E179: SCORE: Free Mentoring and Resources for Small Business Owners with Betsy Dougert

[00:00:00] Ronald Skelton: And welcome to the How2Exit Podcast. Today I'm here with Betsy Dougert. And she is at SCORE and we're going to explain today what SCORE is and, what benefit it has to you guys as acquisition entrepreneurs. Whether you're buying, growing, or selling a company. Uh, there's some real cool resources. So I've asked SCORE to send us a pro.

They can explain it and they put you on the spot, Betsy. So I thank you for being here today.

[00:00:23] Betsy Dougert: They sure did. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. 

[00:00:27] Ronald Skelton: So we always start off with their origin story, but since you're representing SCORE, we can blend that in. So tell us a little bit about who you are so we can kind of like you, right.

And then we'll tell us like, why work at SCORE. Kind of like who you are, why you're working at SCORE would be fun. And then we'll talk, start getting really deep into what SCORE is and how it can benefit the listeners. 

[00:00:45] Betsy Dougert: Absolutely. Yeah. SCORE actually has a really interesting origin story. So first I'll tell you about myself.

As you said, my name is Betsy Dougert. I'm the Vice President of External Relations for SCORE. And what that means is that, I am responsible for letting entrepreneurs out there know about SCORE. Know that we are here. With doors open, ready and waiting to serve you. So I'm responsible for our public relations, social media, alliance partnerships, and government relations.

And I really just love sharing the story of all the different clients that we serve and our amazing 10, 000 volunteers all across the country. Who provide free mentoring and free and low cost education for anyone who dreams of starting a business, growing a new small business, or selling and exiting a business.

[00:01:40] Ronald Skelton: It's awesome. I've known about you guys for quite some time. But I play around in the entrepreneur community for a long time. And, uh, I've seen, I think I even learned through school or through somebody like you came to speak at a, I think we used to call 1 million cops. Which was, Kaiser foundation. Um, entrepreneurial thing we met, I used to be once a week and I think they do it once a month, but then different cities, but people get pitches. Occasionally I had to bring it in a cool company that had a resource for all the entrepreneurs. And the, uh, and a speaker, somebody similar to what you do came in and talked about it and I was like, okay, that's a, that's been around for a while.

And we'll talk about that. And then, It's a really cool resource. I went through some workshops there myself. So,let's talk about SCORE. When was it founded? Why does SCORE exist kind of thing? 

[00:02:28] Betsy Dougert: Absolutely. Well, as you noted, we have been around for quite some time. We're actually coming up on our 60th anniversary of operations.

And so we were started all the way back in 1964 by a group of retired DuPont executives, who had time on their hands, a ton of business expertise and a real desire to give back to their community and to small business owners. So since that day, we have been providing free and confidential mentoring to business owners.

The world has changed quite a bit since the 60s. So now, of course, we do a lot of online mentoring, online workshops, and we offer free online tools, too, that business owners can download. Things like customizable templates. Whether that's business planning, cash flow analysis, financial projections. So we did a little bit of everything, and wherever your audience is located, we do have a SCORE chapter somewhere near them because we're in every state. 

And I also think it's important for people to know that they can access our services online from anywhere in the country. So if you don't have a SCORE chapter down the street from you, we have about 215, so not everyone will have them right down the street. You can always hop on our website at score. org and access all of our services there. 

[00:03:56] Ronald Skelton: So free mentorship. Now that's a lot of people hear that and go, yeah, but what's the catch, right? Cause we live in a world of where nothing's free. And in this particular space, a lot of people that come out and say, Hey, free ideas has a pitch on the other end, right?

The free consulting, but we want a little equity on the backside of your deal or a finder's fee or a negotiations fee or I mean, heck, that's how I make a lot of my money is fees based off of results, right? SCORE is a hundred percent, truly, honestly free, correct? 

[00:04:27] Betsy Dougert: Yeah, that's a great question. Cause we do have a lot of suspicion out there when we mentioned this.

And it's true that our mentoring is always no cost. Our workshops are either free or sometimes there's a very low cost associated. If there's something like a textbook or some work materials, they might cost 25, $35, but something as low as that. And the reason that we are free is because we are primarily federally funded.

So I like to tell business owners, you have already prepaid for SCORE services with your tax dollars. So please take advantage. You've already done the hard part. You've paid to work with us through your taxes. And now it's absolutely free to come and use our services. And there is no catch. There really isn't.

It's, there's no upselling. What you see is what you get. It really is just a group of volunteers who want to give back and share their knowledge. 

[00:05:24] Ronald Skelton: So are you guys like a branch of the SBA? Or associated to them in some sort? 

[00:05:29] Betsy Dougert: Yes. We are an official resource partner of the SBA, the U. S. Small Business Administration.

So we are not a government agency. We're an independent non profit. We're kind of a cousin organization of some of the other SBA resource partners that you may have heard of. Those are the Small Business Development Centers and the Women's Business Centers. You might also have heard of the VBOCs, the Veterans Business Outreach Centers.

We all are closely affiliated with SBA and work really well all together to serve business owners all across the country. We refer clients to each other all the time. Some of our local chapters and offices will specialize in certain areas more than another. So when you come to SCORE, you really are tapping into that nationwide network, not just of SCORE chapters, but of all those other resource partners too, that we know and will refer people around to. Because at the end of the day, it's really just about getting business owners the help that they need and there are more than enough small business owners to go around and not enough help out there. So we're happy to do it.

[00:06:31] Ronald Skelton: It's interesting that, I'm a prior military veteran, Air Force veteran. Was there an Air Force intelligence back in the nineties. Um, that said, I don't think I've ever even talked to anybody from the veterans version of the SBA or the, the veterans assistance for business anyway.I've talked to some SCORE. Uh, one of the cool things I've ever done with SCORE is I had, I was doing an acquisition. I was trying to do an acquisition, I should say. And I didn't understand the financials. So I seen somebody on SCORE that was an accountant. And I reached out to him and said, Hey, could you help me look this over?

It just doesn't make sense. I'm not asking you to do financial due diligence for me, but there's something about their balance statement, income statement and cashflow statements. The financials just, you know. Before I even pay for a, a, uh, quality of earnings type report or anything, I just think this looks weird.

And I took it in front of him. He's absolutely like, yeah, you got to either tell him, no. He looked at the, you know,within about an hour, the guy was like, we went through everything, they gave me some tax returns and some other stuff and some balance sheets and some quick book reports that he said, either pay for, a full blown financial due diligence, uh, quality of earnings type of thing, or tell these people no.

Something, he listed about a dozen things that didn't look right. So, um, that was a cool, fast,great hour spent. It was the first time I had used them in that realm. You know, We had an entrepreneur center in Tulsa. We've had SCORE come out and do something on marketing or something for like somebody, one of the mentors would come talk to us about that.

And then some of the business networking things that we would do. The events that we'd hold. We'd make sure somebody from SCORE was there to, have a booth and share and tell what they did. So I've had decent, I don't have anything negative. No bad, I've never had a bad school or mentor or bad, bad advice from SCORE. But, I've had some cool things where I thought, well, I wonder if this would be,if they could help me with this. And usually there's somebody there. You guys have quite a team. 

[00:08:21] Betsy Dougert: Exactly, right. Yeah, our mentors have backgrounds in all different areas of industry. Expertise in different stages of the business life cycle. A lot of our small business owner clients will have more than one mentor. So maybe in their earlier days they want more of that building block mentor who can help them with all those startup processes. And the initial growth, but then as they grow and expand, they want someone in their industry. That might be a particularly important if they're in retail or if they're in a food business, they might want someone with connections to some of those big companies, big names.

And then, of course, when it comes time to sell or exit a business, as I know a lot of your listeners are interested in. That's a whole new skill set. So many of our clients work with multiple mentors and I'm really glad to hear that you've had good experiences. I will say that that's typical. That's why we've been around for 60 years.

Most people have a great experience and we're all human beings and it is not impossible to not always click with everyone right away. Um, I also like to tell people, if you do have a mentoring session and it just doesn't feel like the right fit, or it feels like there might be more that you could discuss with someone else, don't be afraid to move on and find your next right person.

It's just like going to the doctor or going to a therapist. The personality fit really does matter. And so it's absolutely okay to, you know, that's why there are 10, 000 mentors all across the country. If one doesn't work, we have 9, 999 others who may well be the right fit for you. And that can really be anything. Some of our small business owner clients really want to find someone local because local regulations might really matter to their business. Or maybe they just work better face to face. Maybe they know from that accountability partnership angle that if someone's not waiting for them at the SCORE office, they may not make their session.

That person will need a local mentor. Now someone else might be working a nine to five and might have kids at home and might need to schedule a mentoring session at eight o'clock at night. That person would probably prefer a virtual mentor, and we can absolutely do that. Or maybe again, it's the industry.

So it just depends on you and what you want. Whatever you want, we definitely have someone in the network who can provide it or a partner who can provide that expertise. And the last thing, just because you mentioned that you were a veteran, I just really wanted to thank you for your service and to let you know that there is a veterans entrepreneurship hub on score. org.

Where we put customized specialized resources for veterans. Sometimes funding opportunities that become available, sometimes special resources, education. And we also have a small sampling of some of our SCORE veteran mentors because to some vets, it's really important that they have someone who just understands firsthand what they've been through and can really help advise on the many transferable skills that our veterans have to offer entrepreneurship and small business ownership.

[00:11:25] Ronald Skelton: That's awesome. I'll have to check that out just because, I get a lot of veterans reach out to me because they, they see it on my LinkedIn and they know I'm always, you know, I'll stop what I'm doing to help another veteran. Yeah, so they'll reach out to me. And so to know that resources there is pretty cool.

There are some other small veteran entrepreneur group resources that are independent that I sometimes send people to. I have friends that are involved in those, but, uh, to know that SCORE has ones they've vetted and trust enough to put on their websites important. So and i'll be honest, the reason I didn't say the SCORE advisor's name for the accounting thing was, I didn't get along with him. He did his job very well, but he was very i'm very kind of joke around a lot. Kind of goof off kind of guy and this guy was like focus on this. Like him and my ADHD did not get along.

But I got it. We got the job done. He did a very good job at what he, what I went to him for. I would give him five stars every, every day. 

So it was an old, it was one of your older guys too. He was pretty old. It was in a, it was in the, uh, Dallas region. I'll put it that way. 

[00:12:26] Betsy Dougert: So lots of different personalities. Totally okay, if you don't click on the first round. That's why there are so many of us out there from a really diverse variety of backgrounds. Both you know and who we are as people and in the way that we think and interact with each other. 

[00:12:41] Ronald Skelton: The only reason I brought it up because I think it's important that we know as any profession. You know that, the first person you come across may not be the right fit for you.

Right? The first mergers and acquisition attorney you go to, it doesn't, if it doesn't feel right move. Cause that guy can damage your deal. If a mentor advisor doesn't feel right for you, move. One of the advisors I like the most that I use for a long time, now we're best friends, when I hired him off as a performance coach and we brought him in as a performance coach.

He was strict, but he's prior Marine Corps, right? And he's Robin Madonnas trained by Tony Robbins and his crew, their crew. But, uh, no joke. I got to tell you stuff that would just shatter you in a second. Just no, no holding back. But that's what you need, that's what I needed in the moment. So like, it's the only reason I bring it up is, Get out there, talk to these different mentors, meet different ones, figure out which ones click and have the expertise you need.

The other thing is, is we all have our own expertise, right? The accounting guy, if I had to take, you know, I picked him up because he was a retired CPA. And I needed some, something, I had a friend who was a bookkeeping and it looks fine. It's just awkward. It's like they do things weird. Like, no, I think there's something missing.

Anyway, found out later there was something major, major going on there. I wouldn't have picked, I wouldn't have ever taken marketing to him, right? Even though he's a general thing, I would look through there and figure out somebody who is either the CEO or maybe even was the Chief Marketing Officer for a while.

You guys have such a variety of people with, killer skills. Now your average small business owner, a lot of the people listening in here, they've, we've owned businesses before. Or we've just got our, you know, a lot of the ETA and search funders, those are probably terms you'd may or may not know, but an ETA is acquisition through entrepreneurship, right?

Entrepreneurship through acquisitions, why it's called ETA. I guess I got it backwards there. But, um, buying a business instead of building one. And then the search funder basically is a term that came out of the Ivies, back, Oh, I want to say 20 something, 30 something years ago or longer. I interviewed the guy that created the second one, but a search fund is where you raise money to acquire a company.

So you got an MBA, you raise money to do the search. A lot of times you'll raise a couple of hundred thousand dollars to fund your living expenses. And maybe an analyst or two to help you out while you find a business to acquire. And then the people that were in that fund that you raise money from have their first right of refusal.

If you need to raise money to acquire the company when you find one. So it's an investor back thing. But those two listener bases would definitely benefit from the SCORE teams and the mentors you guys have. So let's talk about how, what does it take to become a SCORE mentor? Cause that'll give people an idea of the class and qualities of mentors you guys have.

[00:15:22] Betsy Dougert: Yeah, that's a great question. And it is a rigorous recruiting and onboarding process. We welcome anyone who wants to be a SCORE mentor. If anyone listening to this has business expertise and a desire to give back and a little bit of free time, we always welcome new volunteers with open arms. Now, to be a mentor, you do have to have some kind of business expertise.

About half of our mentors are currently working either as entrepreneurs or executives. Another half are retired. And it can be in any area of industry. We have experts in marketing, finance, HR, operations, all different industries, you know, absolutely anything you can think of in any part of the country.

We have people representing that segment. When someone joins, what we do is make sure that they have the skills to teach what they know. Because what we found is it's one thing to know all this business expertise and it's a totally separate skill set to be able to teach that to others and to share and to pass that on.

So part of that training is there's a mentoring methodology that we follow and it starts really with listening and getting to know the client. Really humbling ourselves and, putting ourselves aside for a moment and just listening to who that client is as a person. What kinds of challenges that are facing in their business, what their dreams are and what success would look like to them.

And it's not our jobs as mentors to be the judge of, someone's decisions. It's to support people and help them get to where they want to go. So sometimes that takes the form of thoughtful questions. You know, have you thought about that? Or I'm surprised to hear that. Often it takes on the form of cheerleading, really seeing that spark of success.

Seeing that person poised on the edge of going from good to great and helping them tip over into fabulous new heights of success. But it, it can be a pretty long process, a pretty rigorous process to onboard as a mentor. It takes at least a few months, if not more, and it usually looks like a bit of co mentoring at first with a seasoned mentor.

And then the training wheels come off and you'll be able to mentor your own clients. So, um, I do like to be honest and upfront about what really goes into becoming a mentor, but I don't want to dissuade people because it really is an incredibly rewarding role. We ask our mentors all the time, Why do you do this?

Collectively, they give over 4 million hours a year to American small business owners. And we ask them all the time, why do you volunteer time this way when you could be charging in private practice to 250 an hour. And what they continually say on anonymous and on surveys where they put their name.

So I know they really mean it because we're collecting all this data. Is that they really just do it to get back. They feel like they went through all this. They learned a lot of these lessons the hard way, and they really just want to lift up others with them. So I just think that's incredibly inspiring.

That is why I work for SCORE and do what I do to uplift those mentors voices and just let more small business owners know that this incredible group of people is just ready and waiting to serve them. 

[00:18:45] Ronald Skelton: I'm working on an article, be a little bit in some people's face, but I'm, I'm going to do it anyway.

And I think the article eventually be called that losers start businesses and I can prove it. And it's jokingly, but serious. And the fact that we were talking about before the show that I think the numbers, I actually, I'll pull them up and look at them. So in the first year, this is done off the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Data shows that approximately 25 or 20 percent of businesses fail in the first two years that they open. 45 within the first five years and 65 by the first 10 years, only 25 or less percent of all businesses make it to the 15 year mark. And then out of those, if you want to start a business and you're trying to hit that elusive million dollars of revenue, only 9 percent of all businesses ever opened in the United States hit the $1, 000, 000 revenue mark.

So it's a 91 percent chance you won't get there. That all said, there's resources most of these people aren't using. It's very clear they're not using. There's a lot of, there's a lot of hurdles in starting a business, right? Product market fit. Great idea. Timing of the market.

All this stuff that has to happen but, a lot of these guys, they think they have to do it on their own. And one of the reasons I have you on the show and stuff is people reach out to me and they're like, the favorite thing is, can I pick your brain? I was like, I like, glad that's not real. Cause if I let everybody pick my brain and they got to, when you pick something, you get a piece of it, right?

You're picking at it. I wouldn't have anything left. Cause I do it a lot. I take a lot of the calls. And most of the time, they could have better be served to have somebody consistent. I can't do it consistently with those guys. And then I always refer them to SCORE or to find somebody in their industry.

They can work with them on a longer term basis, right? I can answer questions in 30 minutes, but you know, I can't do that every week for the next two years for you. And your questions are going to grow and change over time and you need somebody consistently with a history of working with you. So,let's talk about like, if you're in all 50 states, so one of the things that people listen in the show, you have a lot of people that listen to the show from, we, we have people all over the place. Dubai, Australia, Europe, Turkey, I know two or three people right now, they're sitting in Turkey right now. They listen, um, so they're all around.

A lot of them are U. S. uh, ex military, they're expats. But they buy businesses and they buy them here in the United States. So what is the criteria to get mentorship, even if we have to do it online? If you own a U. S. business, can you do, you SCORE 

[00:21:12] Betsy Dougert: Yeah, that's a great question. So the answer to this comes from SCORE's federal funding.

So we are funded by the American taxpayer. And so, um, All of our mentoring takes place inside the U. S. Now, if you can access the website from wherever you are good on you. You know, sometimes people on American military bases are able to do that. I'm not totally familiar with how everyone is coming into our system.

But basically, if you can access it and access our resources, that is ideal. Also, when you had been speaking earlier, I had a thought, uh, yes. Okay. When you were talking about how the vast majority of business owners are trying to go out alone, to do everything by themselves, that really resonated with me because SCORE did do a brand awareness survey a few years ago now. Where we just asked a big cross section of American small business owners, which business facing, business serving organizations they had heard of.

And it was shocking to me that the vast majority, about 75 percent had not heard of any of the business organizations that we threw out there. So that includes SCORE and the fellow SBA resource partners, but also some of the big guys like the SBA, like the U S chamber of commerce, which has local offices in so many communities.

And that was really shocking to me. And just because I know how many hats business owners are wearing and how much they are trying to deal with and trying to get through every day. They're, they probably got into business because of the product or service that they provide and having a passion for that and have now found themselves be one person, one stop shop for all things, marketing, accounting, HR, financing, recruiting, God forbid legal. And so I just think about business owners who are working so hard, putting in really long hours, are tired. And as you said, just have absolutely no idea that these resources are out there for them.

So wherever your listeners are in the world, I would just encourage them to see if they can tap into these networks. With SCORE you just go to the website score dot org, and hopefully you'll be able to access it from where you are. But also think about other resources like your local chambers of commerce.

Like your local Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, Black Chambers of Commerce. The SBA can be a really good resource for that because they do have a lot more funding than SCORE does. So they have a much bigger footprint, and they can, their website is also really valuable, just SBA. gov, in helping people tap into the vast networks of resources that are available to them that are really underutilized, as our data unfortunately shows.

[00:24:12] Ronald Skelton: So what methods do you guys use to get your words out? I seem to remember there were there, I don't know if they're still doing them, but it used to be like,there used to be something, uh, related to like networking events that, the SCORE of either put on or really active in.

So what, what goes on right now that can help entrepreneurs kind of get a feel for who you guys are and get a taste for what SCORE does? 

[00:24:36] Betsy Dougert: Absolutely. Yeah, we try to get the word out in so many different ways. And it's really interesting. We pull our clients and ask how they found us. And it really comes from two opposite ends of the scale.

So on the one side of the spectrum, a lot of business owners have found us through online search, just searching business help near me. And the SCORE team does a great job of making sure that our website is easily findable, that it's absolutely packed with resources so people can just head to score. org to answer your other part of the question.

And look all through hundreds and hundreds of workshops that are taking place either in person in their communities or online. And then on the other side of the spectrum, we have word of mouth marketing. We have happy small business owner clients who turn to each other and say, Hey, you should use SCORE.

I did and it worked. I was actually at an event just this morning talking about online payments with small business owners. And in the Q and A section from the audience, someone, a, a small business owner took the mic and gave a little PSA for SCORE. She said, I have been with my mentor for 10 years. You should listen to Betsy up there on the podium, because I'm telling you this works.

And I consider my mentor not only a trusted advisor and part of my team, but a personal friend after going on a decade now. So other places that you'll see us that you'll find us besides those online and in person spaces. We do a lot of events locally. We do a lot of community partnerships to try to get the word out that way.

Right now we're also running some public service announcements to build brand awareness. This is especially important. So these are on television and radio and it's especially important in rural communities where it can be really difficult to reach business owners who may not have reliable access to broadband because I said, you can tap in online and access our resources.

Well, what if you don't have reliable broadband access? So we're trying to reach people right now over the radio and they can do phone mentoring or a lot of times they'll want to do it in person. In some of our rural communities, we do have a partnership with the USDA where sometimes we will use their local offices and do some mentoring in person that way.

So what we really do when we try to get the word out is think about all the different places that small business owners go. And there are a lot of them. There's no silver bullet. And we try to go there and to catch them and all those places and just let them know that we're here. But like I said earlier, it really is a challenge.

I mean, most business owners don't know that SCORE is here. Don't know that the SBA is here and just don't realize that they don't have to do it all by themselves. 

[00:27:28] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. I was looking at the website and I see classes on everything. Like you guys do online classes and stuff too. And it looks like some in person stuff. 

They're on everything from business formation and, planning and, business plan, a marketing plan. Even succession planning, exit planning, those types of things. So it's just a huge resource there. How do you guys go about, or do you go about keeping the mentors up to date on trends and developments in the market, the economy, that type of stuff.

Is there ongoing training for mentors or are they kind of on their own to keep, keep up to date with stuff? 

[00:28:02] Betsy Dougert: Oh no, they are definitely not on their own. One of SCORE's core values is that lifelong learning matters. So we believe that the marketplace is constantly changing and growing and evolving. With COVID, I think we saw the whole world turned upside down and a lot of business best practices were amended and there had to be a lot of coaching and training. And our mentors love to learn.

We do a lot of training at the headquarters level all across our field offices, but our mentors also train us here at headquarters. They also are out there with eyes and ears open in the field, letting us know what they're seeing, what kind of training everyone needs. And that's a really important way that we make sure our mentors are relevant.

Are up to date on the latest trends and practices, pitfalls to avoid also things like regulations, things like funding opportunities that are available with some of the special funding that was available during COVID. A lot of our small business owners told us that that was the best thing we had ever done for them was, and we did work closely with the SBA district offices on that particular project. But the conditions were shifting, some of the, the payments of these loans, whether we're paying back or not, who can apply, who can't, we're sometimes shifting from day to day because it was the first time any of us had ever done this. And our mentors really were there for our small business owners. Walking them through these applications, step by step and helping them flex and take advantage of all the opportunities that were available.

So we all love to learn at SCORE. That's why we're here. That's why we do what we do. And we also learn so much from our clients. We're constantly serving and pulling our clients and asking them, what do you want to hear more about? What about what we're doing is really working for you, and what would you like to see done differently? So constantly learning and growing and evolving from that perspective as well. 

[00:30:05] Ronald Skelton: I was checking out your website, and you can actually put in your zip code in there. And just for fun while we're talking, I put in ours. And, I live and if in a place I figured there wouldn't be much, right? 

I'm up kind of in the mountains of Redwood forest in Northern California. The closest big business to me is the Korbel, winery, where Colbert, Korbel's made. That's about two miles from here. There's a little town of small business, there's a safe way here. About three miles from me, it's the only grocery store.

It's in 20 miles. So anybody wants a 15 or so, anybody wants anything, they have to kind of go there. But I was just curious, like, is there anything in my area? So I'm looking on here and they're absolutely, there's a Santa Rosa office, which is about. 12, 15 miles here. We're just on the other side of that school, just, but just past Korbel by, by eight miles.

So there's actually a office and you have, online events coming up and, you know, really cool stuff. How to start a business without asking us to capital. That's a heck of a course, right? How to transition from W employee to employer. Unlocking growth, how to scale your solo business. A lot of those translate to some of this stuff, like how to scale a solo business.

A lot of these guys are buying single operator companies. The guys our listeners. They'll buy a pest control company that had one or two people, right? And it's just, it's an add in to something they're already doing and something, but I guarantee you that class on how to scale it. There's lessons in there that would apply.

And, uh, as entrepreneurs, I really think we should do that a lot more. Find things that are like either a level above us or just below where we were that teach something and go, what inside of this still applies to me or what are this, can I draw down to me and still use. But, uh, yeah, I was curious as to, we'll click on, there's a local mentors button here.

Let's see. I see, oh my goodness. Three, six, nine, 12. Like I said, I'm in a small area. Almost two dozen. 

[00:31:54] Betsy Dougert: Very cool. Yeah. And to your point, you can also on the website put in search terms for selling or exiting your business and you'll find workshops around that specifically. I know we used to have a workshop called simple steps to selling your business.

I'll be curious to see if that one still comes up, but there are a lot of workshops and mentors who specify. It, you know, really do specialize in that important topic because that is a whole specific set of skills. And, there are a lot of different reasons for selling a business, but with careful planning, it can be done in a very optimal way and can be a really important part of your business plan.

[00:32:38] Ronald Skelton: You guys have a complete e guide on how to exit or sell your business. 

[00:32:43] Betsy Dougert: All right, good. I was hoping that was still up there.

[00:32:45] Ronald Skelton: I'm it's a, I'm looking at the blog person, post version of it, but it's pretty, pretty good there. I think you can download it too. 

[00:32:55] Betsy Dougert: We periodically update all of those different resources and go through and take down the ones that are old, put up the ones that are new and what business owners are wondering about and asking for.

So it's a continually evolving library of resources that are available to people.

[00:33:11] Ronald Skelton: that's cool. There's a, you guys have this cool thing on this called file five simple steps to, to SCORE mentoring. And it's identify, request, schedule, set goals in advance.

It's pretty, you wouldn't imagine you guys have been around for 60 years cause this thing's pretty well laid out, right? 

[00:33:27] Betsy Dougert: Yeah. Yeah. That particular resource is designed to answer the question that a lot of people ask us, which is what can I expect from my first mentoring session? A lot of people don't know and find it kind of intimidating.

And so the steps that you quickly outlined there are a great way to make the most of your mentoring. I also like to remind people that they can use all of these tools in collaboration with each other. So you can download some of the templates and online tools that you can fill out. Things like your financial projections, optimizing your cash flow, and then bring them to a mentoring session and work on those tools with your mentor.

And then maybe you follow that up with a workshop. That's really taking a deep dive into what you're especially interested in. Whether that's an area of growth or a problem that you're trying to solve. So you don't have to do just one of these things. I think when you use these tools and in collaboration with each other. That's when you really get the most out of what SCORE has to offer. 

[00:34:27] Ronald Skelton: I think one of the key elements of being an entrepreneur or business owner is being able to craft a compelling and interesting story that other people like, that all people will listen to and want to hear and be part of. And you guys have one that just aired now, it's recorded some webinar.

That's another thing when you do classes, you turn them into a recorded webinar. So we can go back and watch them later. There's one on here that looks pretty cool. It's, done this year, 20, October 26th, which was what, last week, I think. And it's storytelling, storytelling, marketing. Using your story to create con, create marketing content for your business.

I might go back and watch that. And I have a marketing MBA. It's always good to get a second and I create a lot of content, right? But, um, it's always good to take another look at other people's angles, right? This is another reason to bring a mentor. Even if your business is going well, you're profitable and you're moving forward, it's always a good idea to have somebody else look at it.

A lot of people think everything is going awesome. And then they meet somebody like me, that's looking to buy their company because they're thinking about selling it. And then I started asking questions and I'm like, they never even thought about looking at that that way. Or they never realized that their accounting needs to be a certain way in order to easily sell it. It's different than their day to day operations. I know businesses that have been around for 30 years when I asked him what about, you know, let me see your balance sheet, your income statement, your cash flow statements, because you've been around for 20 years. They go, you're what? They don't need those that do taxes, right?

That's not what they hand their CPA that does the taxes done. So they've never really operated off of them. But, um, there's some, some really cool courses on here. Is LinkedIn an effective marketing tool for small business. Anyway, I'm looking at the courses up there, but I just thought I would, I figured I'd pull it up while we're on here today.

Just people understand that the resource, the resources are really there. Hey, here's one that's cool. A lot of people might do, uh, those of you guys that are search funders and you think about crowdfunding your search campaign to raise the money to do your search, there's a thing that how to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign for your small business.

It's a recorded webinar. So there's just almost any topic you could come up with. You guys have been around long enough. There's something on it, right? And, a lot of these courses, I don't, I didn't click on any of these, but a lot of times it'll tell you the mentor that created it, like the article for exiting.

It had the two mentors that wrote it underneath there. So a lot of times you could just reach out and maybe even get ahold of people and ask questions. 

[00:36:42] Betsy Dougert: Yeah, that's absolutely possible. And that's definitely the advantage of attending the live webinars too. And there's always a Q and A at the end. So you can have your question answered right on the spot with the recorded webinars.

Of course, you're listening after the facts that you might need to do. A little more digging to get your question answered, but it's great to approach a mentor, whether it's the one who led that webinar or someone else with comparable expertise with good specific questions that were generated from that course that you took or that webinar that you watched.

[00:37:12] Ronald Skelton: Well, here's something that answers the question I asked earlier. How do you, how up to date on things do you keep your mentors? There's one on here that says how to use AI in your digital marketing strategy. I mean, that's really only came about in the last 12 months, right? Nobody was making, it's been around for a long time.

If you're, if you're a nerd like me and you knew what IBM Watson was, that thing has been around for a long time or some of the other ones out there, but, uh, for years, as far as being in the limelight and the average business owner wanting to learn anything about it, that's been in the last 12 months that you guys have a recorded webinar on that type of stuff. So, 

[00:37:46] Betsy Dougert: Absolutely yeah, that's a really hot topic with the small business owners that we serve right now. And our mentors were right at the forefront of figuring out not only how to advise business owners on ways to use AI and save themselves time and time is money in business, but also to think about all angles.

So cybersecurity risks. Some of the implications, you know, which, which roles can be done by AI and which really need to be done by a human being because you need that human voice. Or it could really change how your business sounds and appears to people. So that was absolutely the mentors who brought that topic to us and we made sure to have some resources available to everyone because it's a great tool, but it needs to be used wisely like any tool.

So, yeah, some really good resources on there about AI for sure. 

[00:38:38] Ronald Skelton: So not to dwell on this too much, but here's another one that I think a lot of people that are probably know about because you guys handle a lot of the more difficult things to do as a business owner. And one of them right here is like selling to the federal government market, right?

If anybody hasn't tried that, there's some hoops you got to go through, some qualifications you got to go through and contracts and stuff you got to understand in order and things you have to comply with in order to get in there. So having a webinar and having mentors that can help you walk through that would be very beneficial. 

I know people who have tried it and failed and I know people, I know people that succeeded and I send the guys that failed as the guys that succeeded. I did not know until this moment that you actually had courses online that would help them sort that out. So, yeah.

[00:39:20] Betsy Dougert: Oh yeah. Absolutely. That is another very hot topic with our business owners, because as you said, it can be a real to do to get in there to qualified to, cross all those T's, dot all those I's and get yourself set up. But then once you're in, you're in. And our Washington D. C. Chapter, of course, as you would expect, really specializes in this, but also some of our other chapters around the country.

And then again, more just online resources that you can access. I think if people are interested in it, it really can be very well worth it to figure out how to do that. 

[00:39:54] Ronald Skelton: And it's not even just doing it right. There's doing it right. If you did it and I did it, there should be two different preferential treatments on there's a, that can do it.

I'm a disabled veteran. You're a woman owned business potentially. I'm assuming gender here. Sorry about that. 

That said, you know, there's a difference between doing something and doing it well. You would be losing it, if you just ran through the thing and you figured it out on your own and you didn't realize there's ways to get preferential treatment on your bids to do government work, you'd be leaving stuff on the table, right?

And having a mentor walk you through on two different things, how to get those preferential treatments and then how to engineer and structure your business that when they go away, because they do go away, the women prefer that one goes away at two or three years I think. I only knew that because I try to buy her in a marketing company.

She just lost hers and all of her, she did web development for the government. Doing $3 million a year in revenue and 100 percent of her clients were government. Now she's not getting those bids and she doesn't know what to do. Having a mentor that sets you up with that and like, okay, now we're going to have to start making shifts and start doing things and doing different things and make your, change your marketing mix up a little bit.

So you keep getting clients after that preferential treatment drops. Would have been critical for her. But you know, now she thinks she needs to sell her company and it's difficult to sell a business that's in the middle of difficulties. All of us want something that's up running and growing. 

[00:41:16] Betsy Dougert: Yeah, that's such a tough story. And you're exactly right that there are a lot of special opportunities out there for entrepreneurs from different backgrounds. And so that's why we did create our various hubs through our score for all program. And then I mentioned our veterans entrepreneurs hub. There's also one for women. There's also one for black entrepreneurs, another for Hispanic entrepreneurs, another for Asian entrepreneurs.

And we are always looking to grow and expand our audiences that way as funding becomes available. Otherwise we would have all the hubs in the world. Cause there are a lot of other groups that we really, we would really like to add there, but for now, there are some really great resources that we've linked through score.Org.

And, we know that not every opportunity will apply to every entrepreneur, but our goal is to have a good set of resources for every entrepreneurs. That no matter who you are or what your background or what your business, we do have a special set of places that you can apply for funding of educational resources that will really specifically help you personally.

So, a lot of great ways to specialize that way on our website as well. You can just again, put in whatever search term appeals to you, describes you and you should find some special resources just for you. 

[00:42:41] Ronald Skelton: I was concerned that SCORE didn't have a lot of resources for the acquisition entrepreneurs, because we're not starting stuff, we're buying it.

But one of my local mentors available to me, I won't yell his name out just because it's not relevant to people on the show, unless you're in Santa, Santa Rosa. He's got 20 years experience from private equity. That's, that's his background. So that's, that's who's buying these companies.

That's a, that's the, investment banks and raising capital and all this stuff that happens when we look to, to acquire or sell these companies. We're very broad. I mean, you can't have 10, 000 mentors and not have somebody in every single space of what a business owner would need. 

[00:43:20] Betsy Dougert: That's what we think, too. You know, once in a while, it happens that we do go out of our network, and that's where we tap in our fellow resource partners and chambers. And that's totally fine. As long as we get people the help that they need, whether that's coming from SCORE or any of our trusted partners, we're really just here to help and to serve. So that's what we're here to do. 

[00:43:43] Ronald Skelton: Cool. I'm still friends with some of the SCORE mentors. I did business with some of the SCORE mentors in, in Oklahoma. So what, that's the one thing I wanted to clarify because, um, I had a SCORE mentor and at some point I wanted to bring him on and he said there was a conflict of interest because he'd been my mentor for a while to bring him on as a paid employee. Like, uh, to hire him to do something.

He's like, he kind of wanted to stay retired. I was trying to talk him into becoming, coming on to one of the companies I owned. So what's there? Is there a, there's, are there rules they have to play with and not charging us and not going to work for us and becoming our employees and that type of stuff?

[00:44:19] Betsy Dougert: Yes, there are very strict rules. There is an absolute firewall around our mentoring and SCORE services and between our clients businesses. Our mentors are all trained in our code of ethics when they first sign on. And then annually after that, we continually update that and make sure that everyone understands the expectation.

And that's really to protect the small business owners that we serve. We want to make sure that anyone who comes to SCORE is totally confident that their mentoring will always be confidential. That no one's going to be stealing their ideas, selling their ideas, that the mentoring that they're receiving is unbiased, but the mentor is just here to help with no skin in the game other than rooting for the business owner's success.

And it's just critically important to us that we maintain the trust that business owners have had in us for almost 60 years now. And so sometimes you do end up in situations like you're talking about that are a little bit disappointing. You're not the first client to try to woo one of our mentors because they really are valued members of the team.

But at the end of the day, the mentors are here to do what they do best. And that was like handled it correctly, even though I definitely acknowledge your feelings there. 

[00:45:43] Ronald Skelton: It was like, at first it stung. Cause I was like, I'll give you equity in the company. I'll make you a partner. I come on. I kept bringing the same type of questions to him.

And they're like, why don't you just come over here? I'll give you a piece of the company. You manage the three employees I have doing that particular task. And you don't have to work 40 hours a week. Just get it done, right? So if it's take you can get it done in 10 or 20, that's fine. I've never been a guy like you got to be here 40 hours a week. I'm a more of a leader, like, okay, here's a list of tasks we need done.

It's fall, falls in your role. If you can do them in, 10 hours, here's what it's worth to the company. If you can do them and you know, it takes you a hundred, let me know. I gotta go find something to help you out. Cause I don't want you working that much. But that said, he's just like, I just can't do it.

He actually helped me find something. He knew somebody in the industry that was looking to go back to work and, help me. He basically helped me place somebody there. He gave me a referral. 

[00:46:33] Betsy Dougert: Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. And that's another important thing that our mentors do is making those connections to other people, to other organizations in the community.

Some of our clients say that that's the best thing that we do for them, because our mentors as experienced business people themselves do have a lot of those personal connections and are happy to share them when it's helpful to business owners. So I'm glad that he was able to help you out there. We always like to say, if the answer is no, we want it to be no.

And here's something else that would be equally valuable to you. 

[00:47:09] Ronald Skelton: Cool. I see you do, so for our Spanish speaking people, at least in our area, you have both English speaking seminars and Spanish speaking seminars. So you do them in multilingual. Uh, so that's cool. I don't want to let those guys down. I don't currently translate this. I probably should. It wouldn't be hard to do with AI and all the cool tools that are out now.

Probably have an AI translate it for us, or pay somebody to do it. But, we still currently only going out in English. But, uh, maybe we'll change that, but no, it's cool that you have just the resources. Let's talk, let's touch base. How do people find SCORE? And then, we'll go with that. And then I think we're probably at the top of the hour.

I'll ask the famous question of, um, I asked a lot of weird questions today, but what should I have asked? What did I miss?

[00:47:51] Betsy Dougert: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So people find SCORE in so many different ways. Some find us through personal recommendations from family members. We have multigenerational SCORE clients and sometimes even mentors now that we've been around going on 60 years. There was a client whose story I was reading just the other day whose mother recommended SCORE to her.

I know a client off the top of my head whose father used SCORE and he's actually also the second gen person is also a mentor for SCORE. So those personal recommendations from family, but also from fellow entrepreneurs really go a long way. People find us online just by searching for business help near them.

They find us through workshops. A lot of times we'll put on workshops with other community partners and organizations so that we can introduce ourselves to each other's audiences and that can be really helpful. So just so many different ways really that people find us. But as we touched upon briefly earlier, a lot of people still haven't found us.

So I like to ask people listening to if they can help us get the word out. We really do need that help. We work with a small budget that we really try hard to make the most of, but there isn't a ton available for marketing. So if anyone has used SCORE services or will use SCORE services and find them valuable, it's really helpful to just turn to another entrepreneur that you know, and to let them know that SCORE worked for you.

[00:49:25] Ronald Skelton: Awesome. Awesome. And the website is score. org. So it's s c o r e. org. And then you can put in your local zip code and search your local area or they have, workshops and events and templates and resources and all kinds of stuff on there. So, uh, I want to thank you for that. And then I, out of all the questions I've asked, which ones have I missed?

Like there's, there's gotta be something where like we should have, there's, we talked about a lot of topics. If there's anything that you're thinking, man, we should probably make sure everybody knows. 

[00:49:53] Betsy Dougert: I think you've been really thorough. I think we've probably covered at least a little bit of all the basics.

I know that we talked about a lot. I know that it can be kind of overwhelming for people sometimes to hear all the different resources that are available and all the things that they could be doing. And that's on top of everything that they're already doing and all the different roles that they're already playing.

So I would just say if people are feeling overwhelmed, the one thing that I would love for you to take away from today's conversation is just that score. org web address. Just go there, poke around, see what you find, see what appeals to you, see what stands out in an appealing way and see what you look at and go, Oh no, I don't want to look at that.

No, no, thank you. Because sometimes that can be really valuable information and feedback and that might be exactly where you need to look. So just score. org we're there or we're ready and waiting to help. 

[00:50:49] Ronald Skelton: Awesome. And so go to score. org and get help. And I'll give you, I'll give another shout out, another call to action.

If you're a coach, a mentor, if you do minor mentoring-ships like myself, where I ran or I say minor, like occasional mentoring. A lot of times we get approached by people who are either can't afford for what we'd need to charge them for our time and or they're just too small to be of interest for us to do it for equity or anything.

Point those people to SCORE. That way they'll come and do it in a way that leaves them with a positive interaction. It's not like, hey, I can't help you. You should go to SCORE, but hey, SCORE is an amazing resource. There's two reasons you want to do this. Number one, it's the right thing to do if you're not willing to or capable or able to help that individual send them somewhere they can.

Number two, SCORE is going to help them grow up to be big enough to be your client, right? And to need your services. And they're going to remember who sent them that way. So you're, you're doing, it's a double edged sword here that does both sides are sharp. Both sides will do you a favor.

You'll help the individual and eventually they will grow into somebody that can afford it or can need you at the level you're currently at. So that's a call to action to all my advisors, coaches, and people who turn clients away on a regular basis because they're too small. 

[00:52:01] Betsy Dougert: That's great advice. It's that miracle on 34th street philosophy, you know, where Santa sends the parents to the other department stores that have what they need. When business owners succeed, really, I think all boats rise with the tide and everyone gets ahead. So love that spirit of collaboration.

[00:52:20] Ronald Skelton: Awesome. Awesome. Well, I want to thank you for being here today. The hour went really fast. We did just cross the hour mark. Um, you already gave us our key takeaway for the day. So thank you. And just remind everybody, let's, let's go to score. com score. org and check out your area and check out what's available to you there. It's a very valuable resource that I think a lot of you are missing out on. 

[00:52:41] Betsy Dougert: Thank you so much. I really appreciated our conversation today and all of the valuable ways that you're amplifying our work. 

[00:52:48] Ronald Skelton: Cool. Hang out for just a second after the show. We'll call that a show.