The U.S. Small Business Administration and AARP will team up Oct. 2 to host the first National Encore Entrepreneur Mentor Day.  The event is targeted at entrepreneurs over the age of 50 to match these “encore entrepreneurs” with successful business owners and community leaders for advice and assistance. 

The SBA Syracuse District Office and local AARP chapter will host the Encore Entrepreneur Expo at The Tech Garden in downtown Syracuse from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Individuals over the age of 50 are invited to network with business counselors from SBA Resource Partners, hear a panel of successful encore entrepreneurs, and learn how to write a business plan.

With one in four individuals ages 44 to 70 interested in becoming entrepreneurs, and 63 percent of Americans planning to work during retirement, small business ownership is a good option. Entrepreneurs with long-term business counselors see bigger sales, hire more workers and last longer. 

      9:00 a.m.    Coffee & Networking

For more information or to register in advance, contact SBA at 315-471-9393 ext. 233 or email stephanie.ubowski@sba.gov.

Small business owners and start-ups across the country can now take advantage of a new business tool to help them compete and grow.  The free tool, called SizeUp, helps businesses identify new customers and compare their performance against other businesses in their industry with data collected from hundreds of private and public sources.  The tool can be found at www.sba.gov/sizeup.

SizeUp works by analyzing a business in comparison to other similar businesses in the same trade and provides geographic information on the marketplace, areas recommended for advertising, and prospective customers.  This useful tech tool delivers market data directly to business owners to help them make better business decisions based on competitive research analysis.