Minnesota Business Mentors presented by our very own Ron Usem

 

The organization is approx. 25 members from various vocational backgrounds and the mission is to offer people advice on new business startups.  Some of the areas of advice include: marketing, sales, IT, law, accounting, etc.  There is no charge for accessing the services.  Advising sessions are done both via Zoom and in-person and have extreme flexibility to meet on the business owners’ schedules.

 

Ex.: A guy just finished chiro school, apprenticing for a business owner, wants to branch off on his own and take some customers- MN Biz Mentors advised against it or risk receiving a cease-and-desist letter.

 

Ex.: Engineers checking air quality, start own business, get sued by former employer for taking customers, turns out the customer list was kept as a public advertisement book and deemed not kept as a trade secret, point is you need to protect customer lists and trade secrets as advised by the MN Biz Mentors.

 

Ex.: A black woman started a trucking company, the MN Biz Mentors helped connect her with government contracts focusing on women and diversity-owned businesses.

 

Ex.: A lady in northside Minneapolis teaching kids to sew by making theater costumes, etc.- MN Biz Mentors advised her which fit nicely with Rotary and other organizations in that teaching young kids the trade and art form was fostering “building responsible youth.”

 

Ex.: A well established local company with 3 owners in their 30s were squabbling over how to direct the business and their specific time and efforts contributed- MN Biz Mentors advised on putting job descriptions in place and asking questions such as “what do they do?”, “what are they good at?”, “what do they want to do?”- and this helped define their strengths and aspirations to ultimately help their business succeed.

 

Another tool or exercise that the MN Biz Mentors work through with their advisees is to have them describe the essence of their business in 1 sentence.  What’s the problem or opportunity or unmet needs?  How are you going to solve the problem?  Who is your target market?  How are you going to communicate your business message to your target market?  What will it cost to do so?

Ron also recommended the book Traction as one of the better all-encompassing books on what you need to do to start a business.

 

Questions:

 

Q- How is the MN Biz Mentors different from the SBA’s Score program?  A- It’s less regimented than the SBA Score problem, however several members were once part of the program.

 

Q- How do you find clients?  A- Website and marketing, heavily on social media.

 

Q- What is the MN Biz Mentors’ geographical focus?  A- Upper Midwest regional focus.