• CONSULTING
• TRAINING
• RESOURCE ROOM
• HOURS

The University of Arkansas - Fort Smith SBDC operates as a regional office of the Arkansas Small Business Development Center's statewide network and serves the west central region of Arkansas. Counties served include: Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Logan, Pope, Sebastian, Scott and Yell.

The Fort Smith regional office is located within the College of Business on the UA Fort Smith campus. Consulting, training and research services are available to existing and prospective business owners.

CONSULTING

Free, confidential consulting is available by appointment. Assistance provided includes:

• Advice on operating challenges facing existing businesses
  
  
• Review of business plans and strategies
  
  
• Guidance in new business start-ups
  
  
• Advice on buying or selling a business
  
  
• Assistance preparing loan requests
  
  
• Financial analysis and budget development
  
  

Call Vonelle Vanzant, Center Director, at 479-788-7758 to discuss your needs and schedule an appointment. Or, you may contact her for assistance at vvanzant@uafortsmith.edu.

TRAINING

A variety of small business training seminars are offered in the region. The statewide seminar listing is available on our lead center's web site.

Additionally, we now offer several on-line training courses in three of the areas we consider important for prospective and existing business owners to master, namely, the areas of marketing, management and money. More information, including a list of the courses, a tutorial and the registration page is available at SmallBizU.

Information and registration for our instructor-led seminars is available on our training calendar. For questions about our training services or to sponsor a seminar, call Tabitha Dunbar, Training Coordinator, at 479-788-7879.

RESOURCE ROOM

Additionally, the UA Fort Smith SBDC has a resource room available for public use. The resource room houses a variety of reference books, start-up guides and general business books. There is a public use computer available to assist with research. Software installed on the computer includes the Microsoft Office Suite, QuickBooks Pro 2005, SPSS Statistical Software, Business Plan Pro and Marketing Plan Pro.

Hours for the Resource Room are generally Monday and Wednesday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Friday morning from 8:00 a.m. to noon and Tuesday and Thursday by appointment.

Call Pat Forst at 479-788-7758 to check on Resource Room availability or schedule an appointment to use the resources.

HOURS

The office is generally open between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5: 00 p.m. Monday through Friday. However, we recommend you call to confirm staff availability prior to visiting the office.