Overflow at small-business workshop a sign of the times.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: SMALL [biz] - Conference news

Marcia McGilley called it a "sign of the times" when 37 people crowded into the Castle Rock library on March 4 for her two-hour "Business Startup Basics" workshop. Twenty-three had signed up in advanced for the night session, so extra seats had to be brought in.

"Last year we averaged nine to 12 people," McGilley said as she instructed attendees to scoot closer together to sit three to a table instead of two. "We have more people than we have seats right now."

McGilley, the director of the South Metro Denver Small Business Development Center that hosts the workshops, gave three fairly obvious reasons for increased attendance.

"Businesses that are doing well look at the economy and are afraid," she said. "They come in for help before something happens. The second group are business owners who are hemorrhaging or seeing the writing on the wall. They come in for us to help save them if we can. Then there are people who have been laid off or fear getting laid off, and they start looking at doing their own thing."

The South Metro Small Business Development Center is a cooperative venture between the U.S. Small Business Administration and the state of Colorado. It provides education and free consulting to businesses in Arapahoe, Douglas and South Jefferson countries. Information on SBDC workshop schedules and location is available at www.SmallBusinessDenver.com.

Over the years McGilley has launched five businesses herself ranging from motivational speaking, to a company called "Murder for Hire" for which the business partners wrote and performed their own murder mysteries, to a marketing consulting firm.

"I think most of the Small Business Development Center directors and consultants either currently do or have owned businesses," McGilley said. She pointed out that her center often refers clients to SCORE-the Service Corp. of Retired Executives, also a resource partner of the SBA- and vice versa "They're retired and they tend to have had 25 to 35 years in a business. Our people tend to be serial entrepreneurs. Therefore, people get different things from each."

The South Denver Metro area is one of the most affluent regions in Colorado, and McGilley says startup business activity has been brisk: 813 new business in Arapahoe County, 327 in Douglas Country and 646 in Jefferson Country last year.

Not all businesses make it, of course. And McGilley says the 17 SBDCs around the state sometimes must help businesses close their doors, through none have...