a response to their disasters. Whether we
wanted to or not, we are like the disaster experts now;
there’s no way you can go through something like Katrina
and not be an expert.”
For more information, visit
http://www.olemissbusiness.com
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