Evan Vitale Consulting: St. Mary's offering free consulting to small businesses

Thursday, August 20, 2015

St. Mary's offering free consulting to small businesses – KSAT San Antonio

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SAN ANTONIO – Running a small business these days can be as much about apps and posts as it is about products and payroll.

That’s where St. Mary’s University senior business students are finding a niche.

The Small Business Institute within the Greehey School of Business offers free consulting assistance to local small businesses.

At the same time, the students gain real world experience and class credit.

The Institute is taking applications from small businesses and nonprofits now for the fall semester.

“It gives them an opportunity to try to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom,” said Ed Cole, marketing professor and director of the Small Business Institute.

The expertise the seniors can offer runs the gamut. “Most of them (the businesses) are looking for marketing help or help with writing a business plan or social media or accounting help,” Cole said.

Marketing help is exactly what David Hill, CEO of EZ Nectar, said he got when his small family business took advantage of the St. Mary’s program during the spring semester.

“They mainly gave us some marketing ideas for social media, Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, various ways to get our name and brand out there,” Hill said. “They had some good ideas.”

Hill’s family launched their business from their back porch when his wife suggested they come up with a disposable hummingbird feeder so she wouldn’t have to clean them.

“I call it a juice box for hummingbirds,” Hill said. The result was a recyclable carton filled with all natural nectar.

“We came out with the technology to get the preservatives out,” he said. “The hummingbirds don’t want preservatives. They just want the nectar.”

Once they had the products, the patents and the passion, what they needed was advice.

That’s where the business students came in. “They were the ones that said, ‘You’ve got to get a video on your website,’” Hill said. “They also said you’ve got to have a YouTube channel. Now we have a YouTube channel.”

EZ Nectar is on store shelves in H-E-B and Wild Birds Unlimited locally. It’s also for sale on Amazon.com.

Using the marketing advice they received from their student consultants, the Hills are expanding the product line and hope to double sales this year.

Businesses or nonprofits interested in participating can contact Ed Cole at ecole@stmarytx.edu.

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