This article was published in WTOP news and written by Vanessa Roberts as part of BizLaunch’s collaboration with WTOP News on Small business September.
While Arlington startups have long had BizLaunch as a steadfast partner, the county organization was radically reimagined in several ways during the pandemic. And many of the changes he made to help small and medium-sized businesses survive are here to stay, says director Tara Palacios.
“The pandemic I don’t think was on anybody’s bingo card,” Palacios told WTOP during Small business September. “We didn’t know this was going to happen.”
Palacios created BizLaunch within Arlington Economic Development 20 years ago with the goal of providing local government resources to small businesses and startups. “It really is a local municipality that wants to support its local small businesses so they can thrive, survive, succeed, grow and build sustainably,” he said.
We spoke to Palacios about the BizLaunch programs and asked how they help SMEs launch and succeed. During the discussion, he shared the ways BizLaunch has evolved over the past two years and where it will go next to continue its mission of helping local businesses grow.
BizLaunch Flex 1: Engaging with small businesses and underserved communities in any way possible.
BizLaunch is no stranger to using digital and social tools to reach entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in the community. It connects with people on all social channels, even TikTok, Palacios said. But he upped his game during the pandemic.
“We had to be extremely creative,” he said. “We were putting up yard signs about our grants, about different promotions and marketing programs that we had. And believe it or not, people would get in their cars, see the yard signs, call and come over.”
He reinforced the importance of being adaptable. Palacios noted that it’s unfortunate when a company shares that they wish they had heard about a program or support service available.
“The way we used social media before the pandemic has changed, and how you use search engine optimization and how you use your content is very different,” he said.
BizLaunch Flex 2: Make sure even the smallest businesses are digitally savvy.
“We were concerned about businesses that were used to having a storefront and people coming to the storefront,” he said. “With stay-at-home orders, the whole way people buy products and services changed.”
BizLaunch initially focused on establishing new programming, webinars and educational materials to help SMBs learn how to market in this new environment. But increasingly, it also began to extend technical assistance so that companies could set up online storefronts and offer other ways to sell and deliver their goods and services.
Since many small businesses are micro-enterprises with often only a handful of employees, the organization also partnered with Amazon Web Services to help companies design websites and e-commerce tools to compete in the world’s new normal. say Palacios.
“It’s come as you are. Don’t feel like you need to be an expert. We’ll bring you the experts and help you through the process,” he said. “It’s been great. We’ve had about 200 very diverse entrepreneurs come through the program and go viral. They’ve had influencers come to visit them because now they can be discovered. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Also, it is not a one-time program. BizLaunch provides every company with a marketing and branding guidebook and a technical tactics book. It also continues to connect with companies after the initial design and development phase to provide support, Palacios said.
BizLaunch Flex 3: Help SMEs build financial resilience to pivot and be ready for future challenges.
An ongoing issue for startups and small businesses during the pandemic has been access to capital, Palacios said. That’s why Arlington Economic Development immediately established grant programs. But access to finance remained a major challenge for SMEs, he said, and having a strong financial foundation was critical to resilience and long-term success.
“On our horizon is looking at programming where we can educate people regardless of their background, color, creed. We want to be able to help empower women-owned businesses, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and Colored communities) everyone to understand what needs to be done to access capital and make this process very transparent and very understandable,” he said. We’re going to be doing a lot of work next year whether it’s debt capital, venture capital, or whatever you want to do.”
To discover more information for entrepreneurs, startups and SMEs shared during September’s WTOP for Small Business, click here.
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