SBDC Senior Business Consultant
Salary: $64,217.00 - $72,685.50 Annually
Location: Mt. Pleasant Campus
Job Type: Administration Full-Time
Division: Small Business Development Center
Closing Date: 4/27/2025 11:59 PM Eastern
Description
Mid Michigan College seeks individuals who: value collegiality and mutual respect; use data in decision making; are innovative; are service minded; are goal oriented; strive to continually improve themselves and their work processes; are willing to collaborate and seek to add value in every interaction. The Michigan Small Business Development Center (SBDC) provides consulting, training and research to assist small business to launch, grow, transition and innovate.
The SBDC Senior Business Consultant will provide professional, high quality, individualized, results-driven consulting services for established and emerging small business owners. SBDC Business Consulting services include, but are not limited to, problem solving assistance to help area businesses access capital, develop viable business plans, establish strategies for growth and survival, create practical marketing approaches, deal with unexpected challenges and generate realistic financial goals. SBDC Business Consultants leverage a variety of resources to provide clients relevant insight including, industry trends, customer demographics, competition, financial metrics and web research.
The SBDC Senior Business Consultant will work in partnership with federal, state and local resources to help business owners make decisions and take action to grow and strengthen their business. This position will have a primary office at the Mt. Pleasant Mid Michigan College Campus, but will provide SBDC services to businesses throughout Clare, Gladwin, Isabella and Gratiot counties. This position is funded by a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration and supported locally at Mid Michigan College.
Examples of Duties
- Provide individualized, long-term consulting for emerging and established businesses.
- Assist clients in preparing to present themselves to lenders and investors.
- Educate clients on financing options suitable for their business stage.
- Increase client awareness of credit practices and loan programs.
- Help small businesses solve operational, production, personnel, marketing, sales, finance, and strategy issues.
- Offer business knowledge in operations, HR, exporting, and cybersecurity.
- Collaborate with the SBDC team to deliver excellent customer service.
- Meet or exceed consulting milestones, such as client numbers and consulting hours.
- Provide and refer clients to relevant training opportunities in business management.
- Maintain a referral list of private sector consultants and vendors.
- Continuously develop tools and resources to assist businesses.
- Maintain confidentiality of client information.
- Monitor and follow up with clients on plan implementation.
- Support the organization’s mission, vision, and values.
- Document consulting and training in the CRM system.
- Help develop and execute the regional strategic plan.
- Collaborate with staff, student workers, and contractors.
- Develop positive relationships with collaborative organizations.
- Build relationships with capital sources including lenders, capital programs, and investors.
- Network with emerging and growth-oriented businesses.
- Support small business initiatives to improve the business climate.
- Partner with educational institutions on relevant projects.
- Represent the Regional SBDC in the Regional Director’s absence
- Maintain client records to Small Business Administration (SBA) compliance standards in the Michigan SBDC CRM System.
- Meet or exceed individual key performance indicators and implement strategies as directed to achieve goals established in regional annual strategic plan.
- The Michigan SBDC is held responsible by funders to meet a certain level of hours per year and ensure a high standard of service delivery across the Michigan SBDC network. To meet these standards all full-time equivalent business consultants will meet the annual consulting and preparation hours requirement of 800 hours per year. Exceptions to this requirement will be determined by the Regional Director or direct supervisor based on roles and responsibilities that are assigned to the specific consultant.
Typical Qualifications
Education, Certification, Licensure:
- Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited college or university program in Business Administration, or related field required.
- Master’s degree in related field preferred.
Experience:
- Three to five years professional work experience in small business ownership, business consultation, or management in a business/organization or any equivalent combination of knowledge, skill, and experience.
- Work history showing sound organizational skills and timely achievement of quality results in a fast-paced work environment.
Supplemental Information
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities:
- Strong consultative, coaching, and facilitation skills
- Strong oral, written, networking, presentation and interpersonal communication skills
- Ability to communicate complex principles such as financial management, marketing, and forecasting to small business owners.
- Ability to summarize and translate market research data
- Ability to listen actively and empathically.
- Knowledge of how to apply open-ended needs assessment questions effectively during customer interviews
- Knowledge of financial analysis and budgeting practices for small businesses
- Understands the attributes and use cases for different equity and debt financing options.
- Knowledge of sales, marketing, operations, strategy and new business cultivation principles
- Knowledge of crowdfunding and other emerging financing platforms
- Demonstrated proficiency with relevant technology and applications (spreadsheets, email, social media, webinars, etc.).
- Ability and willingness to learn and leverage new technology to improve productivity to enrich client experience.
- Ability to travel to/from various client locations in the 4 county service area, and periodically to other statewide or national locations.
- Ability and willingness to attend business functions that occur outside of the normal work hours and locations.
- Ability to develop and sustain collaborative relationships with multiple constituencies.
- Demonstrated proficiency in task and project management
- Demonstrated ability to develop creative ideas and concepts and effectively present workable solutions to meet customer business development objectives
- Ability to effectively manage multiple customers/business plans and prioritize workload on a continuing basis
- Ability to understand and work effectively to accomplish desired outcomes within the guidelines provided by applicable policies, procedures and guiding principles of the College and SBA agreement.
- Ability to evaluate the impact of a customer request and conceptualize an effective response within a complex problem.
- Ability to learn the culture of industry-specific environments and operations and work with a diverse client base.
- Ability to determine essential information needed to accomplish a customer’s business development objectives
- Ability to synthesize the mission, vision, values, guiding principles and goals of the SBDC and the college
- Analytical ability to identify and resolve a variety of issues or challenges in an effective and timely manner.
- Ability to handle assignments or clients independently and work autonomously within defined objectives
- Ability to work as a member of a team to meet common goals.
