Tag Archives: business assistance

Libraries Poised to Become Post-Pandemic Entrepreneurial Hubs

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Loma Colorado Library Rio Rancho NM
Rio Rancho’s Loma Colorado Public Library created a business hub where WESST offers workshops.

When New Mexico libraries finally return to pre-pandemic hours and services, many will offer even more resources than they did in the past, especially to entrepreneurs.

Public libraries are ideal places to nurture people who want to start their own businesses: They are community hubs with deep roots, and local librarians are portals to knowledge, tools, and ideas that can create jobs, build the local work force, and drive development. Libraries are trusted, safe and welcoming spaces that offer culturally and economically diverse patrons free access to computers with internet access, meeting rooms, and other spaces where entrepreneurs can meet and brainstorm.

Libraries can be entrepreneurial centers in some of the same ways business incubators are, because they provide networking opportunities, vast resources and a platform for information sharing. And they can support the next generation of entrepreneurs without the expense of building, maintaining and managing a separate, limited-use facility.

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WESST: Trailblazers in the WBC Movement

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Diane Barrett, longtime owner of Diane’s Restaurant in Silver City.

There are currently over 100 Women’s Business Centers across the United States, but in the late 1980s, there was a scarcity of female entrepreneurs and role models. Spurred by the growing interest among women to chart their own business and financial path and seeking to provide appropriate the resources, WESST was established in 1989 and became a leading pioneer in the movement across the country.

WESST is currently among a handful of economic development organizations across the country that hosts a network of Women’s Business Centers. Each of the six regional Enterprise Centers located throughout New Mexico offers special training and consulting programs geared to aspiring or established women business owners. Continue reading →

Build a Business with Relationships

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No one likes to feel hustled while shopping, whether it’s in a retail store or trade show booth.

To attract customers without brazen hawking or downright pushiness, businesses need to refine the art of the soft sell. That begins by making the store or trade show booth an intentional destination for people who are truly interested in what the business sells.

Create relationships

While any business would like to sell at least one product to every person who walks in the door, that’s the type of unrealistic goal that can turn sales reps into apex predators.

A long-term perspective toward potential customers focuses on developing a relationship that lasts longer than one transaction. It lays a foundation through attraction rather than persuasion. Continue reading →

Manufacturing Make-Over Reaps Rewards for Albuquerque Business

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C. Aaron Velasquez knew it was time to modernize the equipment and processes his family’s metal-plating business had used for four decades, but he wasn’t sure where to start.

An industry contact introduced him to New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NM MEP), a nonprofit that trains manufacturers in lean principles, value-stream mapping and other methodologies that help businesses increase profitability and competitiveness.

Theta Plate, a second-generation, family-owned Albuquerque-based business, specializes in electroplating of precious metals for industrial and commercial uses, such as friction reduction and conductivity enhancement in electrical and computer components and applications that improve the radiance of costume jewelry. Continue reading →

NM FAST Program Propels Anti-Counterfeit Entrepreneur

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Roy Montibon worked with the New Mexico FAST program. Article by Jason Gibbs.

Heritage. Honesty. Respect for tradition.

These are keys to Roy Montibon’s work as CEO of Montibon Provenance International Inc. His mission to ensure the authenticity of Native American art has drawn support from New Mexico State University’s Arrowhead Center, the Small Business Administration, and the respect of collectors and artists alike.

In 2017, Montibon tapped into resources offered by the New Mexico Federal and State Technology Partnership (NM FAST) program to develop a system to prevent counterfeit merchandise from polluting the Native American art market. Shoddy knock-off merchandise not only devalues the market, but it devalues the work that honest artists produce and harms the overall market, he said.

“The financial impact is three-fold,” said Montibon. “Collectors are ripped off. Native artists are deprived of revenue from sales of work that is falsely attributed to them. And, because the fake work is of poor quality compared to authentic work, the perceived value of the artist’s work is diminished in the marketplace, which also has a detrimental effect on future generations who may be considering a career in the arts.” Continue reading →

State Offers Grants to Promote Tourism

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New Mexico attracts more visitors every year, but the state wants to further boost tourism and related revenue by expanding on successful programs like New Mexico True and the Cooperative Marketing Program (CoOp).

New Mexico True is a brand that businesses, governments and nonprofit organizations can use by partnering with the New Mexico Tourism Department. That involves demonstrating how the organization expresses or evokes the state’s distinctive landscapes, cultures, food, art or history.

The CoOp program gives local nonprofits, municipalities and tribal governments a financial incentive to market what’s uniquely New Mexican about their event or location and even participate in existing advertising campaigns. Through the CoOp program, state money is leveraged with money from other public entities to amplify media buying power for all involved parties. (Private businesses can contribute up to 50 percent of a public entity’s total CoOp investment.) Continue reading →

Accion Loan Keeps Bakery at Top of Critics’ Lists

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Pratt and Chris Morales in their Albuquerque bakery, Golden Crown Panaderia. Article by Sandy Nelson.

It’s one thing for a bakery to boast about its own tasty products, but it’s quite another for the publisher of a foodie blog to broadcast rave reviews from around the world and add a few superlatives of his own.

Gil Garduño, publisher of Gil’s Thrilling (and Filling) Blog, has eaten at more than 1,000 New Mexico restaurants over the past decade and calls Golden Crown Panaderia “the very best bakery in Albuquerque.” In a mouth-watering 2016 review, Garduño describes the artisan breads, pizzas and pastries that the family-owned, Old Town-area business has been making since 1972 and adds, “This humble Panaderia has been consistently ranked by TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel community, as one of the top five out of 1,235 restaurants in the Duke City. Golden Crown receives similar praise from Yelp, while Lonely Planet, a French publication, calls Golden Crown ‘Albuquerque’s best place to eat.’ ” Continue reading →

Delegation Equals Liberation for Small Business Owners

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Product shipment preparation is one task that could be delegated. Article by Sandy Nelson.

Sooner or later, an entrepreneur has to know his limits and acknowledge that some tasks can and should be done by others to allow him to focus on the bigger picture. That requires delegation — trusting others, whether subordinates, partners or independent contractors, to complete an assignment as directed.

As obvious as that sounds, an entrepreneur can have a hard time trusting others with his “baby,” ultimately defeating many business objectives and stunting the company’s natural growth.

Many businesses in New Mexico start small, with the owner doing all the work that’s required to get off the ground. Success only increases the workload, and the owner who doesn’t delegate eventually will find her attention pulled away from mission-critical decisions into fussing with day-to-day minutia — answering phones or emails from clients or vendors, filing, blogging — or running in place trying to accomplish tasks outside her expertise. Continue reading →

NMSBA Program Brings Small Businesses, National Laboratories Together

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Visit Honeymoon Brewery Dec. 8 for their grand opening in Santa Fe. Article by Jason Gibbs.

The crew from Santa Fe’s Honeymoon Brewery is raising a glass to the New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program and offering a hearty “salud” to David Fox of Los Alamos National Laboratories.

The cause for celebration? The successful pairing of a small-scale kombucha brewing business and a scientist at one of the nation’s premier research laboratories that was made possible through the NMSBA, a free program that gives small business owners in New Mexico access to the resources available at both LANL and Sandia National Laboratory.

For Honeymoon founders Ayla Bystrom-Williams and James Hill, working with LANL’s Fox allowed them to refine their brewing process and scientifically cut through a trial-and-error development process to better understand how to achieve the particular flavors they sought. Continue reading →

Startup Resources Intrinsic to Business Success

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With help from Accion, ‘magic,’ passion, comfort with risk are other key ingredients.

Daven Lee, Owner of Love+Leche; Article by Sandy Nelson

Borrowing money to start or build a business entails taking risk — not just for the lender but also the borrower. But unless the entrepreneur has rich relatives or massive savings to draw on, securing capital usually requires multiple loans over many years to start and expand a business.

Daven Lee has tapped into New Mexico’s many small-business resources over nearly two decades to turn Love + Leche from a home-based maker of handmade soaps and lotion bars — made with milk from her own goat herd and other natural products — for retail sale into a viable year-round business that gets about half its revenue from wholesale markets throughout the U.S. and in Mexico, England and Australia. Continue reading →