Club Meeting- November 6th SCORE Small Business Mentoring

Bruce Kelling with SCORE presented on what philanthropic work he is doing for the local SCORE chapter.  SCORE mentoring is a free service offered to U.S. Based businesses.  Partnering with small businesses to help them overcome hurdles that often come up when either starting or maintaining a small business.  SCORE does this by giving one-on-one or small group sessions with retired business savvy folks, they give experienced advice, consult on best practices, and educate on small business topics.  If you are in need a small business mentor, you can go on their website at www.score.org and answer a few questions to help them connect you with the right mentor. Often mentors are retired business experts and have decades of experience and wisdom to impart to someone who is starting out.  This type of relationship is key to success.  SCORE offers other support as well in the form of workshops, webinars, materials and how to documents, along with the mentoring.  Mentors go through vetting and training to ensure they know how to support and impart wisdom without interfering with the small business owner. Often NDA’s are signed to ensure no trade secrets are shared outside the relationship.  For Southern Oregon this has looked like 1418 mentoring sessions, with 166 long term relationships created. They currently have 48 mentors with more in training.  With an uptick in small business start up’s this is a key component to having an edge in your business arena and having long term success.