What is the SCORE Association?
The SCORE Association "Counselors to America's Small Business" is a nonprofit association comprised of 13,000 volunteer business counselors throughout the U.S. and its territories. There are 389 SCORE chapters in urban, suburban and rural communities. SCORE members are trained to serve as counselors advisors and mentors to aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners. These services are offered at no fee, as a community service. SCORE was formed in 1964 and nearly 4.5 million Americans have utilized SCORE services.
What qualifies SCORE members to give business advice?
The key qualification SCORE counselors bring to clients is real-world experience. SCORE business counselors have general management and specific industry experience that can benefit your business. SCORE business counselors may be working or retired business owners, business executives or operations managers. All SCORE counselors receive specialized training in counseling and mentoring.
What kind of counseling does SCORE provide?
SCORE's experienced business experts provide general business advice on everything from how to write a business plan, to cash flow management, to developing a small business advisory board. Assistance for aspiring entrepreneurs may involve investigating the market potential for a product or service and assessing the capital needs to start a business. Counselors can provide insight into how to start a business, operate a business, buy a business or franchise and sell a business.
Are business secrets safe with SCORE?
Yes. All SCORE business counselors honor the client's right to proprietary and confidential information. Client information remains confidential. All SCORE counselors abide by an association Code Of Ethics, which includes protecting the confidences between client and counselor. Each year, counselors reaffirm their commitment to the Code Of Ethics.
Does SCORE offer other services?
Yes. SCORE Chapters offer low-cost workshops and seminars. Topics are planned to help address specific interests in a given community. Basic workshop fees generally range from FREE-$75 depending upon the program.
Workshop topics have included: Developing Your Business Plan, Starting and Operating Your Own Business, Getting Financing For Your Business, Basic Business Accounting, Expanding Your Business and Marketing-A Do-it-yourself Approach for Small Business.
What is email counseling?
Email counseling is an email exchange between you a soon-to-be entrepreneur or small business owner and a volunteer, SCORE business counselor. Email counseling gives you the opportunity to send email questions about small business to a SCORE counselor anywhere in the country.
Can I contact SCORE for email counseling?
Yes. There are two ways that you can obtain SCORE email counseling. The SCORE National web site (www.score.org) offers a special feature called Get Email Counseling. You can go to email counseling and pose a business question to one of the SCORE business counselors who have joined the SCORE CyberChapter to provide you with email answers to business questions.
You choose from a list of counselors with expertise in the business areas that interest you and write a question to the counselor who is the best match for your business or industry. The listing of those counselors also indicates their geographical location so that you may select a counselor with whom you may later wish to have personal counseling sessions. Send a question and your SCORE counselor will reply with his or her answer. Keep the dialog going as long as you have questions for your business counselor.
Further, the Chapters of the Arizona SCORE organization each have email counseling as well as regular email contact capabilities. You may contact them via the Chapter links on the left side of this page. |
