Center lends expertiseto small businesses

Robert Berg sometimes worked six hours a day marketing his client's line of clothes. The struggling company needed to change its name and styles, he said. After conducting some marketing focus groups, Berg helped bring the line to national retailers. And he did it for free. Berg, a second year MBA student, is one of fifteen students who work as advisors for Wharton's Small Business Development Center. The center provides free advice for small and new businesses in marketing, financing, accounting and long-term planning. The students work 20 hours during the school year and full-time in the summer. They handle 20 to 30 cases per year and are paid by tuition remittances. Most advisors are Wharton MBA candidates, but there are two undergraduates in this year's class. Second-year MBA student Sean Reynolds said that the SBDC provides an opportunity that most other universities do not. "There aren't that many institutional opportunities to get real world experience," Reynolds said. "It's a vicarious entrepreneurial experience." "Unlike consulting firms, we're here to be a strategic sounding board," second year MBA student Bill Haney said. "We act to prod the client in thinking instead of doing academic crunch work." Reynolds said the majority of the consultants have had previous experience in the business world. This, he says, helps them in advising their clients. "Most businesses need to be slowed down and discouraged in their optimism," said Haney. "We introduce some realism and get them to take another look at their problems. The SBDC was founded in 1981 and an average of 10,000 companies request help each year. Eligible businesses must have annual sales of less than $10 million and employ fewer than 100 people. These guidelines generally describe new businesses, which according to SBDC director David Thornburgh, are most likely to go out of business. "It's an uphill climb, particularly the first few years," Thornburgh said. "We have taken a look at what happened to clients. We can say lots of good things about companies who have had SBDC help and those who have not." The SBDC is funded by the Federal government's Small Business Administration, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the University. It forms "an important partnership" between them, said Assistant Director Becky Clark. "This is an important contribution for the University," Clark said. "You can see the real benefits when companies come back and tell us how well they are doing."

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