Homestead.com's Website Training for Small Business Counselors is a Site for Sore Eyes for Over 1.3 Million Small Businesses
ASBDC Partners Exclusively with Homestead.com to Offer Website Building Instruction and Certification for the Association of Small Business Development Centers
MENLO PARK, Calif., Sept. 18 / -- Homestead Technologies (http://www.homestead.com/), Inc. and the Association of Small Business Development Centers (ASBDC), have jointly announced a new program that will provide training, technology and certification in website building to the 1,100 Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) whose counselors provide small business consulting to over 1.3 million small businesses nationwide. The program was established to help address the educational and technical challenges that prevent small businesses from establishing and sustaining a successful presence online. "We're thrilled to partner with the ASBDC," says Justin Kitch, Homestead CEO & founder. "ASBDC is a national resource that provides immeasurable benefits to small businesses, which are the backbone of our society and economy. Now, as small businesses face the daunting task of competing online, we are happy to work hand-in-hand with the thousands of SBDC counselors around the country who will help them better prepare for success in today's highly-competitive business environment."
One of the most critical challenges facing America's small businesses is that their growth potential has been threatened due to greater competition from companies engaged in online business and ecommerce. The 2006 Small Business Survey, co-sponsored by Homestead Technologies and ASBDC revealed that SBDC counselors cited high cost, lack of technical skill and lifetime maintenance and editing costs, as the key barriers that prevented their clients from establishing a website. The survey also concluded that only 6% of the counselors surveyed, felt "very comfortable" making online marketing recommendations to their clients. The 2006 Small Business Survey was developed in order to better understand the challenges experienced by small business owners marketing online.
Homestead Technologies and ASBDC hope that their partnership to "train the trainers," will help better prepare counselors to educate small businesses on the importance of establishing a presence online, and to provide their clients with hands-on, "do it yourself" technology to encourage competition from smaller sized businesses. "Homestead Technologies has always believed that entrepreneurs develop and manage every other aspect of their small businesses and websites are no exception," says, Don Wilson, ASBDC President. "Our counselors have told us that they need help, and we're absolutely delighted that we're able to use Homestead's expertise to further educate our counselors and to spread their message of self-empowerment to small businesses across America."
Changing Small Businesses One Website at a Time
Homestead Technologies will offer online workshops to SBDC counselors that will provide them with the skills, tools and technology that they'll use to teach their clients, using SiteBuilder(TM), Homestead's easy-to-use website creation software. "Homestead's online training and education program will be an important and powerful tool for SBDC counselors to utilize in order to help better prepare entrepreneurs for today's digital economy," says Gillian Murphy, Director of the Northeastern California SBDC at San Joaquin Delta College and Homestead's pilot training center. "Our Homestead training has been incredibly valuable to us, and it will undoubtedly allow our centers to remain a comprehensive, one-stop shop for all aspects of small business creation and development."
New Enhanced Website Make Finding A Local Expert Easier for Small Businesses
Homestead has also helped America's small businesses, by redesigning ASBDC's national website so that users can quickly and easily locate counselors by their location and areas of expertise. Each SBDC counselor will be provided with a customizable website template that they can create and edit themselves; providing an opportunity for counselors to better market their services to current and prospective clients. Small businesses benefit, by having a consistent user experience and access to up-to-date information from individual counselors throughout the entire SBDC network.
Custom Websites at the Touch of a Finger
SBDC Counselors now have an even greater reason to attend the Association of Small Business Development Center's 27th Annual Conference (Denver Convention Center; Sept. 16-19th). Each counselor who visits Homestead's sponsored booth will have a digital photo taken of them on-site that will be uploaded immediately to their own customizable SBDC counselor page. Homestead has made it easy for counselors to get a personalized, business website up and running fast; allowing them to attest to the power of website marketing and the ease of Homestead's "do it yourself" website building to their clients.
For information about establishing a Homestead website training program at a SBDC location, please contact John Clinton, jclinton@homestead-inc.com
About Homestead Technologies, Inc.
Homestead Technologies, Inc. (http://www.homestead.com), provides a suite of easy-to-use, non-technical website creation products, ecommerce solutions and online marketing products and services for small businesses that wish to establish or enhance their presence online. More than 12 million people have used Homestead's award-winning design, ecommerce, marketing and hosting capabilities to create feature-rich, professional-quality websites in minutes. For over ten years Homestead has helped small businesses succeed online and has been the recipient of numerous awards including, CNET "Editor's Choice," PC magazine, "Editor's Choice," PC World, "Best of the Web," and Forbes, "Best of the Web." Homestead Technologies, Inc. is based in Menlo Park, California, and its services are available at www.homestead.com.
About Association of Small Business Development Centers
Established through a public/private partnership by Congress in 1980, the Small Business Development Center program is the most comprehensive, efficient and effective business assistance network in the nation. Their mission is to help new entrepreneurs realize their dream of business ownership and existing businesses remain competitive in the complex marketplace of an ever-changing global economy. Over 1,100 local SBDC offices extend entrepreneurial education to meet small business needs, through individual counseling, training and research assistance while serving over 1.3 million clients annually, creating over 74,000 new jobs, and generating $500,000,000 in new tax revenues. Based in universities, colleges and economic development agencies, SBDCs are funded by state and local partnerships to match US Small Business Administration support.
Source: Homestead Technologies, Inc.
CONTACT:Remi Adams of Mastermind PR, +1-650-549-3186, radams@homestead-inc.com
Web site: www.homestead.com/
