Entrepreneur Starting A Business?

Image via Wikipedia

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur considering starting a business, want to expand your business, or are in a tight spot and would like some advice on what to do, then you need to know about an organization named SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives).

SCORE Helps Entrepreneurs!

SCORE is a non-profit organization that provides free, confidential business counseling and also provides workshops to small businesses and entrepreneurs who want to start or expand their businesses.  They are a network of over 13,000 volunteers with experience in running businesses in nearly every sector and niche possible.

SCORE has a lot of experience in helping entrepreneurs start businesses.  They claim that they assist over 20,000 businesses in starting each year.

Score Locations

SCORE has offices in almost all major cities throughout the United States, including many locations in smaller cities as well.  According to their website, they have over 360 locations nationwide.  The SCORE office locator tool can be used to find the closest office and the nearby workshops they are offering.

Become An Entrepreneur

Being that they have so many volunteers and locations, chances are good that you’ve got counselors and workshops within driving distance.  This is a free service provided courtesy of the SBA (Small Business Administration) and the United States Government.  They help businesses with:

• Business Plans
• Financing ideas and options
• Marketing
• Legalities
• Expansion
• Business protection plan such as general liability insurance
• and just about any other business processes.

SCORE makes themselves available through a number of different mediums including:

• Face-to-face counseling
• Ask questions via eMail
• Local Workshops
• SCORE Webinars & Online Workshops
• and the SCORE Newsletter.

We’ve used the questions by email for some of our other business endeavors and have only good things to say.  We received a response in 16 hours which is well below the 48 hour turn around they quote.  Time frames aside, the counselor was very knowledgable and had provided a number of different marketing ideas that were either free, or extremely cheap to implement.  The counselor also replied to follow-up messages well within a 48 hour time window.

Should Entrepreneurs Use SCORE?

It’s a free (barring taxes) service provided, it’s confidential, and these are executives and entrepreneurs that want to help! I’m a firm believer that everyone has something they can teach.  Use this resource to help with planning the business. Every entrepreneur should seek counsel!

 ²² Plans fail for lack of counsel,

but with many advisers they succeed.

- Proverbs 15:22, NIV, BibleGateway

Use it because it is convenient.  There are few free resources that make themselves available so many different ways.  SCORE counselors can meet face-to-face, over emai, at seminar seminars, or on webinars. They also offer a newsletter for those entrepreneurs that would rather passively learn.  Why not take advantage of one of these options?

Why Should Entrepreneurs Use SCORE?

SCORE provides business services that some for-profit companies can’t even match. I hear radio advertisements all the time talking about business counseling for entrepreneurs, but why purchase counseling when you can receive it for free?  Some might argue “you get what you pay for” but you’ve already paid for this service through taxes, and what is better than receiving counseling from someone who does it for the love it, rather than a person who does it because they must in order to pay the bills?

I’m not trying to dissuade people from using paid services, but why use those until you’ve taken advantage of these opportunities?  At the very worst, you can walk away from SCORE with a measuring stick to judge other services by.

SCORE’s Website: http://score.org/