Celebrating local job-creators took a brand-new turn this year in St. Albert with the first annual small business week conference Tuesday morning.
Over 50 local business owners gathered at the Kinsmen Banquet Centre for a celebration of the “bread and butter” of job creation in St. Albert.
The first-ever event is part of week-long activities in celebration of small business week and was intended to provide resources supporting growth of local businesses.
“They really are our bread and butter of St. Albert, and they’re the ones that employ our residents, help draw people to the region from a tourism perspective,” said St. Albert business retention and expansion acting manager Nicole Pearson.
About 98 per cent of businesses in St. Albert are considered small businesses, Pearson said. In addition, about three quarters of new jobs created in the region are from existing businesses.
The conference was in partnership with the City of St. Albert’s Economic Development department, St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce and Northern Alberta Business Incubator (NABI).
Beginning with a talk on local services offered by the Chamber and Economic Development – including property listings for new facilities and advice on marketing – the conference then switched gears into a series of two talks centred on online presence.
The first talk by Brian Siddle of Strong Coffee was around how to optimize social media presence, which Pearson said is important because so much time in the day can be lost just to managing social media.
“It becomes tricky when you’re a small business, you don’t often have time, can’t often hire someone to do your social media,” Pearson said. “You could spend hours a day doing social media.”
After a networking break Paola Rohuede of Kre8tive Business Solutions gave some tips on how to grow small businesses online presence.
NABI executive director Noreen Hoskins said in changing times including where the oil industry is not the driving industry it once was, small businesses cannot expect government to be the cavalry that will ride in and save the day.
“Small businesses need to find a way to make the most of the situation, which is the economy is not in the greatest position,” she said.
The conference was a good opportunity for the three organizations to demonstrate they are forward-minded, Hoskins said.
“We are interested in not just kind of hanging on shingle and saying here we are, but we are really interested in rolling up our sleeves and helping small business anyway we can.”
Pearson said small business owners can watch out for regular luncheons offered by the city that will feature speakers on a range of topics aimed at supporting local small businesses.
