October is Small Business Month in Canada, and Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Clinton, Lytton, Spences Bridge and the surround areas are full of small businesses.
Community Futures is dedicated to helping small businesses succeed through loans, counselling and workshops, and CFDC Sun Country (www.cfsun.ca) is no different.
“The most important thing for small businesses is staying on top of their financials,” says Sun Country manager Deb Arnott. “That has to be the number one issue for small businesses - from day to day to year end.”
Sun Country is promoting two live webinars on Oct. 27 through Small Business BC (www.smallbusinessbc.ca) on Business Finance. While there isn’t a large cost to take part, Sun Country is offering to assist with 50 per cent. The business owner can sit at home and take part or come into the Sun Country office in Ashcroft and use the computers, says Arnott.
“I believe most small business owners have the technology,” she says. “The challenge is having the time to learn it all.” She adds that the client can phone Small Business BC ahead of time and they’ll walk them through it.
The webinars topics are Understanding Financial Statements and Financial Analysis.
Sun Country is also holding an Open House on Oct. 16 in their office on Railway Ave.
“My perception of small business in our region is they need to get back to their core,” Arnott says. “That usually means revisiting their business plan. A business plan goes from global to day to day operations, and there may be global issues affecting their business.”
As customers, we can support small businesses by spending time with the owners, says Arnott. People will go into Kamloops instead of asking local owners to bring something in for them, she says. Businesses can’t carry everything, but they should be able to bring in special orders overnight, and businesses owners need to communicate this to their customers,
She says more networking with other local small business owners can help all of them come up with better ways of doing business.