Crossroads celebrating business success in tough economy

Celebrating a milestone.

The Crossroads Small Business Development Center in Galax has now helped 100 businesses get money to set up shop or expand.

This morning, Crossroads celebrated that success at the ribbon cutting for McCraw Insurance which is the 100th company they've assisted in getting funding.

Owner Tony McCraw says without the Crossroads Institute helping him write a business plan and offering him free marketing and accounting classes none of this would be possible.

"It would have been harder because that was the reason I went there because I knew they offered the help," said McCraw.

The Crossroads Institute serves Carroll County, Grayson County and the city of Galax.

If you're an entrepreneur in those areas and you need help, call 276-236-0391.

Here's the official news release from the Crossroad Institute:

GALAX, Virginia - The Crossroads Small Business Development Center office in the Blue Ridge Crossroads region has helped gain funding for 100 new and expanding businesses - and in doing so topped all Virginia's Small Business Development Center offices.

While a remarkable achievement on its own, perhaps more stunning given the turbulent economy, is that 96 of these businesses, all started within the past three years, remain open, some even expanding.

More than $31 million dollars in funding has been generated by the Crossroads Small Business Development Center's business plans for entrepreneurial businesses. These same business owners now employ 436 in this rural Southwest Virginia region, which includes Carroll and Grayson counties and the City of Galax.

Local economic development officials said there are prospects for another 100 jobs as these firms grow. And this does not include potential jobs from the approximately 60 business plans now in development.

The 100th business, McCraw Insurance Agency, LLC, moved this month to its new office on Route 58 at Cranberry Road in east Galax.

Tony McCraw credits the economic development officials for his growth since starting his independent insurance agency in January 2007. "They helped me write my business plan and three-year financial outlook that aided me in getting funding," he said. "They also provided free classes in marketing, accounting, tax preparation and other areas new to me."

Prior to 2007, McCraw worked 18 years in customer service and as a dispatcher for a local oil company as well as selling insurance part time.

"In early 2006, I decided I wanted to be my own boss, so I took a leap of faith," he said. "I'm still a one-man operation, but I'm looking to expand and hire at least one and hopefully two employees."

McCraw spent slightly more than two years building his business in the Southwest Regional Enterprise Center "incubator," a facility which provides new area enterprises reduced-cost office space and services, except telephone. Home to the "incubator" is the region's Crossroads Institute, which also houses other regional economic development agencies and a Wytheville Community College branch.

"The timing of Tony's move to commercial office space is consistent with what we expect of successful, young businesses," said Dr. Oliver McBride, executive director, Crossroads Institute and Southwest Enterprise Regional Center. "Tony's move also opens space for another new business."

The Twin County's economic development effort seeks to revitalize a region which has lost thousands of textile- and furniture-manufacturing jobs in the past decade and whose unemployment rate, while not the state's highest, exceeds the average.

Nonetheless, one local agency, the Crossroads Small Business Development Center, with its director, Dr. Dallas Garrett, last year topped Virginia's 29 Small Business Development Centers in gaining funding to create and expand businesses.

In fact, state data show the Crossroads office played a role in acquiring more than $21 million - some $6.8 million more than the next office. That $21 million is 30 percent of all funding the state's 29 centers attracted.

Recognizing the Blue Ridge Crossroads region's overall achievements, the federal Appalachian Regional Commission and the University of Northern Alabama in November awarded the program the $10,000 Jerry W. Davis Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence.

Competition came from the 13-state Appalachian region.

The 100 businesses Blue Ridge Crossroads officials have thus far helped fund range from restaurants to agriculture to recycling to small manufacturing, some with annual sales exceeding $1 million. Most have fewer than 10 employees but some more than 20, said Garrett.

"We will help anyone in the area with whatever they need," he noted. Particularly important in today's tight credit market is assisting aspiring entrepreneurs prepare business plans vital in convincing investors, mainly area banks, that these enterprises have both an attractive product or service and a receptive market. The funding is about 95 percent commercial.

"We recommend the development of service businesses that will meet the needs of local citizens. Service businesses tend to be more stable and cannot easily be moved to another state or country." said Garrett, who has more than 40 years of economic development experience in higher education and industry.
While the region's success doesn't offset the thousands of manufacturing job losses, the decade-long battle to spur the economy has given the area, with its 52,000 residents, experience valuable in tough times.

"Our local government and education leaders started revitalization programs well before the current recession hit," Crossroads Executive Director McBride said. "What this area went through in the early years, much of the rest of the nation is facing now."

"We've had time to learn from experience and refine what we do. In addition, we have the right people who complement each other well," said McBride, a career educator who became the Crossroads Institute leader after retiring in 2007 following 18 years as Carroll County Schools' superintendent.

The Crossroads Institute emerged from an effort where local governments, aware of the need to bolster the regional economy, realized the potential benefits from an "incubator" to help new businesses get on their feet. Local school boards asked the region's educators, including McBride, to promote career and technical education. Further, Wytheville Community College (WCC) was then looking to expand in the region.

The efforts converged at the Crossroads, which is now home to a growing WCC location that had 576 students take at least one course last fall.
In addition to the Southwest Regional Enterprise Center Business "incubator," Crossroads also provides an umbrella for activities of three other regional economic development efforts: Garrett with the Small Business Development Center, Director Neal Satterwhite with the Blue Ridge Crossroads Economic Development Authority, and Carroll County's Business Development Specialist Bernie Deck.

"Among the many benefits new businesses receive from starting in an 'incubator,' is that when questions arise, these owners are just footsteps from the economic development team that helped them initially," McBride said.

The goal is to strengthen these start-ups so they can move to commercial facilities in two to three years, just as McCraw Insurance recently did.
Garrett noted new ventures which use business-plan assistance have about an 85-percent success rate, a mark that improves for fledgling firms also using "incubator" support. Those with no business plan have an 80- to 85-percent failure rate.

In 2003, The Crossroads Institute, a non-profit corporation which owns the former Lowe's building supply store it occupies, attracted $6 million from various sources including the Federal Economic Development Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development agency, the Virginia Tobacco Commission and a community development block grant.

In addition to WCC's college-level programs at Crossroads, the facility also offers GED classes, an essential for many older, out-of-work residents seeking the basic educational credentials many jobs now require.

The facility also aids businesses and budding entrepreneurs through workshops and seminars, ranging from business planning to internet-based marketing to government regulatory compliance.

"Our approach seems to be working in these very difficult times, but we'll keep trying to improve," McBride said. "There is so much more to do."

Photo courtesy: The Crossroads Institute