The New Jersey Business & Industry Association is teaming up with SCORE NJ, a nonprofit organization that provides free confidential business consulting services to startups, as well as existing businesses that are struggling or looking to expand.
NJBIA members can contact any of SCORE’s eight New Jersey chapters where collectively 350 volunteer mentors with experience in 62 different industries are ready to help small businesses succeed. Under this new partnership, any SCORE NJ client who is not already an NJBIA member is eligible for a 10 percent NJBIA membership discount.
“SCORE’s volunteer experts are working and retired business owners, managers and executives with real-world experience overcoming the unique challenges New Jersey entrepreneurs face,” said NJBIA President & CEO Michele N. Siekerka, Esq. “We want to help connect NJBIA members to the tremendous resource that SCORE can provide to small businesses through its free counseling and low-cost educational programs.”
SCORE NJ District Director Gene Wolf said volunteers provide mentoring on a wide range of business topics including how to write a business plan, how to arrange funding and manage cash flow, how to improve profitability, minimize debt, expand or downsize, develop marketing and web-based retailing, resolve partnership problems and more.
“Business owners can access SCORE via free, ongoing face-to-face mentoring sessions or through our email mentoring services,” Wolf said. “Free or low-cost educational workshops are also available to aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners looking for expert advice on how to grow their company.”
Nationally, SCORE has helped more than 11 million entrepreneurs through mentoring, workshops and educational services since its founding in 1964. Because its work is supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and done largely by a national network of 13,000 national volunteers, SCORE can deliver services at no charge or at very low cost.
In 2017 alone, SCORE helped to create 54,506 new businesses across the nation and added 61,534 new, non-owner jobs to the American economy.
For more information about SCORE, or to locate a nearby New Jersey chapter, go to www.score.org.
