State-run Entrepreneurial Training Institute offers practical training and the possibility of funding.
By: George Frey
Want to know how to succeed in business? In December, Mary Harrison graduated from Entrepreneurial Training Institute (ETI), a state program designed to help fledgling entrepreneurs make contacts and find out the nuts-and-bolts of running a small business. Two months later, Ms. Harrison signed a rental agreement and is now operating Euphorbia, a stationery and gift store in Lawrenceville.
The institute is the brainchild of the New Jersey Development Authority (NJDA) and is managed by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA). According to Ms. Harrison, the ETI program has been "a tremendous resource" and allowed her to create "a business plan that could actually be implemented."
Ms. Harrison had been thinking of opening a business for awhile and just sort of stumbled on the ETI program, she said. "I used to work at the Hyatt in Princeton and thought about opening something like this for a long time," she said. "One day we were doing a party for the EDA and I asked someone there if they had any programs for people interested in opening businesses. They told me about the ETI program and I enrolled."
The eight-week ETI program, which costs $225, covers subjects like preparing a focused business plan, understanding the financial aspects of running a small business and developing marketing strategies.
ETI instructors and facilitators are primarily bankers and economic development professionals, which gives students the opportunity to develop relationships with the very people who may one day help finance their businesses.
"They really make you think about what you’re going to do," said Ms. Harrison about ETI’s instructors and facilitators. "You have to really research everything. You are able to talk about the business specifically from the beginning. You have to really go through everything as if you had never considered it before. It’s like defending your thesis. You have to defend everything as a reasonable theory." The final test for the students is the presentation of their business plans before a lender panel composed of potential investors.
As the result of the ETI program, Ms. Harrison said she was able to develop a relationship with Catherine Shrope-Mok of Third Federal Savings Bank in Lawrenceville. Ms. Shrope-Mok also acted as a facilitator with the class.
"I was a facilitator for the class and I wound up also financing Mary’s business," Ms. Shrope-Mok said. "She really worked hard and the business went through a whole genesis. The whole thing was finely tuned. What she wanted to do with the plan of the business, the target market and where she wanted to open the store were all a recipe for success."
For more information about the ETI program or other support services offered by the NJDA and the NJEDA, call (609) 292-9279 or visit the NJEDA’s Web site at www.njeda.com.