Biggest challenges facing LI minority-owned firms and potential remedies

Financing, hiring and training employees, and government regulations.

Those are the top challenges facing small businesses that are owned by members of minority groups, according to the head of a group of university-based centers that provide free counseling to entrepreneurs.

“Access to capital is the No. 1 challenge for minority-owned businesses,” said Sonya Smith, statewide director of the New York Small Business Development Centers, or SBDCs. “Cash flow, paying the bills is a concern — and without financing it’s difficult to build and grow your business.”

She said SBDC counselors at Farmingdale State College, Stony Brook University and elsewhere in the state can help entrepreneurs manage cash flow and develop a productive relationship with a bank.

More information about the Farmingdale center may be found at farmingdale.edu/small-business-development-center/ and the Stony Brook Center, stonybrook.edu/commcms/sbdc/. 

Smith, who was named SBDC chief in January 2022, was the keynote speaker for a Minority Enterprise Development Week event at Hempstead Town Hall Pavilion on Wednesday. Additional events have been planned for later this month by the Long Island African American Chamber of Commerce.

“Another big challenge is that it’s hard to find qualified workers,” Smith said in an interview last week. “So, businesses often need to develop [employees’] professional skills as well as their interpersonal skills.”

But some minority entrepreneurs assume they must pay the cost of employee training because they are unfamiliar with the availability of apprenticeships and community college courses. “These free resources mean you don’t have to take money from your business,” she said.

Smith also said keeping up with government regulations poses a challenge. She advised tracking the expiration dates of licenses and permits needed to operate in the state, and when taxes are due.

“It’s easy to feel overwhelmed,” said Smith, who is the first woman and first Black person to lead the state’s SBDCs.

Besides the SBDCs, the audience of about 40 people heard presentations about doing business with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, JPMorganChase, Bank of America and PSEG Long Island.

Phil Andrews, the chamber’s president, said its website — Liaacc.org  — would become an information clearinghouse for minority business owners.

“We aren’t doing our job if you aren’t growing,” he said.

Rose Ward, chamber vice president, agreed, saying the Hempstead Town event and others this month are designed to “reconnect small businesses with the resources they need. These events make it possible so people who have the skills, drive and determination to succeed will have a greater opportunity,” said Ward, CEO and founder of the Uniondale-based consulting firm NFocus Management Group LLC.

Jordan Isaac, owner of Cornucopia Business Consulting in Yaphank, said he attended the three-hour event “to continue my education on programs available to small businesses and minority business enterprises to grow … I can pass [the information] along to owners that I interact with all year who have either forgotten what they heard at the workshops or have been too busy to implement them,” said Isaac, who serves as the chamber’s Suffolk County director.

More information about future MED Week events may be found at liaacc.org/events-list/#!event-list. 

By James T. Madore

james.madore@newsday.comJamesTMadore

James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.