Under the microscope: use Microenterprise loans to help make micro a temporary condition

Entrepreneur, August, 2002 by Nichole L. Torres

THINGS WERE LOOKING PRETTY BAD FOR Margaret Quenemoen back in 1991. Her run of bad luck started with breaking her ankles, being out of work and having to live in her car. But hope came in the form of headbands she made for the winter sporting community in Telluride, Colorado. She hit a resort restaurant and ended up selling all of them to the tune of $130.

"I was living in a beautiful mountain town, and I wanted to stay--I didn't want to go home [to live] with my parents," she remembers. "I realized that I could start a business."

She became a licensed street vendor and kept receiving requests for more items--shirts, vests, pants. "It was apparent I had a real business going," says Quenemoen, 41. When she took her wares to a trade show and scored an $80,000 purchase order, she knew she'd need some funding to grow her company, Jagged Edge Mountain Gear Inc.

Enter the Utah Microenterprise Loan Fund (UMLF) in Salt Lake City. Quenemoen went to her local Small Business Development Center, which sent her to UMLF. "With their help, I built a business plan and I got that loan," she says. "Not only was the money critical, because I'd been turned down everywhere else and all my credit cards were maxed out, but they [also] gave me support." The support consisted of small-business classes with other start-ups and connections to business mentors.

That type of help is typical of a micro-enterprise loan program, according to Bill Edwards, executive director of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO), the national association of micro-enterprise development in Arlington, Virginia. "I would say virtually every microenterprise program provides training and technical assistance to an entrepreneur," he says. "Or, if they don't directly provide that service, there's an information referral--to a local community college, for example."

The information is just as valuable as the money to these entrepreneurs, many of whom are in the early stages of their ventures and have very little business experience. In fact, the term "microenterprise" is defined as a company with fewer than five employees that is seeking $25,000 or less in capital. According to the AEO, there are currently 2 million micro-entrepreneurs in the United States today. "If someone wants to start a business, their chances of success are going to be much greater if they work with a microenterprise program," says Edwards.

That was certainly the case for Quenemoen, who now sells her Jagged Edge line of products in three retail stores in Colorado and online at www.jagged-edge.com. She recently paid off the $10,000 loan she received through the microenterprise program and expects the company's 2002 sales to hit $2.8 million. "I would definitely send [other business owners] to the microenterprise loan fund," she says. "If they're not in the Utah area, I'd refer them to one in their community."

Permanent Press

MAKE YOUR WEB SITE A MAGNET FOR NEWS-HUNGRY JOURNALISTS.

YOUR WEB SITE IS MANY THINGS: AN introduction to customers, an information hub and a showcase for your stellar product or service. What many entrepreneurs forget, however, is their Web site is often the first stop for journalists seeking information about a company. Savvy business owners know that to get coverage, Web sites not only have to be accessible to journalists, but also be attractive to them.

We asked Deborah Schwartz, president of Media Relations Inc., a public relations firm in Bethesda, Maryland, to give us the skinny on how you can get noticed by reporters without being an irritation at the same time.

Make it easy to navigate. Reporters are usually on deadline and have a very limited amount of time to research--they don't want to spend to minutes watching your extravagant Flash intro while it sucks up their bandwidth. Always include a clear "skip intro" button.

* Include basic information. Make sure the press contact phone number, address and e-mail are easy to find. Reporters like to follow up- and it helps if they have a number to call.

* Be picky about press releases. "I'm a stickler," says Schwartz. "A press release has to be legitimate news." While John Q. Employee's big promotion to head of accounting may be very exciting to you, it's not exactly what you'll see on CNN. Be very choosy when deciding which press releases you want to put on your Web site.

* Edit your bios. When a reporter is looking to do a story on you, the company Web site is one of the first places he or she will look for background information on you and your key executives. Make it brief and interesting, and include topics in which you have expertise. "It's an overview of who you are," says Schwartz, "not where you graduated from school."

* Create interesting links. Point visitors to your site toward a charity your business is involved with or to articles that have been written about you in the past. Says Schwartz, "It ends credibility."

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