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Growing Up with Durham

Growing up with Durham
After nine years of helping get businesses off the ground, BACD now focused on business grow

Feb 22, 2007
By Izabela Jaroszynski
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DURHAM -- It is those 'aha!' moments that Carol Ann Walker loves most about her job.

"I certainly get a charge out of it when a client has a moment of realization in my office," says the executive director of the Business Advisory Centre of Durham. "Working with entrepreneurs creates quite a nice, exhilarating environment."

Occupying 2,000 square feet of space inside McLaughlin Square in downtown Oshawa, BACD has been providing support to local entrepreneurs for the past nine years. Government funded, the not-for profit facility is equipped with a comprehensive resource library, knowledgeable staff and free Internet access.  "Basically, we are here to support entrepreneurs who are either in the thinking, starting, or growth phase of their business," Ms. Walker says. "Sometimes they need to get through a moment of angst or a moment of uncertainty or just need some reassurance. And sometimes they need very specific guidance. We do both."  Based on a short counselling session, the staff may recommend a new client go for a consultation, a workshop, do market research, or some work on the Internet or in the library.  "Walk-in clients that have some needs, some questions, or just require some direction and guidance can come in and, for free, work with the staff out front and utilize the business research library and Internet lounge to gather information or receive free publications on a variety of topics," she adds.  The centre receives about 3,000 counselling requests each year and provides one-on-one consultations to more than 600 clients annually.  And just last week, BACD launched a revamped website (www.bacd.ca) that hopes to reach out to even more people.  "We decided to translate our nine years of knowledge and information into a website," Ms. Walker said. "So the website can be a mini-counsellor and help people understand what stage they're actually at and help them move in the right direction."  She hopes the site will better serve the northern reaches of the region -- those budding entrepreneurs or business owners who find it hard to commute to the centre -- and the busy people who may not have time for a walk-in appointment but require relevant business information.  The new website is symbolic of the change happening inside BACD. Charged with serving a region that is exploding in growth, the centre itself is morphing to adapt to the changing needs of business owners and new entrepreneurs -- offering ever more workshops and reaching out to existing companies through special mail-outs.  "It's huge," Ms. Walker says of the business opportunity that exists inside Durham's boundaries. From new restaurants to service-oriented companies, businesses are springing up across the region to serve the growing population.  And while the centre remains the place for those thinking of starting a new business to go, she says the positive climate in Durham also means existing businesses need a helping hand to grow bigger.  "We have a team that can go in and diagnose: are your marketing efforts paying off? Do you have marketing efforts? Are your finances in good shape? What can be done perhaps to improve the financial situation?"  She knows that getting the word out about BACD's programs and services to existing businesses will be a challenge.  "It's the business owner with 10 (employees) and under who doesn't have the time of day to come in here and they're the ones we want to reach out to," she said. "Some of them are already our clients, but with a region this size it is highly unlikely we are reaching the number we could be."

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