With the current economic state of things, local business owners continue to face obstacles throughout different phases of their business plan.
Working with the City of Levelland for the better part of three years, Leading EDG has become a valuable resource for individuals at any stage of their business careers as the company offers services to help those individuals grow.
An Amarillo based business, the goal for the company is to offer a network of resources with the goal of developing entrepreneurs and strengthening small businesses. The team at Leading EDG utilize a network of strategic alliances that include experts in financial management, sales training, business coaching, intellectual property, social media and more.
Taylor McAlpine has taken the role of assisting small business owners in the West Texas Area including Levelland. His coverage also includes several towns such as Tulia, Muleshoe, Wolfforth, Slaton, Denver City and Big Spring.
“I feel like we are gaining a lot of traction now with the number of things picking up for the City of Levelland,” said McAlpine. “Currently, we are in some weird economic times requiring people to make some tricky decisions when it comes to employment, growth planning and costs. We are having a lot of those conversations.”
McAlpine did explain that a lot of business owners in the beginning stages are hesitant with this being an unorthodox time to be seeking capital.
For a majority of their clients, most businesses are true startups and first generation business owners who are considering the idea. While the decision to move forward is solely on the business owner, McAlpine wants to ensure that his client has all the necessary information provided to the client to make the best decision moving forward. That could range from fact finding and market research.
An EDC cannot provide the services by law that McAlpine and his employer can provide as a private contractor. From the Leading EDG side of things, McAlpine can be the “boots on the ground” for clients within Levelland or any area he has clients.
For clients, that means McAlpine can spend time with clients, have one-on-one conversations, hear the clients professional and private goals and craft a plan to address all those factors.
“Most of the time there are obstacles that a client tends to deal with when it comes to putting these plans together,” said McAlpine. “There can be questions of does the client have the right resources, do they need access to funding, do they need help with a business plan, do they know what operations go into their plan, do they need to work through work flows and figure out where things bottleneck? For some, they can be in a totally different stage where they are not a startup, but they are already existing.
For those clients that are already out of the startup phase, some tailored questions for those clients in that phase of business can focus on what they need to do for profit maximization or if there is there anything that can be done for shareholders.
Regardless of where a business owner is such as retirement, expanding, looking at another business venture, McAlpine explained that there are resources that his company can offer to those individuals who are in any part of their business venture.
When it comes to McAlpine’s regular clientele, he feels that operations are moving steadily, but is always looking to bring on additional clients.
For all clients, their business partnership with McAlpine and Leading EDG are always confidential and proprietary.
The only criteria for the EDG are that an individual owns, operates, or are interested in starting a business within Levelland.
“Within the time of being in Levelland, the company has worked with more than 60 different owners and business, but that is only a fraction of what is out there in Levelland,” said McAlpine. “There is a lot of people that if they are willing and interested in help, they can have that provided for them.”
For client relationships, they can vary depending on the amount of involvement.
Between 30 to 40 active clients between all locations covered by McAlpine, he continues to encourage individuals in whatever phase of business planning or owning they are in to reach out for help if they do require it.
The main focus for Leading EDG and McAlpine is to promote the growth of the EDC they are serving.
“For us, success is helping them make decisions for themselves and at the end of the day it is their venture and business,” added McAlpine.” We want to make sure they have the information and resources to know what the risk is and what is the opportunity.”
From the time McAlpine started in Levelland, he has seen a continuous growth of optimism from the community.
“Theirs is a lot of optimism around the city and there are a lot of neat projects in the works for Levelland,” said McAlpine. “The city and EDC have a great momentum and direction of what they want to accomplish. From there, I get to help from the individual level while they handle the government level.”