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February, 2008
Small Business: Learning One's SBCs
A chamber spinoff gains an audience of its own
By Caira Conner
"Small" may be the operative word for the type of business on which Nashville's Small Business
Council focuses, but the tale of how the Council came to be is anything but. Once upon a time, the
SBC wore the guise of a subcommittee under the Chamber of Commerce and met twice a year to discuss
the handful of community resources available for small business owners. It was not until a decade
after Nancy Eisenbrandt's arrival to the chamber in 1980 that the SBC got its name (which,
incidentally, was something else entirely until three years ago) and groundwork was laid for an
organization specifically geared towards promoting the growth and development of Middle Tennessee's
small and entrepreneurial businesses. Eisenbrandt, in conjunction with the volunteer leadership of
Jane Jones, spent 16 months researching, conducting surveys and forming focus groups for the purpose
of improving awareness—both of small companies themselves and their business needs. Fast forward 12
years to Michael Carter's decision to leave his Waterloo, Belgium-based retirement for
entrepreneurship in Nashville and the story of the Small Business Council's formation is almost
complete. Almost.
"About three years ago, there was a renewed push to market the SBC, to make the Chamber's mission
operational by way of educating and informing business owners," explains Carter, Small Business
Council's chairman. When Carter arrived in Nashville, the Chamber was one of the first organizations
he got involved with. The SBC came later as the result of a collaborative effort between chamber
members new and old as an affirmative means of channeling ideas for small businesses into one
resource. "It was a collective effort," says Carter. "All the small business issues were laid on the
table for the Chamber so we could assess and develop. There's a real emphasis on education."
Though the SBC now functions as a separate entity from the Chamber of Commerce rather than one of
its subcommittees—in fact, the SBC now has subcommittees of its own—its roots are still firmly
planted within the Chamber due to its shared mission of economic development and growth within the
community.
"We are in the business of developing relationships," Carter says. "The Chamber and SBC offer the
chance to work with wonderful people and gain awareness of small business opportunities in Middle
Tennessee."
Currently, 92% of the Chamber's members are employed within a small business—in other words, roughly
2,500 of these individuals work for a company with 100 employees or less. No surprise then that the
SBC recently launched a new mission statement declaring that all of its programs would fall under
one of four concepts: Belong, Engage, Lead and Prosper. Each term relates to the available programs
and aspects of the SBC sub-committees, offering an array of services not only to the Chambers' small
business employees, but to the greater community as well.
So how is all of this doing? Very well, indeed. "The number of Small Business Council members has
doubled in the past year," says Nashville Chamber of Commerce Small Business Programs director Cindy
Bhavsar. "It's due in part to the fact that we continually evaluate our programs and committees to
ensure they are meeting the needs of participants. We encourage our members to offer feedback and
suggestions about what they need from us to make the organization more efficient."
Given that the SBC meetings Michael Carter attended when he first arrived in Nashville would garner
a showing of 15, maybe 20 people, and Mayor Karl Dean's recent lecture as part of the SBC's
"Informed and Inspired" series at Lipscomb University drew an SBC crowd of 180, it seems safe to say
that interest in Middle Tennessee's small businesses will not be dwindling anytime soon. Programs
like Fast-Trac, a series of educational experiences developed by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs,
are in place to foster small business education. Meanwhile, the SBC's reach extends beyond just
Nashville. "The programs are designed to involve other chambers, other organizations. This isn't a
resource just for our city," says Carter, suggesting that soon enough everyone will know their SBCs.
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