Small Business
Empowering Hispanic Owned Business Growth In Long Beach
In the 2015 study for the National Hispanic Chamber of Commerce by the firm Geoscape®, Hispanic Businesses & Entrepreneurs Drive Growth in the New Economy, Hispanic owned business growth in the United States was fifteen times the national growth rate.
“The trend has been sustained for at least the last 10 to 15 years manifests itself both in the growing number and size of Hispanic-owned businesses and the total sales receipts that these firms are generating. To put this in context, during the latest 8-year period from 2007 to 2015, Hispanic-owned business’ revenue jumped by an astonishing 88 percent to nearly $661 billion.”
PalacioMagazine.com Publisher and Executive Editor Antonio Ruiz is a small business advisor at the El Camino College Small Business Development Center, part of the Los Angeles network headquartered here in Long Beach. He’s met a fair share of Latinos and other small business owners of color who all face the same challenges of starting and growing a business:
- Building their skills which include everything from basic accounting to marketing
- Access to capital
- Social Media knowledge
- Building a website
And these are just some of the challenges. The Washington-based Aspen Institute’s Latinos and Society Program hosted a Latinos and Society Inaugural Summit last year “featuring conversations with Latino leaders on innovation, entrepreneurship, inclusion, and leadership.”
According to the blog posted on the Institute’s site, “ The number of Latino entrepreneurs in the US has also grown exponentially. From 1990 to 2012, this group more than tripled; and by 2012 nearly one in 10 Latinos were engaged in entrepreneurship. This has resulted in more than 3 million Latinos owning small businesses in 2013.”
They also pointed out the Latino Entrepreneurs “…face myriad problems in business, including lack of assets, high failure rates, and being more likely to come from low-income households despite entrepreneurial efforts.”
Los Angeles Regional Small Business Development Center
According to a Dec 17, 2015 story in L.A. Biz, “Los Angeles County led the nation in the number of Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian and Alaska Native-owned firms in 2012, according to figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.” The story goes on to report,
“Collectively, L.A. County was home to 631,218 minority-owned firms: 332,967 Hispanic, 213,203 Asian, 81,563 black or African American, 11,081 American Indian and Alaska Native, and 3,798 Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander. Consequently, with 3.2 percent of the nation’s total population, the county was home to 7.9 percent of its minority-owned businesses in 2012.”
There are important and vital resources available to the Hispanic owned Business. The best part is that many of resources are free or low cost. One of the more significant resources is the Los Angeles Regional Small Business Development Center (SBDC).
“California’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network is one of the state’s primary resource partners for small business development. Our consortium of 42 service centers and administrative lead centers play a leading role in driving the state economy by providing small businesses and entrepreneurs with confidential, no-cost, one-on-one advising and expert training and establishing a wide mesh network of technical assistance. Our network is equipped to help business owners access capital, develop business and financial models, create and implement marketing strategies, connect to global markets, and grow their business online, among many other services. We are proud to count ourselves as part of a family of resource providers in the State of California that enable business owners to make the next big leap with their firms.”
The SBDC Centers have a schedule of workshops on subjects ranging from Financing your Business to the Marketing of it.
The SBA and the Hispanic Owned Business
The U.S. Small Business Administration’s mission is “to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise and to maintain and strengthen the overall economy of our nation. The SBA helps Americans start, build and grow businesses through an extensive network of field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations. The SBDC is one of the partnerships.
Support Networks
There are many support networks for a Hispanic owned Business. Through its network of Hispanic chambers and business association, the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (CHCC), “represents the interest of over 700,000 Hispanic business owners in California. The CHCC is the premier and largest regional ethnic business organization in the nation that promotes the economic growth and development of Hispanic entrepreneurs and California’s Emerging Businesses.”
The Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has a mission, “….to Advocate, Promote, and Facilitate the Success of Businesses in the Southern California Region and its Trade Areas.
Long Beach Resources for the Hispanic Owned Business
Here’s a list of other resources for Hispanic owned Businesses:
- Interested in operating a Hispanic owned business in Long Beach? Check out the City of Long Beach resources page HERE
- Long Beach has a network of Business Improvement Districts. According the City of Long Beach Financial Management Department, “the Business Improvement Districts promotes and markets commercial areas of the City. Funds are generated through assessment of area businesses that are located within the BID boundaries. BID assessments are in addition to the City business license fee and are billed concurrently. BID assessment fees are collected by the City, but are passed directly to each BID for program implementation.”
- There’s a Hispanic owned business in every section of Long Beach. And there’s an BID in nearly every corner of the city. The list of BIDS include the Downtown Long Beach Associates, Belmont Shore Business Association, Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association, Uptown Business District, 4th Street Retro Row, and East Anaheim Business Association. Other Long Beach Business associations include Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, Naples Improvement Association, Cambodia Town, East Spring Street Business Alliance and On Broadway.
- The City of Long Beach Council of Business Associations is, “a unified voice for advocacy, acts as an effective communication conduit between business communities, and is a simplified business resource center.”
