MANATEE -- The entrepreneurs nodded yes to the questions posed to them at Monday’s small business conference.
And those questions gauged the local business community’s financial needs, including:
n Are you a small business owner who needs a loan of $50,000 or less?
n Do you have a long-standing relationship with a bank but still have trouble accessing capital?
Business owners at U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan’s Small Business Conference say they are still feeling the impact of the Great Recession’s credit crunch.
“It’s really tight out there,” said Bill Edwards, president of Armstrong Bros. Plumbing in Bradenton. “You do have to be pretty stellar if you’re in the construction business to gain a loan.”
An estimated 80 local business owners and leaders attended the conference at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee.
Officials from the U.S. Small Business Administration, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Enterprise Florida were among the business groups on hand to discuss available financial and business planning resources.
Of particular interest for some local businesses were the financial resources coming available from the Bradenton-based startup non-profit, Suncoast Community Capital Corp.
The business group will focus on providing economic development in low- to moderate-income areas, and has two micro-loan programs in the works for up-and-coming entrepreneurs in the area.
Suncoast Community Capital, in partnership with the Manatee Community Action Agency, has a loan program that helps low-income Manatee County residents start a business. Those loans range between $2,000 to $12,000.
Suncoast Community Capital is also talking with an undisclosed financial institution to provide business loans at $50,000 or less.
“Our non-profit combines business development services with access to capital as a way to help startup businesses and a means to help lift people up out of poverty,” said Mike Kennedy, executive director of Suncoast Community Capital.
Suzanne Kurutz, owner of Your Termite and Pest Control, said she wished Suncoast Community Capital had been available when she started her Bradenton business four years ago.
“I’ve found in the past I wasn’t able to get a small business loan because I didn’t want enough money,” Kurutz said.
Access to capital remains one of the biggest challenges for businesses, Buchanan says.
Economic conditions have changed the underwriting process for banks as well as loan requirement standards.
“One of the biggest issues our small businesses are facing is access to capital,” Buchanan said. “For small- to medium-sized businesses, the terms for getting a line of credit is completely different today than what it was years ago.”
Kevin Connelly, president of Apollo Sunguard, can relate.
Connelly said new regulations for construction projects made it difficult for his Sarasota manufacturing company to take on a $370,000 project at Ed Smith Stadium, spring training grounds for the Baltimore Orioles.
Connelly’s business was selected to build and install shades for the stadium, but due to the size of the project it required bonding.
Apollo Sunguard had to hire a bonding company, and get a line of credit from SunTrust Bank to deposit the required one-third of the project cost with the bonding company.
“In the last 14 years, none of the projects I’ve worked on have required bonding,” Connelly said. “It certainly presented a lot of challenges.”
