Officials tour small businesses in UEZ
Owners credit small business development centers for their success
BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer

CHRISTINE VARNO Seymour Lapidus, owner of Lapidus Decor on Broadway.

LONG BRANCH — Business got a chance to sound off to officials who took a walking tour of the city’s Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) last week, and many shared success stories and optimism about the city’s future.

“The New Jersey Small Business Development Centers [NJSBDC] are helping me make contacts, get advice and assure that I am hitting the right bases,” Chris Daniels, of Daniels Productions, on Broadway, said at a meeting on April 28 at the Brookdale Community College Learning Center on Broadway.

“I was able to get a loan to get office space with their help,” said Daniels, whose business is located in the city’s downtown UEZ.

During the meeting, which preceded a walking tour of the UEZ, other business owners shared success stories similar to Daniels’.

“We are a successful business because of the help of the NJSBDC,” Tracey Wolfman, administrator of We Care Adult Care Inc., Middletown, said at the meeting.

“The NJSBDC made us solid as a business and able to grow,” said Wolfman, who opened her own business in 2000.

“I give [NJSBDC] the credit for our success.”

Wolfman was a nurse when she decided to “venture out and open a care center for adults,” she said.

She was a good nurse but, she said, a rookie when it came to running a business.

“I knew I needed to educate myself,” she said.

In existence for 25 years, the NJSBDC is the state’s premier provider of counseling, training and technical assistance to small businesses in Monmouth and Ocean counties, according to a press release.

Long Branch was the third stop on a “Listening to Small Business” tour of the state by NJSBDC officials.

The first two tours took place in Paterson and South Orange.

The walking tour made stops at several businesses in the downtown Broadway area, where entrepreneurs shared their experiences and voiced their concerns about public policy and the support services needed in the community.

The NJSBDC network consists of 11 regional centers — including the center at Brookdale Community College — and 26 satellite offices throughout the state.

“The network helps small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs in developing business plans, finding financing, identifying new markets and expanding their operations,” according to the release.

“We provide our clients with the start-up information on how to finance a business and how to set up a solid business plan,” NJSBDC Assistant Director Paul Rinaldi said at the meeting.

“Once someone writes up a business plan, they send it to us for review. Then we go over the plan until it is solid.

“If it is not a successful plan, we will mark it up with red pen like a college paper and send it back for corrections.”

The consultations are free, one-on-one sessions that target the goals for each specific business. In 2004 alone, the NJSBDC provided 7,555 clients with free management counseling, trained 17,715 attendees in 882 classes, generated $48.7 million in financing and totaled over $1 billion in client revenue.

Wolfman said that when she started her business, her staff was responding to six patients a day, and today she said that number has risen to more than 40 patients per day.

“I was able to secure a loan on my first submission of my business plan, thanks to NJSBDC,” Wolfman said. “Without that business plan, I would not be here today.”

Officials toured local small businesses in the downtown Broadway redevelopment zone to find out concerns and issues in Long Branch.

“Of the 25 towns I represent in New Jersey, Long Branch is really one of the stars,” said Assemblyman Steve Corodemus (D-11), who attended the event. “The city has been planning over a decade to bring Long Branch to where it is today.”

Some of the stops along the tour were Jamm Printing, Bullet Keys, Locks and Safes, and Lapidus Decor.

Several of the owners expressed positive feelings about the city and were happy with how their businesses are doing at their Broadway locations.

“[Long Branch] was going down and now we are on the way up,” Seymour Lapidus, owner of Lapidus Decor since 1949, said when representatives from NJSBDC and city officials stopped in his home decorating store.

“We are very positive here.”

To contact NJSBDC for small business management assistance call (732) 842-8685 in Monmouth County and (732) 555-0468 in Ocean County.