By Rick Leibowitz

Plutarch once wrote, “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” As a business counselor for the North Country Small Business Development Center (SBDC), I find this provides an important piece of advice when it comes to educating entrepreneurs.

‘Entrepreneur’ is defined in Merriam Webster’s Dictionary as “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprises.” It is these people who start new businesses and bring innovation to the marketplace. The risk of starting a business venture shouldn’t be taken lightly, as there is no denying the statistics that business success is difficult to achieve.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, less than one-third of businesses survive five years of operations. Business is based on a simple concept— you need to have more income than expenses. With such a simple concept, why is there such a high failure rate? Listing all the challenges small business owners typically face would take me well beyond my space allotment by the editors of this magazine. One of the biggest challenges in educating entrepreneurs is that there is a vast expanse of information on business theory and best practices.

In his book, Ripples from the Zambezi: Passion, Entrepreneurship, and the Rebirth of Local Economies, Dr. Ernesto Sirolli succinctly identifies three areas of management expertise that are critical to success for all small businesses:

• financial management;
• marketing management; and
• operational management.

He argues that most entrepreneurs may have strengths in one or two areas of management, but few are strong in all three areas. He claims, “The death of the entrepreneur is solitude.” Most entrepreneurs need some support to compensate for the areas where they may not be as knowledgeable. That is why communities have embraced the SBDC program and/ or various other business technical assistance programs.

Yet as business educators, we need to recognize that any comprehensive lesson on business management can easily create information overload. While our intent may be to provide a thorough education, we need to be cognizant that key lessons may end up buried, like the needle in the proverbial haystack, if we provide too much extraneous information.

Even if we focus on providing assistance in the areas where our clients need it most, we are sometimes faced with another challenge. Many of our clients have no interest in certain aspects of business management. It is difficult to teach financial management to someone who dislikes working with numbers, marketing to someone who does not like sales, and operational management to someone who does not like to pay attention to detail.

Still, our goal as educators is to help kindle that entrepreneurial fire and often we can motivate our students by showing how a lesson can practically contribute to success. It takes some effort to flex to the different needs, learning styles and personalities of our clients to provide effective education, but it is a worthwhile investment of effort. Every company has a genesis and, most likely, the great companies of the future will evolve from the small businesses we support through the challenges of today.

Each day I am personally motivated by the successes of our clients, but I also recognize that there will always be new challenges. I’ve learned that it is not what I know, but what assistance our clients need that is of ultimate importance.

Growing up, my family had a magnet on our refrigerator with a saying from the Talmud that speaks volumes about the heart of education: “Much I have learned from my teachers, but most I have learned from my students.”