Discover the Bliss of Asheville's Small Business Help and Assistance in the Form of Counseling, Loans and Help with Business Plans

A-B Tech's Small Business Center
"... provides free one-to-one counseling for business owners or prospective owners to assist them in getting started or with a specific area of concern. Counseling can cover a variety of topics ranging from licensing and marketing to patents and trademarks. We also offer a variety of resources and services to help businesses start and grow, including business incubation...." Provides a number of free and low cost workshops.

Asheville SCORE
"... Counselors to America's Small Business, is part of a national nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of the nation's small business.  SCORE provides free professional guidance, information and support that is tailored to meet the needs of your business and your personal entrepreneur objectives.  We are commited to our goal of maximizing the success of America's existing and emerging small businesses. SCORE volunteers are real-world professionals with time-tested knowledge who donate thousands of hours to help your business succeed.  Counselors are experts in such areas as accounting, finance marketing, management and business plan preparation.   Men and women members donate their time and expertise as mentors. They guide clients through the logical, step-by-step development of a new business idea into a startup or an existing business challenge/opportunity to a plan of action. Our counseling is free and confidential...no strings attached...."

SCORE Business Plan Template
"... This template is designed to help you to write a business plan. For many, this is a formidable task. The consultants at the Asheville branch of SCORE want to make it easier. This document offers a ready-made, easy-to-use format. Microsoft's Word 2000 has been used so that it will be compatible with most word processing programs. That means that you can change the typeface, size, add colors, your own logo, or whatever you want to do to personalize your business plan...."

For assistance in writing your business plan, take a look at the Small Business Admininstration's (SBA) extensive business plan assistance online.

Click on each of the dozens of categories to the left to uncover what makes the Asheville area so vital, so intriguing and so, well, UTTERLY BLISSFUL!

From Rolf Potts' Vagabonding blog:

I've never been one of those uptight literary types who thinks that you have to have actually read a book in order to recommend it to others. So I feel no trepidation in suggesting Eric Weiner's new travelogue-slash-memoir The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World The premise of the book is simple but intriguing-- here is Amazon's description:

Part foreign affairs discourse, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, The Geography of Bliss takes the reader from America to Iceland to India in search of happiness, or, in the crabby author's case, moments of "un-unhappiness." The book uses a beguiling mixture of travel, psychology, science and humor to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is. Are people in Switzerland happier because it is the most democratic country in the world? Do citizens of Singapore benefit psychologically by having their options limited by the government? Is the King of Bhutan a visionary for his initiative to calculate Gross National Happiness? Why is Asheville, North Carolina so damn happy? With engaging wit and surprising insights, Eric Weiner answers those questions and many others, offering travelers of all moods some interesting new ideas for sunnier destinations and dispositions.

In the imaginary Netflix queue of books-that-I'm-planning-to-read, this one has just jumped to the top. By the way, why has no one started a Netflix for books? This question, and many more, I'll leave for another day.

Small Business Financing, Training and Support

Mountain BizWorks (formerly Mountain Microenterprise Fund)
"... has been helping entrepreneurs since 1989 through financing, business instruction, and on-going support....Since our founding, Mountain BizWorks has provided business training to nearly 3000 entrepreneurs, assisted in the establishment of over 1000 locally-owned businesses, and has loaned over $1 million to entrepreneurs who were unable to obtain capital from traditional lending institutions. The mission of Mountain BizWorks is to build economic opportunities through business development and capital. Our vision is inspiring entrepreneurs who have viable business ideas and the discipline to follow through will be able to access the resources they need to create successful businesses. The entrepreneurs’ increased income and improved quality of life will build a more vibrant local economy in Western North Carolina. All who participate know Mountain BizWorks as a trusted gathering place and community to bridge the gap between entrepreneurs of varying incomes, geographies, and ethnicities...."

Small Business Help for Minorities in Far West North Carolina Counties

One Dozen Who Care's Small Business Center (SBC) and Entrepreneurial Incubator
"...The Small Business Center and Entrepreneurial Incubator (SBC) addresses the ongoing problem of economic self-sufficiency of the minority and low-income people and start-up businesses in our local area. Several factors have effected the growth, leadership, and economic development of minorities and low-income people in this area--the remoteness of the location, a lack of available training resources or the knowledge to use them, and a lack of opportunities for economic growth through the creation of technology-driven and service-related industry. The SBC will provide services and training to address these issues... for the past nine years, ODWC provided leadership, economic development, and education programs to empower minorities, particularly African-Americans and women, and to foster not only tolerance, but enthusiasm for the diversity of the growing population of people of color in Cherokee, Clay, Jackson, and Macon Counties (including the Qualla Boundary) of North Carolina.."