Source: YongeStreet
The York Region Small Business Enterprise Centre (YSBEC) has launched a new ambassador program, which its organizers believe to be the first of its kind in the province.
The provincial government established a network of these Small Business Enterprise Centres in conjunction with municipalities across Ontario about 20 years ago. That network now numbers 57 centres, which provide a range of services including free business development assistance, help with licensing and registration, and networking events.
The YSBEC serves the six northern and smaller municipalities in York Region: Aurora, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, King, Newmarket, and Whitchurch-Stouffville. (The larger, southern York Region municipalities–Markham, Richmond Hill, and Vaughan–each have their own separate centres.)
“Each one of the centres is there to help people get started in business, and help early growth stage business,” explains Dan Ruby, a small business consultant with the YSBEC. They provide free consulting services that “can help you with your business planning, access to financing, sales, and marketing” and other start-up issues small business face.
“If you think of us as if we were a general practitioner,” Ruby goes on, “if we were to diagnose an issue of concern that is beyond the scope of a general practitioner, we would send you to a specialist. The ambassadors are like our specialists.”
Essentially, the consultants that are routinely available at the centre are able to provide business development support, but sometimes a client needs expertise in a particular field: accounting or digital media or branding or the like. The new ambassadors—the centre has about a dozen—are specialists in these and other areas, and the centre’s clients can come to them for free sector-specific advice when they need it.
To provide maximum flexibility, clients can now access ambassadors via three different channels: at quarterly events, where “expert corner” roundtables are set up, through a direct referral from the centre, and online, via a new system called MENTORup, which is “kind of like eHarmony for mentors and small businesses,” says Ruby.
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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.
Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.
As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.
York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.