Focus

Small Business Administration (SBA) loans are often an initial shot of vitality into young companies ? that first big break for entrepreneurs looking to carve their niche in the marketplace. But they can also be rolled into financing packages for more established small businesses that for a number of reasons, from rocketing growth to unusual inventory, may be deemed too risky for traditional bank loans.

Most small-business owners have felt the changes among local banks in the last few years, as giant out-of-town banks bought large and small banks here, and a half-dozen new banks were started by those displaced.

John Crinklaw has an insider?s view. He helped start Windsor Bank in the early 1990s, and stayed with Windsor when the large Wisconsin-based Associated Bank bought it a few years ago. Now he?s left to open a new downtown Minneapolis branch for Crown Bank, started as a ?de novo? or new bank in Edina in 2000.

The plus side for owners, regardless of their preference for big bank vs. small: lots of choices, according to Crinklaw.

No matter how well a company is managed or how compelling its products, marketing challenges will always abound.

Here?s a sampling of some difficulties faced by smaller companies that found themselves in a marketing puzzle, and how they managed to put the pieces together.

Technology. It?s a word that puts a sparkle in some business owners? eyes and strikes fear into the hearts of others.

But it?s impossible to do business today without incorporating technology, whether it?s a customer database, a high-tech phone system, or an entirely new product. Finding a vendor who will truly understand your business is key in order to make the most of your technology budget.

When Chuck Dorsey took over as CEO of Plymouth-based Halo Innovations Inc. in 2003, he made meeting the company?s attorney, Dan Tenenbaum of Gray Plant Mooty, one of his first priorities.

?I don?t know whether other companies do this or not, but Dan is at every one of our board meetings,? says Dorsey. ?Any communications I have with the board, he gets copied on. He gets our monthly financials, he gets regular updates that I send to the board.

Though people may not recognize the names Darren Drew and Brian Reidinger, if they watch TV, listen to the radio or go to the movies, they’ve heard their music.
Drew and Reidinger co-own Minneapolis-based In the Groove Music, an audio production company that writes and produces music for television, radio and special events. Their client list includes Michelob Lite, Toyota, Fox NFL, Busch Gardens, Bacardi Silver, TNT’s Listen Up! sports show with Charles Barkley and Ernie Johnson – and The Outdoor Life Network, for which they wrote the theme music for its coverage of this summer’s Tour de France.

Joseph Duffy simply wants what every small-business owner wants.
?We want access to the new technology,? says the designer for the newly formed Minneapolis-based Duffy & Partners, a graphic design shop spun off from marketing giant Fallon Worldwide. ?We want what the bigger companies have and I think every small-business owner looks for ways to get it. And that goes for all kinds of technology.?

Enough with the raging debate about whether outsourcing jobs, especially in the technology field, is good or bad. Rajiv Tandon says giving work to outsiders rather than hiring employees is reality, both because the world is getting smaller and because small companies need to get bigger with the least amount of capital possible.
Tandon is president and CEO of Adayana in Edina, which develops training materials for automotive, food, the military and other industries. He urges business owners to get out and experience the globe.

The whir of an assembly line can be hypnotizing.

With Medtronic inventing its latest catheter, 3M introducing its newest line of air-cleaning filters, and a host of other local technology manufacturers constantly pushing their gadgets and gizmos into the marketplace, one could be led to believe all Twin Cities-originated intellectual property is handheld and comes in a box.

Everyone has had that ?million-dollar idea.? At least, most people have felt like they have. But many small-business owners don?t realize the value of their intellectual property. Upsize talked to local patent attorney Mark Litman, of Mark A. Litman & Associates in Edina, to cover the basics.