Plans to start a new business?

Need some help to get your current one headed in the right direction?

There’s help out there. And it’s free. Emily Beesley is a business advisor with the Oklahoma Small Business Development Centers (SBDC).

She was the keynote speaker Wednesday at the Kingfisher Chamber of Commerce’s Biz-Connect luncheon held at Cimarron Electric Cooperative.

Formed in 1984, the SBDC, which Beesley called “an arm or subsidiary” of the federal Small Business Administration, provides small business management, advising and training in all 77 counties.

“The Oklahoma SBDC offers no-cost, confidential business advising,” she said. “So everything we do is confidential.

“We take that very seriously.”

Beesley works out of the Business & Industry Building of the Canadian Valley Technology Center in El Reno and serves clients both in-person or remotely (such as a Zoom call).

Beesley is one of just over two dozen people in a similar position across the state.

“We are what are called business generalists,” Beesley said. “We can touch on a lot of different items. We all work really well together. I always tell people, when you get one of us, you get all of us because we all have different areas of expertise and we all work really well together.”

Beesley said the business advising she does ranges into several different areas.

Some people may come to her with a business idea “and they want to know if it’s going to be lucrative or not.

“So they want to work on financial projections to see if it’s going to work,” she said.

She’s had farmers come to her with a product they’ve designed or created in their garage.

“They wanted to see if there was something similar that had been patented and then how they could get it into the market,” she said.

The services are vast: Agri-business, business disruption planning, business expansion support, capital sources, cash-flow analysis, cybersecurity analysis, financial analysis, geographic information systems, industry research, innovation guidance, international trade, management support, market research, social media marketing, strategic planning and technology commercialization.

Beesley and the SBDC team can help with it all.

The SBDC has a lot of resources at its disposal, including a group able to gather massive amounts of data.

“We have a research team that’s located at our state office and we pay for a lot of really expensive statistics,” she said.

As an advisor, Beesley said she leans heavily on that research team.

“Because if you come to me and you need a business plan and there’s a whole section of building out your market segments, you’re going to need research to do so,” she said.

A majority of her time, Beesley said, is helping build business plans and projections.

She also assists in helping buy and sell businesses.

“It’s actually one of my most favorite things to do,” she said.

The SBDC also offers several workshops a year. The dates and topics - and all other info relating to the SBDC - can be found on its website www.oksbdc.org.

Beesley also provided a demonstration of some of the tools not only available to her, but the public atlarge, in helping research business capabilities.

It’s all part of her job, one she said she loves.

“I have a huge passion for helping small businesses because I have been a small business owner myself for over a decade,” Beesley said.

Beesley was introduced by Chamber Executive Director Shauna Rupp.

Prior to turning over the program to Beesley, Rupp updated guests on hand about upcoming chamber events.

Next in line is the multitude of events taking place for the July 4 celebration and then the Kool Cars & Chrome Show on Aug. 2.