Author Archives: Taura Costidis

Evolving Business Returns to Accion for Commercial Real-Estate Loan

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By Justin Hyde, Accion Market Manager

By Justin Hyde, Accion Market Manager

Cathy Schueler approached Accion, a nonprofit lender, in 1996 to secure her first business loan for her nascent business — a microloan of around $3,000 — to buy equipment and supplies for her private psychotherapy practice in Rio Rancho.  At the time, Schueler was a sole proprietor who wanted to build her new business.

By the time Schueler returned in 2015, she was planning to purchase a home for her thriving S corporation, Bosque Mental Health, in central Albuquerque.

“Cathy’s a great example of how a client can grow with us,” said Metta Smith, vice president of lending and client relations. “We’re able to work with a wide range of entrepreneurs — from those needing startup capital to launch, to the well-established business owner hoping to purchase a home for his or her business.” Continue reading →

Knowing When To Hire an Accountant Matters for Small Businesses

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Businessman writing in an accounting ledgerAt some point in the life of most businesses, finances become complex enough that the owner decides to delegate financial oversight to someone with the training and expertise to provide more than basic bookkeeping or tax preparation services.

If the business is being audited, for example, the owner might hire an enrolled agent to represent it. Enrolled agents are tax-law experts authorized by the U.S. Treasury Department to advise and represent individuals, businesses and other organizations in such situations. Continue reading →

Hire Right the First Time

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By Amy Lahti, Consultant and Trainer, WESST

By Amy Lahti for WESST

Entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses are accustomed to doing everything it takes to move their business forward. But there comes a time when even the most efficient entrepreneur must call in help. For most startups and small businesses, hiring workers is the only path to growth.

Many early-stage entrepreneurs outsource work or find contract employees among friends and family. Even if a first employee is a friend of the owner, the business is subject to the laws governing employee-employer relationships as soon as the first paycheck is written. If the business thrives, the first employee will be one of many workers hired in the life of the business. Continue reading →

Perfect Pitch: How to Avoid Common Presentation Pitfalls

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By Finance New Mexico

By Finance New Mexico

If you’ve ever had to pitch a business or product idea to an investor or potential partner, you know the presentation can make or break the deal.

Because the stakes can be high, serious entrepreneurs quickly learn what to avoid when giving a presentation, whether it’s a 30-minute speech before a peer group or six-minute proposal to Demo Day investors. Continue reading →

Demo Day Gives Startups a Platform for New Products

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By Kathleen Gardenswartz, marketing and curriculum director, ABQid

By Kathleen Gardenswartz

Trish Lopez is restless, and she has every reason to be. She has spent the last three months in the ABQid accelerator program, testing assumptions, talking to hundreds of users and customers, building a website and logo — all while tenaciously driving her startup, Teeniors, forward.

Lopez’s natural charisma makes the program’s required networking effortless, but it’s Teeniors’ mission — to match tech-savvy teens with seniors who need help using technology to connect with loved ones — that is motivating this intergenerational solution. Continue reading →

Ropes Course Builds Communication Skills

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By Patricia West-Barker for Finance New Mexico

By Patricia West-Barker for Finance New Mexico

Unless you are an entrepreneur laboring alone in your garage, your company’s success may depend largely on the quality of the team you’ve assembled to conduct your business—whether that team is made up of two, 20 or 200 people.

To find out what makes high-performing teams tick, MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory monitored the communications of large numbers of people as they went about their work. The study, published in the Harvard Business Review in April 2012, found that “communication plays a critical role in building successful teams.” Face-to-face interactions (versus email, phone and text) were extremely important, as were the frequency of non-work related conversations. Continue reading →

Business Development Services Help Clients Improve Bottom Line

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By George Kenefic, Director of Enterprise Empowerment, The Loan Fund

By the time a client gets a loan from The Loan Fund, she’s in a committed partnership with the nonprofit lender. That’s because The Loan Fund offers business development consulting to all potential clients — not just those who receive loans.

The Loan Fund loan officers provide “pre-loan consulting” the moment they receive an inbound call or greet an office visitor.  And consulting continues after the client walks out the door — either to get more prepared or to start putting the loan money to work building a business, creating jobs and improving communities. The Loan Fund is fully invested with the people whose business startup and expansion plans it helps finance —even with those who aren’t ready for a loan. Continue reading →

Businesses Find the Evolutionary Path to Profitability

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By Claudia Infante, Projects Coordinator, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

By Claudia Infante, Projects Coordinator, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

One obstacle to improvement in a typical American company is the assumption that change requires months of planning, major expense and a work stoppage or slowdown. Then there’s the fear that old habits and practices will slowly return as people forget what they learned amid the pressures and demands of running a business.

Even when the need for change is obvious, such companies often resist fixing something until it’s utterly broken.

An alternative, nonreactive view embraces change as a continual process of incremental improvements and tweaks — not as an exercise in obsessive compulsion but as an adaptive approach to reducing waste-related costs, eliminating inefficiencies and optimizing competitiveness. Continue reading →