Category Archives: Articles

A Score That Matters: What FICO Means to Small Business Borrowers

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By Finance New Mexico

By Finance New Mexico

When a business applies for a loan, the lender reviews the credit score of the owner or owners and uses that information to assess risk. While the score is only one metric of financial stability, it can determine whether the business gets the loan at all, how much it can borrow and what interest terms it can expect.

For that reason, business owners need to know their scores and maintain the highest possible number by paying bills on time or getting help to correct money-management problems. Continue reading →

U.S.-Backed Loan Program Helps Businesses Buy Growth Assets

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By Norma Valdez, Community Development Director, The Loan Fund
By Norma Valdez, The Loan Fund

Small companies often lease space before buying or building a property that allows them to expand or modernize. When they’re ready for that leap of faith, the U.S. Small Business Administration can help by underwriting a significant portion of any loan they need.

The SBA’s 504 loan program is a public-private partnership administered through a Certified Development Company (CDC) that helps small, independently owned companies secure the fixed assets — such as land, building and equipment — that they need to grow and be competitive.

Continue reading →

5S System Simplifies Production to Improve Profits

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Jennifer Sinsabaugh

By Jennifer Sinsabaugh, Operations Director, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Companies can cut production time, eliminate waste and improve profitability by carefully studying, critiquing and refining the steps involved in manufacturing a product. They can even get better at processing invoices, orders and other paperwork using the same procedure. The nonprofit New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership, or New Mexico MEP, helps companies refine this flow on the manufacturing floor and in the business office.

One tool we use to help businesses improve workplace organization and standardization is a workshop on the “5 S” system. This system deconstructs production into its individual parts to see what steps add value and which waste time and resources.

The five S’s in the plan’s name stand for sort, set in order, shine, standardize and sustain. Continue reading →

Young Adults Are Target of Entrepreneurial Initiative

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By Michelle Miller, founder and CEO, High Desert Discovery District

By Michelle Miller, founder and CEO, High Desert Discovery District

A frequent lament of New Mexico’s business community is the loss of brainpower and energy that results when young people move out of state to pursue economic opportunities they can’t find at home.

This exodus isn’t unique to New Mexico and, by itself, isn’t cause for alarm.

No matter where they live, young people almost always leave their home state after completing their schooling or training, even if they obtained that education tuition-free at New Mexico universities. Exploring the larger world and all its offerings helps young adults mature into self-aware global citizens — an asset to any community they choose to settle in.

What most concerns economic-development advocates is how to make New Mexico that destination of choice for our dispersed millennials — the generation now in its 20s and 30s. Continue reading →

New Mexico Businesses Start Big with Franchise Ambitions

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Olo Yogurt Studio

Olo Yogurt Studio

By Finance New Mexico

Multinational franchises like McDonald’s and KFC started small and worked their way up the food chain over decades. That methodical approach to growth seems too slow for the owners of two Albuquerque businesses.

Before Olo Yogurt Studio opened its first store in 2010 and WisePies served its first pizza in 2014, the owners of both ventures planned to become franchises — and to waste no time doing it.

Olo Yogurt opened a second store — a carbon copy of its colorful original — within three years and was strengthening its brand for further expansion. Continue reading →

Return on Investment Begins at the Drawing Board

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By Finance New Mexico

By Finance New Mexico

Businesses invest lots of human and capital resources into marketing, asset purchases and outreach. Their goal is to generate the best return on every dollar spent, every hour worked and every keystroke made.

Return on investment, or ROI, measures how much money or other tangible benefits the business makes on every investment.

For example, if a business invests in a modern computer system to expand its reach and improve its service to Internet shoppers, the return on investment would measure how many new customers it gained and how much these newcomers spent. Continue reading →

Bloomfield Businesses See Benefits of Lean Inventory Management

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Claudia Serrano

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

Irene Salasar of Twin Stars Ltd. and Cari Drake of Air Star Inc. had a business-to-business relationship for years but didn’t meet in person until both attended an October class on inventory control sponsored by the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

Salasar is the warehouse manager at Twin Stars, and Drake owns Air Star with her husband, Kenneth. Both Bloomfield businesses supply parts and services to the oil and gas industry, and both began working with Denise Williams, MEP’s local representative, to improve their inventory management systems.

Interventions began with site visits; separate classroom sessions on lean manufacturing principles helped managers and employees compare the inventory management ideal against their internal procedures. Continue reading →

Learning to Negotiate With Suppliers Is a Business Art

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By Sandy Nelson, Finance New Mexico team member

By Sandy Nelson, Finance New Mexico team member

Many businesses rely on suppliers or vendors for inventory, raw materials or services, and that makes contract negotiation skills essential to securing the best prices, terms and product quality. Becoming a skillful negotiator requires a business owner to know what his business needs and can do without and what materials costs are common in his industry. It also requires flexibility and a willingness to compromise — qualities that can lead to a sustainable business-to-business relationship.

Price isn’t everything: Sometimes getting the best price for a product requires a business to buy in volume or agree to inconvenient delivery schedules. Sometimes it means getting a product of lower quality. Not all businesses can afford this. Continue reading →

New Model for Artists Borrows From Business

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By Finance New Mexico

By Finance New Mexico

Making a name in the art world used to mean the artist toiled in obscurity and poverty, dependent on galleries and patrons to exhibit and champion his work. This notion — that artistic creativity and business savvy occupy separate worlds — was reinforced by art schools that taught students how to make art but not how to market or sell it.

An emerging, 21st century approach is that art making is a business and the artist should be at the controls — the chief executive officer of her own production and distribution network. This model borrows many ideas from the business world.

Get serious about sales. Artists should tear down the contrived wall between the creative and the commercial, because distribution of artwork is just as important as production. Continue reading →

New Mexico MEP Helps Wood-Floor Manufacturer Expand Business’s Reach

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By Ron Burke, Center Director, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

By Ron Burke, Center Director, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

When the 2000 Viveash Fire burned through 17 million board feet of timber on his family’s homestead above Pecos, David Old drew on his experience as a sawmill owner-operator to make the best of overwhelming misfortune.

The company David Old built from the ashes of his family’s fire-damaged forest is now a top-drawer manufacturer and global exporter of fine wood floors made from reclaimed wood harvested from private and public lands using environmentally sound forest-management standards.

Sheer grit and entrepreneurial flexibility helped Old and his family-owned enterprise transform crisis into opportunity. In recent years, the Las Vegas, N.M.-based venture welcomed technical and training assistance from the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a nonprofit organization Continue reading →