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My name is Jennifer Peterson, and I'm the WebJunction community manager, and I'm really excited to have you here today for today's session.
I'm going to welcome our presenter, today is Laura Metzler, she comes to us from the Cecil County public library in Maryland.
She is the small business librarian there and brings to this session a wealth of expertise and inspiration around support for small business development at your library.
And I'm going to pass the ball over to Laura and let her get us started.
Welcome, Laura.
>> Laura: Thank you.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Laura Metzler, and I am the small business librarian at the Cecil County Public Library.
I'm excited to share with you today something that I am very passionate about, and that is how libraries can support small business development in their community.
And at the Cecil County Public Library, we are unique in that we have this dedicated position on our staff of small business librarian.
The idea behind this position is that they are entrenched in the local business community, attending chamber events, presenting at networking events, actively promoting the library's business services to the business community.
Building partnerships with other organizations focused on assisting entrepreneurs.
And this has been my role now as small business librarian for about eight years.
With that said, I realize I know it's not realistic for every system to create this specialized  role.
So in this webinar I'm going to give you four practical ways to reach out to entrepreneurs in your community, and it's really my hope that you will be able to pull out one or two ideas and try to implement them in your system.
I try to brainstorm ideas to share with you that would be feasible in both small and large  libraries.
I want to start with ALA's OITP, which stand for office for information technology policy report.
Titled "the people's incubator -- libraries propel entrepreneurship."
It's from June of this year, so it's pretty recent.
This is a fantastic report.
It really explains the many ways libraries are reaching out to entrepreneurs, and if this seg suspect one your library is considering reaching out to, I would say this is a must-read article.
It gives examples of libraries that have created coworking spaces for small business owners, 3D printing services for product prototyping, they have business plan research workshops, they have even libraries hosting agencies like score and the SPCD in their facilities libraries with funding workshops presented by their office of economic development, business plan competitions for patrons, and libraries  that have created web portals listing government resource and nonprofit service providers geared toward entrepreneurs, and even more than that.
So it's really a great overview of the many ideas that are out there right now for reaching out to this segment.
And I wonder if any of Ulisening have specific things your library has done to reach out and serve the small business community.
I would love for you to type in the chat box some of the steps you have taken if any at your library to reach out to this population, the small business community.
Some of the things mentioned in the ALA OITP report we're deeg at the Cecil County Public Library, and in fact we're -- were mentioned in the article, however many of the things we have not done but aspire to do and are setting goals to do some of these things in the future.
I'm excited to see what you guys have to say in the chat box.
I'd love to know what's working for you at your library.
I'm going to keep moving, but maybe we can revisit your thoughts and what you've done in the chat box later.
Even with the report I just mentioned, a lot of libraries are doing things with entrepreneurs, but I think it's important to acknowledge that reaching out to entrepreneurs really breaks the mold of traditional library service.
But really if you stop and think about it, the library is uniquely poised to help.
We have great resources and research skills that aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners could really benefit from.
We see many people -- we call it the small business information center, where I work.
We have people at the SBIC that have given up looking for a job, decided after being laid off now is the time to launch that dream business they've been thinking about for years, and we also see people that have full-time jobs and want to research the idea of possibly starting a business one day.
But many times they are completely overwhelmed by a Google search like how to start a business.
Understandably so.
Also, each industry, each type of business they want to start has different requirements.
And it maybe has a different way you start it.
So they may feel uncomfortable or intimidated to walk into the office of economic development, or their local chamber, and they may not even know what the right questions to ask are.
And that's where I think the library can play this pivotal role.
The library is seen as a welcoming, safe, comfortable place to ask questions.
So we can -- I think we can position ourselves to be there for these early stage entrepreneurs.
Because we're breaking the mold on traditional library services and because it's not necessarily intuitive to business owners to come to the library for their information seeking needs, I think it's our job to reach out to them.
And I hope to give you guidance with that today.
We created this info graphic to be a great visual to advertise the SBIC services, small business information center services.
And so I wouldn't have to lug around a power point everywhere.
It's been a great tool.
I'm going to give you an overview of what we do, what I do, to reach out to entrepreneurs at the library.
And I try to meet through appointments.
Again, I know this is not necessarily feasible for every organization.
And I know many of you are going to be implementing some of these services at the reference desk, while you're also trying to help a patron find the latest James Patterson book, but I felt it would be useful to explain the services that we provide and why we offer them.
If you just look at this info graphic on the black column, the basics, when I sit down with somebody interested in starting a business, I go over how to start that business in terms of what forms to fill out, to finding the different legal structures for the patrons, the process of getting a business license, those sorts of things.
Then if you look in the orange column, the business plan, so I'll sit down with them and teach them how to write a business plan, what goes into each section of the plan, and then how to find that information using our databases and resources here at the library.
And the idea is that they will write the first draft, email to me or to the library, well offer suggestions, email it back.
I view it as the same way would I help someone at the reference desk with their resume, if that helps.
Then in the red column under skills, we also offer a monthly business program.
This is geared toward entrepreneurs, and that -- we'll get into that later, but it's various topics I think they would be interested in.
The green column, social media, I'll sit down with them and teach them about the applications that are out there, who's on the applications, effective ways to use them.
And then the last column, the gray column, that's an important one, that's the networking opportunities  that are available to them in our county.
So what I really love about this, and again, this is a benefit that we have as -- in a smaller rural community, but I can give them a name of somebody I personally know, their contact information at the office of economic development, or the community college, or the chamber, and that makes it a more welcoming feeling for them when they have to approach that other organization.
That's a really good thing we do, I think.
I hope that gives you a better understanding of how our SBIC works.
And I realize realistically you may not be able to duplicate all of the services that we are offering, but I'm hoping you will be able to take away one or two tangible ways to reach entrepreneurs that you can implement in your community.
I'm going to go over these four things with you today.
The first is creating materials beneficial to the business community.
Promoting library resources to the business community.
Target programming to the business community.
And finally, developing strategic alliances within the business community.
Let's get started with the first one.
Creating materials beneficial to the business community.
A lot of people I see have an idea of a business they want to start, and that's all they have.
They don't know how to even take the first step into making this big dream of being their own boss a reality.
They also don't have the money to spend on a business advisor, so they get frustrated.
And there's no organization that I'm aware of that has the resources that we have and the knowledge that we have and the willingness to help these entrepreneurs, free.
And I think libraries are uniquely poised to help them and create materials that can simplify the process of starting a business.
If you were to do just one thing that I suggest today, I would suggest that you do this, and I'll show you in the next slide.
Basically create this brochure for your community.
The key steps to starting a business brochure.
It's a road map to starting a business.
And it can be kept at the reference desk to hand out to patrons, it answers a lot of the questions the patrons have with the process of starting a business.
Many on our staff are intimidated by business reference questions, and I totally understand it.
I think it's problem it will same feeling I get when someone asks me for a YA recommendation.
It's not something I'm comfortable with because I don't necessarily read a lot of YA books.
Creating this brochure for a reference staff to hand to patrons creates a step by step guide that's user friendly for everyone.
So before I go into what the brochure looks like, I want to give this caveat, it does have to be constantly updated.
It has a lot of links in it, and there's nothing worse than handing someone a brochure with a bunch of dead links.
That's just something to be aware of.
It isn't something you make one time and you're done.
Even the process of starting a business can evolve.
Here in Cecil County, for example, just this past march, they started allowing for the purchase of business licenses online.
So I had to first know about that, and then second of all, have that change reflected in this brochure.
And I also think it's really important that it doesn't just live at the library.
I mentioned earlier, we can't just assume entrepreneurs are going to come into the library and know about this brochure.
So the organizations I listed above, the work force center, the office of economic development, the small business development center, those are some examples of where we have it in our county.
They hand this out to every single inquiry they get about starting a business.
So this is great marketing for us.
It helps us get the word out.
And it also lets these organizations know the work we're doing, the type of assistance we're  providing.
So this has been a great advocacy tool for us.
When elected officials see this, they're always impressed.
And this the is actually available for you in a publisher document.
So hopefully you can tweak it for your county or your community, so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
But it's worked really well for us.
This is what it looks like on the inside.
Basically it walks a patron through all the decisions they need to be making and how to accomplish each step.
It starts with your legal business structure, registering a business name, getting an EIN number, a business license, registering with the state, contacting regulatory agencies, writing a business plan, obtaining business insurance, and then on the other side, it has the realities of financing, this is actually an important one.
A lot of people have the misinformation or they've heard that they can just get a grant, free money to start their business, whatever they want to start, wherever they want to start it, so a lot of it is educating them on the realities of financing a business.
Hiring ownership employees, intellectual property, we have a list of our local partners, and additional local resources that we thought would be important for the brochure.
So this has been an awesome tool for us, and I just -- I can't say enough that if you could do one thing, that would be the one thing I would do, create this brochure.
This is -- we've been subscribing to gale courses for a couple of years, and we've been impressed with what they offer.
These are college level courses that can be taken for free with your library card.
They've been very popular here in Cecil County, and this handout is also available for you in publisher, to manipulate for your system too.
We created this handout with the idea of initial marketing in -- niche marketing in mind.
Gale offers hundreds of courses on various topics, but creating a personalized business course  handout has upped our usage numbers for these particular courses.
Also, when I go out into the business community, this is a great handout to bring.
We just can't assume entrepreneurs are on our website looking for resources.
We have to let them know.
So perhaps maybe you already attend a monthly chamber luncheon or networking event in your  community.
Create a flyer similar to this, or even just that highlights one course and bring it every month, a different course you could talk about.
Something like that.
And I know paper seems -- handouts seem old fashioned, but I really feel like giving someone something tangible makes it -- they'll remember it that way.
If I'm giving a talk in a chamber luncheon I say we have these courses, visit our website and you'll see them.
That requires them to go home, get on our site and do it.
If they have this handout, it's helpful to remind them.
And I always emphasize free.
I always get the question, how much does this cost?
And it continues to surprise me, I have to tell them, this is all free with your library card.
Trying to make it as simple for them as possible, how to enroll on the flyer, and then I highlight a few courses I think they would be interested in, for who I see, quickbooks is a popular class, so I highlight that.
Also I share with them, I say take the how to write a business plan course, and they do the homework each week, they'll have a completed business plan at the end of six weeks.
So that's a really great opportunity for them.
Then we've also created something similar to this for nonprofits.
We've listed, pulled out some of the nonprofit courses so we can share those with -- some of the organizations we work with.
So we've found the key here is segmenting to people's interests.
Marketing it that way.
As I meet with clients, I find common questions arise.
So I try to create handouts to give them that might answer these questions.
For example, many people ask me to refer them to like a website developer.
So I can't do that, but instead I can create a list of local website developers in the county that I can hand them.
And I realize this is definitely easier to do for those of you that are in rural communities, like mine, where there are not that many website developers out there.
So making a list is not that hard.
But if you are in a more urban setting, you can also refer them to your local chamber for these types of lists.
Just another example, a lot of people say to me they have bad credit, and they want to know if a bank will ever loan them money.
Instead of trying to -- obviously I can't answer that question either, but what I can do to help them is I have a handout I can give them that goes through the five Cs of credit, and explains what a lender is going to look at.
What everything they look at is.
So they feel better prepared when they walk into that commercial lender.
And they understand everything that's going to be looked at.
If that makes sense.
So these handouts, I would say they help me when people are wanting advice driven -- when they have advice driven questions.
Obviously I'm not an accountant or lawyer, so when they say things like, do you think I should be an LLC or sole proprietorship, I can hand them a printout that highlights each legal structure and the different characteristics of each one with the hope that information will lead them to a more informed decision.
So hopefully that makes sense.
These are just some examples of the handouts I've created.
I have more, but I wanted to highlight that.
I don't know, before I move on, Jennifer, are there any questions in the chatty can answer yet?
>> Jennifer: There's been an impressive amount of conversation, lots of people responded to your question about what they're doing, and really huge range of examples from folks doing business librarians doing much like what you're doing, lots of suggestions for folks that they partner with, the local SBA, economic development corporation, work force development.
So lots of great contributions.
There was one question very early on about asking, is this your only role, or do you have other duties as well?
>> Laura: Good question.
I was hired on as the small business librarian in 2008.
I was full-time, I was also the volunteer coordinator and I worked the reference desk.
But I worked it occasionally, not that often.
That was basically my main role starting out.
But to be honest, I decided about five years ago, I went part-time due to children and things like that, so I have been doing it part-time now for five years.
And it is my only role.
But I am part-time.
>> Jennifer: That's a good clarification.
Yes, I think 2008 was a year that a lot of libraries considered doing this with economic downturn.
And I know small business development continues to grow in our community, so it's great to know that you -- your position even as part-time is sustained by your library.
>> Laura: Just being a business librarian require special education?
My -- some libraries -- the person that had the job before me had an MBA, I will say.
I have this job right out of college, getting my masters.
This is my first job.
And I -- my undergrad was in communications and public relations and marketing.
But in my honest opinion, this is a librarian job.
If you know how to do the research, you don't have to have specialized business knowledge.
You kind of learn it as you go, but it's research.
It's just like working at the reference desk, only all the questions are business related, if that makes sense.
I would say no, it doesn't require special education, but you have to obviously, when you start to decide to do this, you have to -- I am educating myself on things that I think I need to know, but I don't think you have to have anything before hand, if that makes sense.
I feel that was a strange answer.
But I think any librarian can do this job, in my opinion.
>> Jennifer: I think that's a great point.
I think it helps for it to be a focus of a librarian's job, I think being able to build the relationships, both with your patrons as well as all those community partners, and having that time to focus certainly makes a difference.
But, yeah, I think overall the skills are certainly librarian skills.
>> Laura: Correct.
That's what I was trying to get at.
Okay.
I think I'm going to move on, then, to the second one.
Promoting library resources to the business community.
As I mentioned earlier, it may not be intuitive terror entrepreneurs to think to come to the library for help.
So I think it's our job to promote our services to that community.
We cannot assume the business owners and the business community in general and know to come to the library.
We can't afford to be hush-hush about these services.
So these are the -- to give you what resource I promote, these are the resources I heavily promote to the business community in Cecil County.
I'm aware that many of you may not have all these resources veil nab your system.
But perhaps if this is an important target group for your system, you might explore the possibilities of getting these resources.
Also if your library subscribes to another database or you have another resource you find  particularly useful for entrepreneurs, that I don't have up here, please share in the chat box.
I'd love to see what they are.
Maybe we can at the end talk about them, or a also bit later.
I want to go through these and how I use them.
Reference USA, I use, that I'm sure you're familiar with it, when I sit down with someone, to help them find competitors and potential collaborators, if somebody says they want to start a handyman business, for example, we can objects have you -- obviously find the other competitors in the area, but I can also sit down with them and say, what about some potential  collaborators?
Have you thought about approaching, like real estate agents and telling them about what you do and maybe they can stick your card in a folder they put on -- they give to someone who just bought a new house in the area, something like that.
Reference USA to me is just a must-have.
I know they have competitors, and we've switched with the competitors a few times.
But they all do the same thing for the most part, it's just how you go about searching.
Gale courses I mentioned earlier, print material, I love the NOLO series, the entrepreneur series of books.
And I find that though people like general guides to starting a business, I think they want the industry specific books, like how to start a mobile food vendor business, instead of just how to start a business.
Or how to start an import-export business, or how to start an Etsy business, I think they want that industry specific.
We have both entrepreneur and Inc. magazine, and we also promote that entrepreneurs available digitally.
I use demographics now.
I think the census site can be a bit overwhelming, and so I find patrons seem to really like demographics now and how easy it is to get the projections they need.
And it really is business focused, because it has lots of industry information and -- it's very -- they have a restaurant one, it's very specific, and I think people like that.
They have a beauty supply one, so I think that's easy to use, and the projections are right there, so easy to see.
The small business resource center, that provides sample business plans, lists of associations, that's really important for people to be aware of in their industry.
Marketing plans, industry specific journals, those can be expensive for someone just starting out to subscribe to.
So that can be useful to see.
If I can't find a sample business plan on the small business resource center, I just wanted to highlight a website I really like, Vplans.com, it has a ton of great sample business plans that are free.
And you can download them into word, so that's a good website to be aware of.
One other one, morningstar, I wanted to say that's something the business community is usually interested in.
We actually created business cards, and they look like a dollar bill.
We hand those out at business networking events, and that's a great way to get people to know, hey, did you know we have a morningstar you can access digitally with your library card for free?
And we hand them this dollar bill business card, and that's a fun way to get the word out about  that.
They seem to really like that.
So we have the resources.
But where do we effect -- where do I effectively promote?
Before I begin here, I would also love to get your input.
As I'm sharing my ideas, if your library has effectively promoted business services in your community at a place or with an organization that I don't mention, please share in the chat  box.
I personally would even love to get ideas up here, I want to -- getting a great complete list for those that are just starting out, that would be really helpful, I think.
>> Jennifer: Or you'll be glad to know, somebody must have been channeling you, before you started talking about this, they said they use evenbright to advertise, or eventbright to advertise for their events.
>> Laura: Yeah.
Eventbright is great.
We have like -- we use eVance for ours, but when I partner with the office of economic development, we use eventbright too, so that is good.
Thanks for sharing that.
Morningstar, I just saw that, somebody asked what that is.
It's like an investment for stocks and if you're into investing, most people that are into that know what it is, I find.
But -- does that help answer your question?
>> Jennifer: Someone had a follow-up question about how do you -- how does a small business  client --
>> Laura: I don't help them with morningstar.
The reason I put that there, I think the business community a lot of times is interested in that, not necessarily a client who wants to start a business.
I promote it while I'm out, because I find that's the right crowd to promote it to.
Does that make ?ens.
>> Jennifer: Yeah, that does make sense.
>> Laura: Okay.
So in terms of where do I effectively promote, I think this is an area where the more libraries in rural settings have an advantage.
Cecil County is a fairly rural community, so it was easy for me to get to know key community leaders and members, and become involved in the community.
But with that said, I think the first obvious place to promote is in the library.
Creating book displays around starting your own business, and have the displays advertise business magazines in your collection, perhaps a flyer advertising the gale courses related to business, maybe an upcoming program flyer that revolves around business.
I always display that key steps brochure with all the business displays I create.
I also have found that audio books can be a big hit with entrepreneurs, because they usually seem to be short on time, and then just back to the morningstar conversation, I have promotional material for that by all the investment books.
I display the key steps brochure by the 658s, the starting a business books over there.
And with that said, we've -- in the past two years we did this, but we moved all of our small business books into the 658s, and we have found that to be really helpful.
What I mean by that is, for example, if you -- the how to start a craft business books.
They used to be cataloged with the craft books.
But we have since moved them to the business books area, the 658s.
So this gives us an excellent display of all the small business start-up books in one section.
If you're going to start a craft business, you might also need to know about social media marketing, so you're going to be in the right section where you need to be.
The chamber.
Attend networking events if you can.
Offer to speak at a luncheon on library resources for small business owners.
They're always looking for speakers.
Host a business card exchange.
We did this, we had a new branch open, so we brought the business community to our library for breakfast and networking, but I believe they left with a better understanding of the resources that we can offer the business community.
So that was really effective.
I've offered to speak at both of these groups, the rotary and lions club.
I shared a video we created on one of our success stories and I think Jennifer included that in the advertisement for this webinar, that video.
Just explain to them how the library can assist entrepreneurs with launching their business.
Leadership institutes, Cecil leadership institute spends -- we have -- our county has a leadership institute, and most of the Maryland counties have this.
It's a few months long, and the library, we send an ownership employee every year to this.
But we also host them for half a day at one of our branches to talk to this group about all that we offer to the community.
And the business community is represented really well in these leadership classes.
So it's a really great way for us to present to them about our resources for business owners.
Community colleges.
Basically our college, for example, has a 10-week session, or 10-week course for entrepreneurs or those interested in entrepreneurship.
And I'm one of the guest speakers in one of those nights.
And I basically just go in and literally walk them through how to use all of our business databases, and all the things we can offer them as these early stage entrepreneurs.
The work force center, people think of them as where you go to get a job, but they do get questions from job seekers about starting their own business.
And so I keep those key steps brochures at the library -- sorry, at the work force center, and the work force center employees innovate our services and they refer people to us.
I definitely get people that find my brochure and come to the library because they went to the work force center looking for a job, but in the back of their mind they thought maybe I'll start my own business, and they saw the brochure.
So I do think that there's a definite -- that's a place to have some presence, whether it's the key steps brochure or just talking to them about what you can offer.
So the business license office, this one actually, they called me.
I should have thought to call them and tell them about our services, but they contacted me and they said, hey, we're getting people to ask -- that ask all these questions, and we can't answer them.
Can we send them to you?
And I said of course.
So the business license office now refers people to us, and the neighboring county's business license office refers people to us too.
So that's another opportunity for you.
The small business development center, so they have counselors that meet with entrepreneurs one-on-one, and they really are -- they act as mentors and give advice to these business owners and entrepreneurs.
They don't necessarily have the resources that we have to assist them with their business plan.
They don't have the research background, but they give more of that advice if driven help.
So my advice would be to call your local councilor and make sure they're aware of your library's resources for entrepreneurs, because every client I meet W. I refer to our local SBIC  councilor.
In turn, every person that he meets with he refers to me.
So it's a really good relationship, because we do different things.
And I think that was an important clarification to make when I first met with the SBIC.
We're not competitors, we're collaborating.
And we can help in different ways.
The office of economic development, that's sort of the obvious place for a lot of entrepreneurs to start.
But they're not going to sit down with them and teach them how to write a business plan necessarily.
So our office of economic development, anyone who comes in their door looking to start a business, they refer to us, and they have -- we do events together, and that's been a really great relationship to have.
So the public schools, I put this on here because they actually invited myself and our YA librarian to come, I guess it was the home room class for freshmen, and give a talk about defining entrepreneurship and we actually even did an activity with them, and it was a really great experience, because most of the kids didn't even know -- could not define entrepreneur to us.
It was a new concept, the idea of being your own boss and starting your own business.
So we were able to have this fun activity where they got to get into teams and come up with a business plan to present to the class.
And so that was a really good opportunity, and a couple of those kids actually, there were even -- they even called me excitedly said, I want to make an appointment with you, because when I graduate I want to start a business.
So that actually was a really cool way to reach out to the younger crowd.
SCORE, it's the service score of retired executives.
It's those that were successful in expwis they're retired now and they want to help out future entrepreneurs.
And it's free, and it's -- they're all over the country.
If you go to score.org you can find your local chapter when you put in your ZIP code.
They're a great organization, they act as mentors as well.
So I have all -- I have their handout and their literature in my office that I give people.
And they can refer people to me as well.
That was a lot of information.
Let me move on now to social media.
I want to approach this from two different angles.
The first is promoting our services to entrepreneurs through social media.
I'm on the social media team at our library, so I'm regularly tweeting business information out, but I also make sure to retweet what the business community is putting on twitter too.
If I have helped a certain small business, I might retweet what they're saying, if the chamber is hosting event, I might retweet that.
I also advertise the SBIC through our Facebook page.
Sometimes I create Pinterest boards related to a program I'm having.
And I heavily use email marketing to promote my programming.
All the services, but especially the programming.
I make an effort to gather email addresses, so if I'm giving a presentation, if I have a program, client meetings, I save all those addresses and use mail chimp, and mail chimp is an email marketing service, competitor to constant contact, if you're familiar with that.
But I like mail chimp because it's free, you can have like hundreds and hundreds of email addresses if not a thousand before they start charging you.
So that's a good place to start.
And you can send those targeted emails to that list of people you know are going to be interested in your business programs.
So most of the people I get at my programs are from -- that come to my program come from that email blast.
I've also found a niche in serving the business community in Cecil County through social media.
A lot of business owners want a business Facebook page, but they have no idea how to create one or how to use it successfully.
So I can sit down with them, I know if you're familiar with Facebook, the algorithm is changing, they're trying to get you to pay, businesses need to pay to be seen.
It's hard for business owners to stay up to date with that and to understand what's going on.
So I'll sit down with them and explain to them who is on these different applications, and how best to use them.
Hopefully with that conversation, they can decide if it's worth their time to invest in it in the social media platform.
So that's been an effective way for us to meet with existing businesses.
Are there any questions, anything we should go over before I move on?
>> Jennifer: There was one specific question that, when you mentioned the business card exchange, do you do that as one-hour program with some kind of info, or is there a way that local entrepreneurs can -- is in a board, or a business card book where they can leave that info, knowing that they would maybe want to connect and support with each other, but they were curious if there's a conflict of interest around the library then being seen as an advertiser for any of those businesses?
>> Laura: Well, maybe I -- let me explain that a little better.
The chamber of commerce hosts these business card exchanges once a month at various businesses throughout -- or nonprofits throughout our county.
So we basically offer to host it at our new branch, so the business community came, we gave maybe a 10-minute presentation about library services, and gave them a tour of the new building, and then they had breakfast, and when they call it a business card exchange, it means you're networking.
So people are mingling around the library, meeting, talking, hanging out, exchanging business cards if they want, we're not taking that information.
Does that make sense?
>> Jennifer: Yeah.
I don't know, maybe that's how small business folks then network and connect with each other in general.
You don't host any sort of way for them to connect with each other through the library, though?
>> Laura: No, and that's something that I've thought about doing.
But I have not done that.
It's not like my -- not small business clients of the small business information center at the library having a business card exchange.
It was chamber members coming.
So it's getting the business community in our doors to learn about our databases and things like that.
>> Jennifer: Excellent.
And then again, still some excellent sharing going on here.
Folks are sharing examples of what they're doing in their areas, and somebody chimed in and said how great it would be for them to see each other's business pages on their library or their library Facebook pages, so I encourage you all to post those things into chat and we can certainly add those to today's event page.
But I did do a quick search on Facebook groups for business librarian and perhaps Laura have you other suggestions for how business librarians can connect with each other.
I don't know if ALA has a round table or group that does that specifically, but there is a public Facebook group for business librarians.
So we should have probably posted this webinar to that page but I'm sure you could connect with other folks there as well.
Laura, do you have other suggestions for how people could connect?
>> Laura: Yes.
Somebody mentioned brass through ALA.
I personally am not that active in it.
I am part-time, I would like to be more active, especially -- that's a goal of mine.
I mostly within the state of Maryland, I work with the business librarian at the Pratt library in Baltimore a lot, but to be honest, I don't really -- I wish I could say I did, but I don't do a lot of that.
Meeting with other business librarians or having a platform where we all share ideas.
I am a member of that Facebook group you mentioned.
>> Jennifer: Okay.
Certainly doing your job by sharing here today.
So thank you for doing that.
>> Laura: Okay.
All right, let me move on.
It's already 3:43.
The time is going by fast.
If I can only do two things to reach out to entrepreneurs, due to constraints on staff and money, and the first thing was to create that key steps to creating a business guide.
This would be my second.
It's fairly easy, we all know how to do programming.
Now we just need to target it to business owners.
Plus I find it's easy to do for free.
In terms of topics, I have found that specific works better than general for us.
So what I mean by that, how to start a business is the name of your program.
That's very general.
But more specific would be, email marketing tools for a small business budget.
Entrepreneurs want to know they're going to get something tangible from your program.
You're really limiting yourself with how to start a business, I think.
It's just almost too broad.
Email marketing tools for a small business budget will get you established business owners, so it reaches a broader crowd.
Helping someone answer the question, how do I start this business, works in my opinion better as a one-on-one meeting, or a reference desk kind of question.
It's too hard to do, because one person could be starting a high-tech business, and then maybe the person next to them is starting a food cart, both could be great businesses to start, but they're going to -- the program will be hard to have an effective program for both of those on how to start that business.
If that makes sense.
Common questions I get, I look at those common question and think, can I make a program out of this?
I get a lot of -- a couple years ago I got a lot of questions on Etsy businesses and how to start an Etsy business.
So I found someone local who had a successful Etsy business, and asked them to present, basically tips and tricks for having a great Etsy business.
That program on a snowy January night in Maryland, we had almost 40 people show up.
So timely topics, again, I like to really -- that seems to get a lot of people in the door.
So computer security for small business, I've actually done that one probably once a year for maybe three or four years now, and it always gets a lot of people in the door.
So timely topics are really good.
In terms of finding speakers, the women's networking, I'm a part of a women's networking group, and I happened to have lunch next to an account hoont was telling me she does quick books training.
And she was looking for a way to get the word out about her business, and I said, well, would you be interested in doing a, is quick books right for your small business at the library?
And I gave her the talk about how you can't promote your business, but she agreed to it.
And she really became -- she did these programs for me twice a year, and she did more advanced  quickbooks classes too and she became an -- she looked -- she was an expert positioning herself as someone who knew what she was talking about and she got clients from that.
No money was exchanged during the program, and she didn't advertise her business, but people then recognized her as someone who knew what she was talking about.
So business owners are -- want to promote their expertise.
So I have found it easy to find presenters.
SCORE is another great place you can go for presenters.
I mentioned them earlier.
I have had them do a couple programs for me.
They do them for free and they're always -- they always say yes, when and where, and I'll be there.
What topic and we'll find someone.
They've always been helpful.
And honestly, I have only had to pay for one speaker in eight years of programming.
And that was when I did a program on the history of business in Cecil County and I paid a historian to do it.
But usually, like I said, they want to position themselves as an expert in whatever -- whether it's marketing, website development, or accounting, so these entrepreneurs will later use their services.
And I also realize maybe a lot of you don't have the time to attend networking opportunities and have lunch next to an accountant.
So I will also say to look in house.
I use our I.T. person for the computer security program.
And I use a coworker for the power point, the -- creating powerful power point presentations.
Or if I have a power point question she can answer it.
So don't be afraid to look in house, too.
For somebody.
This is developing strategic alliances within the business community.
Cecil County has an organization called the Cecil business resource partners, and it's basically a group of organizations that meet monthly to discuss how to help the business community in Cecil County.
We cross promote each others' programs and events, we also plan joint workshops for business owners and entrepreneurs.
We just had one yesterday actually at the college on networking and LinkedIn:  So this is where the smaller rural community might give you an advantage.
Because it's easier to get to know community members ?oifg these organizations.
And we serve a unique function in how we can help entrepreneurs.
And I will say that it's -- we call it CDRP.
They existed before the library was a member, and I felt like we really had to prove that we deserve a seat at the table.
And it really wasn't as easy as you might think.
People didn't really think, oh, the library and business, that makes sense.
We had to prove it to them.
So it required me to meet with many members individually and show them the resources that we have for entrepreneurs.
And really once they sought research potential that we offer to these entrepreneurs, they got it immediately.
But it did take that extra step of me really showing them one-on-one.
I realize that it may not be possible to create this organized partnership in your county, but it's important that all of these organizations know the resources that you have for entrepreneurs, so they can promote your services to the entrepreneurs they come in contact with.
It's really important to try to meet with someone from organizations like these and just explain what your library offers to the small business community.
And if you have that key steps brochure created before you meet with them, I think they'll immediately get it.
That's so powerful, I think they would get it right away.
Okay.
Are there any questions now?
I see the chat box moving, so I want to make sure I don't miss anything.
>> Jennifer: Nothing specific, lots of questions about whether or not the recording is going to be available, and I reassured everyone, yes.
So yes, you can continue.
>> Laura: Okay.
So the next slide, I did pull out some quotes.
I wanted -- we have a testimonial page on our website of small business clients.
So you can really see the positive impact this type of assistance has.
But I also think it has -- to be totally honest, I guess what I want to say is helping entrepreneurs also helps the library.
If you find it hard to make a compelling case to potentially shift some of your library's time and focus to targeting entrepreneurs, you should consider this.
We have used these quotes and invited these business owners to speak on behalf of the library to elected officials during budget season.
When these patrons can stand up and say that the library helped them create a hair salon that now employees five people, that's powerful dismuf has been a great advocacy tool for us.
Unfortunately me is elected officials may not see or understand some of the obvious benefits of libraries that we see and we know exist, but they will listen to tangible ways the library has positively impacted economic development.
So that's a powerful for us as an advocacy tool.
This is just a business I helped recently, country clean, we did a lot of work with their social media and helping them understand how Facebook can work, and she just said the library was fantastic in helping us take our green cleaning business to the next level.
And we have this -- she actually did some programs for us.
She did spring cleaning tips and tricks, and we had like 30 people show up.
And she did that just as a thank you for the help we were able to provide her.
So I'm not going to read all of that.
It's on our website.
This is another one, I think sometimes libraries don't do a good enough job of promoting the good work they do.
So we have this page on our small business site, and we update it with new businesses that we've assisted, and they kind of give a little testimonial about how the SBIC helped them.
And we can use this during -- for advocacy tools, and it's just -- I can't tell you how much that's helped us.
So I did want to say, I didn't want to stop with just that.
I wanted to end with this slide.
It's obvious from the report that I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, libraries are coming up with amazing creative and smart ways to reach out to the small business community.
At the Cecil County Public Library, we're always looking to explore ways we can improve and expand our services.
So this year we held our first start-up Cecil team business plan contest.
It was basically a shark tank style business plan contest that I did a partnership with our YA librarian.
And we're proud to say we were actually one of the top 10 summer learning program contest winners.
That was really exciting.
We had over 20 teams participate, and we were able to award the top three finishers with prize  money.
We had a local bank sponsor this.
And the money was used for those teams to help launch their businesses.
And we had a local banker, a local business person, and a county council member judge the contest.
Which was another way to promote the library's outreach to the business community.
Inviting those judges to come to the library.
And it was so successful, we're going to make this an annual program.
And it was neat, because the county council invited the top three winners to the council meeting and they gave them a pin, and made a big deal out of it for these kids, and they got to present again to the council, the whole council with their idea, so it was a really great event.
And got just -- again, it was just trying to reach a different population in the business community, teach these teens about what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
And we're going to keep that up, we're going to do it next year too.
And the other thing I wanted to mention, our county is in the process of creating a business incubator.
I see the link just went up in the chat box.
It's still in the very early stages.
They're not quite sure what it's going to look like yet, but we are exploring the ways that the library can be a part of that process.
Again, I don't know what our involvement is going to be yet, but we're trying to stay informed, and we're excited about it and we man to make sure we can capitalize on it, and see how it's going to positively impact small businesses in our community.
So we're really excited to see how that moves forward.
I hope you found a few take-away ideas you can use in your system to effectively reach out to entrepreneurs in the larger business community.
If you have any questions, please feel free contact me.
I really appreciate WebJunction for hosting this webinar and inviting me to speak.
I just -- I hope you all got something out of it, maybe one or two tangible things you can take back to your system to use.
But I'm here for questions.
It looks like we have five more minutes.
>> Jennifer: Excellent.
Everybody is really very, very thankful for all this that you brought.
There was a great question that you touched on a little bit when you talked about testimonials and the importance of this in the community.
Maybe imagine -- I know you came into this, the position with the center already in place, but can you talk a little bit about ways that you think folks could get management on board if they don't already have something like this in place?
How do you get management to support a program like this?
>> Laura: Well, you know, I guess one thing we always look to is our mission statement.
Our mission is to -- we want to reach everyone in the community.
And business owners are a part of that.
And so we just really felt that they -- we have these -- this niche service, these -- we have the skill set to help them, we have the resources to help them, and honestly, I would look at it as a reference question.
It's not necessarily expanding your services.
You already offer a lot of this potential, it's there, if that makes sense.
It's just honing in on it.
And I also say in terms of the advocacy, I really can't stress that enough.
I know it may be a lot of work up front to position yourself to the business communicated.
But once you do, just for me, attending chamber events, attending networking events in the  community, talking to -- at college classes, those aren't people necessarily that are coming into the library.
So spreading the word about the amazing services that are offered, when I'm in there, I'm not just talking about business services.
If I get to talking, it's like, wow, I didn't know the library offered these databases for business owners.
And I say, yeah, and I say, you know, we also offer X, Y, Z.
And promoting other programs through that.
We get a lot of new people in the door just from that.
And then like I said, again with the advocacy, having these business owners that can say, because of the library, we were able to do -- hire this person or start this business, or add another location to our business.
That economic growth that we're helping with, that's really powerful.
And that's not expected.
And a lot of elected officials just -- it's hard for them to turn away from that, if that makes sense.
So I would just emphasize that.
Does that help?
>> Jennifer: Yes, definitely.
And I want to encourage people to use that recent ALA report as well.
There's a lot of information in that introduction that helps tell the story of the library as business incubator.
And then I'll also want to mention on the event page towards the bottom, there are a number of WebJunction resources.
Some of you may remember we did a project focused on libraries supporting work force development, and there was a whole segment related to that that touched on small business development.
There's a resource called 25 ways your library can support the small business community, there's a pathway that focuses on small businesses and entrepreneurship.
There's an example of a very short video of a library that provides a start-up, a business start-up backpack that libraries -- patrons can check out.
So, again, way more information that you can explore as well on that.
So again, thank you so much.
There was a quick question about what your Cecil County area is like.
And I know that you touch on it in the video.
The wonderful video testimonial, but do you want to give a quick snapshot of your community?
>> Laura: Sure.
We have about 100,000 people, and we're sort of on the eastern shore of Maryland.
We're positioned sort of halfway between Baltimore and -- Baltimore is about an hour away, Philadelphia is maybe an hour and a half to two hours away.
Washington, DC is two hours away.
But we're a much more rural -- we're close to these big cities but we're more of a rural county.
But we're five-minute drive from 95, which will take us to all those places.
If that -- if that gives you an idea.
>> Jennifer: Yeah.
And I know in the video it touches on the -- there is a real entrepreneurial spirit in your community as well.
So I -- I think your community has drawn a number of different -- both small businesses, but other larger businesses as well.
So it seems like there's a lot of really bright people in your community.
>> Laura: Well thank you.
>> Jennifer: Excellent.
All right.
Well, I think we're at the top of the hour.
Thank you all for being a really excellent audience.
We were just discussing how impressive your chat has been.
So we can definitely share the chat with you as well, and I'm going to call from all of your contributions and idea those to the event page.
As you leave today, I'll send you to a short survey.
We really appreciate the feedback for our ongoing programming and we'll share that feedback with Laura as well.
And later today I'll send you an email once the recording is available, and I'll sends you all a certificate of attendance within the week.
So thank you all so very much.
And thank you Laura, really, truly, your library is exceptional, and we're so excited to be able to share the great work you do.
>> Laura: That's so kind.
Thanks for inviting me.
>> Jennifer: Everyone have a fantastic day.
Bye bye.