By ROBERT A.

DEFRANK

Staff Writer

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a stiff toll on small businesses in the area, but with 2021 there comes a wide range of tools to recover and grow.

“We all want to get what kind of help we can get to get through,” Bob Sabo, owner of Jenkins Sporting Goods said. “It’s been tough times for a lot of people.”

Crystal Lorimor, executive director of the Belmont County Department of Development, said her agency is one that offers assistance.

“We continue to work one-on-one with businesses,” she said, adding this includes advising and helping business owners gain access to resources and experts that can help them with all facets of a business.

“We have received a (United States Department of Agriculture) grant where we can provide more assistance and resources to the businesses,” she said.

“We’ve also started a revolving loan fund for them, and then as things from the government become available for grants and assistance in that matter, we sent that information to the businesses and share it to their Facebook page to otherwise get the word out.”

Lorimor said her agency often acts as a hub, putting businesses in touch with other resources, as well as holding conversations about their needs and opportunities.

“We have resources across the state,” she said, adding most meetings are virtual, but her agency offers clients the opportunity to come to her office so she can connect them to resources. Make them understand what they need to do.

Common issues include the need to update employee handbooks, consider different methods of marketing, often offering touch-free options.

“Small businesses sometimes don’t have a tech person right there with them so they reach out to us and say ‘how do I do something,’ and we can help them.”

Restaurants, for example, can use QR codes at tables instead of handing people menus, but they need to update their websites or look for new revenue streams.

Lorimor said demand is up and more people have expressed an interest in starting their own businesses. However, they must take several issues into account during the COVID and post-COVID era.

She said many loaning agencies will want to see COVID considerations in a business plan, such as how technology will be used to minimize touch surfaces.

“People have to really think things through and it’s going to be that way through the rest of this year,” she said.

“We work with them throughout the whole process,” Lorimor said, adding they provide assistance from research to registration and acquiring licenses. “Every business is so unique. It really takes one-on-one conversations and working at their pace.”

“Things are changing daily. While it’s scary at times, times like these also push us to become more innovative, and some of that innovation I’ve seen is really exciting.”

Lissa Jollick, regional director of the Ohio University Small Business Development Center, funded by the Small Business Association, also offers assistance to businesses and individuals in southeastern Ohio.

“We provide a lot of training. All of our counseling is at no cost,” she said. “We have a team of counselors that work one-on-one with people. … We assist in a variety of different functional areas.”

Jollick said common issues are a need for financing, financial projections and help developing a business plan, as well as guidance in terms of what a lender would want.

“(Lenders are) not getting any more lax in what they’re requiring, and businesses need to find ways to operate differently in the past. We have clients that have been very successful during the COVID era because they’ve been able to make changes in their business model.”

“We also have a lot of really powerful tools that can assist companies interested in getting help with marketing,” she said. The agency takes into account factors such as geography, demographics and trends to identify the target market. This year, the agency will grow its ability to find international markets.

Another service is financial analysis.

“A lot of business owners, they’re experts in what they do, but they don’t necessarily know how to read a financial statement, and /or they get so involved with their business that they’re not taking the time to look at their financials from a distance and say ‘what am I doing right? What am I not doing? What can I do better?”

As part of the Voinovich School, it offers a Procurement Technical Assistance Center to assist companies interested in selling to the government.

The agency has received a CARES Act grant through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, 2021, with training focusing on sales and marketing.

“Understandably there’s a lot of fear because nobody knows what to expect. This has really hurt some businesses,” she said. “Businesses really need to think about how they can do business differently, because obviously this doesn’t seem to be going away.”

The Belmont County Department of Development can be reached at 740-695-9678 or http://belmontcic.com/contact-us and the Ohio University Small Business Development Center at 740-593-1797 or https://sbdc.ohio.edu/