Planning is underway for the annual workshop, scheduled for the first week of May.
For the 12th year, Wisconsin small business owners will be able to learn and network at the Lieutenant Governor’s Small Business Academy. Held during National Small Business Week in May, the four-day conference will not only celebrate successful Wisconsin small businesses but also provide resources, ideas, and current, relevant educational material to help boost businesses on their way up.
“We put together a series of seminars, presentations, and guest speakers to provide ongoing support,” says WEDC Senior Director for Diverse Business Development Gene Manzanet, Ph.D. Some of the best conversations have featured the successful business owners talking about what has made their companies strong, he says: “That sends a really powerful message to the entrepreneurial community.”
Virtual and in-person sessions
Typically, three days of the conference are virtual education sessions streamed online, and one day is an in-person event, staged at various cities across the state. In 2024, 11 locations in 10 cities offered the in-person seminars—up from just five a few years ago. One of the sites provided translation into Spanish; another site was on the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation.
“During the last two years, we’ve really had an opportunity to accelerate the process of developing a stronger ecosystem that’s working closely together. We are holding sessions in areas that we had not been afforded the opportunity to partner with before. The Lac Courte Oreilles reservation was one of those sites; we had a great cohort of small businesses from that community,” Manzanet says.
More than 900 people registered to attend the Small Business Academy in 2024. They represented a wide range of business sectors, including mom-and-pop retail stores, service providers, small manufacturers, bakeries, restaurants, electricians, plumbers, and construction companies. In recent years, more entrepreneurs have been involved in health and wellness businesses and e-commerce pursuits, and more businesses are pursuing state and federal government procurement opportunities, says Manzanet.
Planning for NFL draft
One of the focuses of the 2024 Small Business Academy was helping the state’s small companies consider applying for contracts to supply goods or services for the NFL draft, which will be held April 24-26 in Green Bay. The event is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to be involved in a program that draws more than 750,000 people, Manzanet says. “We had a lot of energy for that. We were able to prepare individual entrepreneurs and connect the dots for them.”
More than 100 businesses and organizations from the academy have made it through the initial selection process for procurement possibilities, Manzanet says.
Localized sessions
Specific content and locations for this year’s Small Business Academy are still being determined. Business leaders at each site decide what type of content is most important for entrepreneurs in that location, and WEDC helps identify content experts within diverse and partnering chambers of commerce and technical assistance partners. Priorities in Wisconsin Dells, for example, may differ from those on Milwaukee’s South side, but issues such as accounting, marketing, technology, and artificial intelligence are generally common across the state.
“We want to have relevant topics and themes that our small businesses need to grow,” Manzanet says. “We truly take the development of our small businesses very seriously. We want them to succeed, and we want them to succeed here in Wisconsin.”
Visit the Small Business Academy webpage for more details.
