President Obama Announces Recovery Act

President Obama's speech announcing the Recovery Act was welcomed by the small business community. The Small Business Administration (SBA) is immediately implementing two key provisions of the Recovery Act:

• temporarily eliminating certain loan fees
• temporarily raising guarantee levels on some of its loans.

These steps will provide lenders with the security they need in order to start lending again to the millions of small business owners desperately in need of capital.  Fees previously ranged from 2-3.75 % of the total loan package.

In addition, there are policy changes which will allow the Treasury to intervene on the secondary market to purchase SBA guaranteed loans.  This will help unfreeze the secondary markets for small business lending.

The Recovery Act allows the SBA to guarantee lenders up to 90% of loans instead of 75-85%. This makes it more appealing for local banks to use the guarantee because it lessens the risk.

PA 7th Congressional District Business Procurement Summit

The Procurement Summit provides business owners access to more than 30 government agencies, major contractors, and support organizations to offer expert insight on securing resources available to the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Who will be participating: Government agencies, Prime Government Contractors, Resource Agencies, and Organizations

When: Friday, March 27, 2009 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Where: Springfield Country Club
            400 West Sproul Rd. Springfield, PA 19064

Cost: $40 for individual attendees, $100 for government agencies and non-profit exhibitors, $300 for non-government exhibitors.

Click here for more information, lists of participants/speakers, and the agenda. 

Listening To Your Business--Chester County 

This is a three-hour interactive workshop for existing businesses, followed by a networking lunch. The workshop helps business owners chart their three-year strategic vision and translate goals into action steps. Participants will determine what stage of development their business is in and identify areas that need to be strengthened to support growth This workshop is limited to 25 business owners. The program in Exton is co-sponsored by SeedCo.

Where: Eagleview Corporate Center. 737 Constitution Drive
When: April 22 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Cost: $20

Click here to register.

The Need to Conserve Cash Flow in an Economic Downturn--a note from Ernie Post

"Cash is King" are words of wisdom for all small business owners and non-profits alike. In any economic downturn, preserving working capital and cash is essential for survival. Generally, this means revisiting operating and personnel costs. The latter, personnel costs, are the most difficult and challenging because they are often family members or people with whom we have a close relationship. Moreover, there is always the concern that the decision to furlough a valued employee may result in them finding other employment before you are able to recall them and thus your small business will lose the talent of that employee. Nonetheless, you are not alone, if you have found yourself in a position where you needed to furlough employees or relatives in order to maintain your cash-flow position.

Even non-profits such as the Kutztown University SBDC are impacted by reduced grant funds and revenue. During the past four months the KU SBDC has experienced an 8% cut in State funding that required the management team to prioritize different projects and services.  Fortunately, our three-year strategic plan provided the frame work for these discussions. Starting with our mission statement, that clarifies our core service being one-to-one consulting for our established small business owners, our strategic plan guided us in our prioritization of staffing positions.

Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a position where we had to furlough two valued employees who were helpful to the KU SBDC in delivering external learning programs and internal administrative support. Important external marketing projects such as an upgraded Web site, the publication of our E-Journal, and the frequency of our Listening to Your Business workshops have been cancelled or reduced as a result of these staff furloughs. Nonetheless, the actions were required in order to preserve our core service of free one-to-one consulting to our small business community. I am confident that once the economic recovery package filters into the economy, that we will be able to bring back, or implement some of these projects and staff positions that have provided added value to our core services in the past.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to read our newsletter. You are a very important part of the KU SBDC community.

Sincerely,

Ernie Post, Director
Kutztown University Small Business Development Center