ST INS CARES-SCORE-Mentors For Small Business Owners

Most people don’t need another motivational quote to start a business. They need a roadmap, someone who has been there before, and a reality check that doesn’t crush the dream. We sit down with Bill Robertson, Chapter Chair of SCORE Southwest Florida, to talk about what entrepreneurs actually struggle with when they launch, grow, or even restart a small business and how SCORE’s free mentoring helps.

We unpack how SCORE works, who it serves across Lee and Hendry counties, and why the first mentor meeting is all about listening. Bill explains how mentors help founders think through the decisions that shape everything else: LLC vs S-corp, bookkeeping and taxes, marketing strategy, and what “success” means to you personally. We also get into why you are not “one and done” with mentoring, because building a business is not a Google search, it is a series of choices made under pressure.

Then we go deep on the tools that separate hope from a plan: a business plan that holds you accountable, a feasibility study that forces the hard-cost math, and an elevator pitch that earns you the next conversation with lenders, partners, or grant makers. Bill also shares how SCORE is navigating delayed federal funding and why volunteers and community supporters keep this small business resource strong.

If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a founder you care about, and leave a review so more entrepreneurs can find practical small business mentoring when they need it most.

SCORE Southwest Florida
Bill Robertson
(239) 533-3102
2201 SECOND STREET SUITE 500, Fort Myers, FL 33901
ch.admin0219@scorevolunteer.org
score.org
@SCORESouthwestFlorida/

State Insurance USA
4450 Camino Real Way
Ft Myers, FL 33966
239-567-9992
office@StateInsuranceUSA.com
stateinsuranceusa.com
https://www.facebook.com/Stateinsuranceusa
#StateInsuranceUSA
#SupportLocal
#WeLoveOurClients
@Stateinsuranceusa

Ft Myers Beach-Good Neighbor
To Nominate Someone to be Featured
Or
To Subscribe to the Newsletter
CLICK HERE
https://cabowabojim.com/listen-to-podcasts/

Transcript

Welcome And Why We Care

Intro/Close 0:00

Welcome to the State Insurance US State Cares Podcast, where we celebrate the heart of our communities. Each episode we highlight local charities and nonprofits who are bringing hope, help, and healing to those who need it most. Get ready to be inspired by the amazing stories of people making a difference. Because together, we care.

Gail Langner 0:19

Well, honey, and welcome to the State Insurance Cares podcast. We're the charitable giving arm of State Insurance USA. I'm Gail Langer. And I think we all know that if you're going to start a business or try and grow a business, that's not necessarily the easiest thing to do. It really could help if you had an experienced mentor that's for sure could really make a difference. So today, really blessed to have Bill Robertson. He's the chapter chair of SCORE Southwest Florida on with us today. So Bill, thanks so much for joining us.

Bill Robertson 0:49

It's my pleasure being here, and I'm excited to uh to share the news about SCORE. We're a good kept secret.

Bill Robertson’s Mentoring Journey

Gail Langner 0:55

Well, tell us about it. Well, how did you get involved?

Bill Robertson 0:57

Well, actually, um it's because of my corporate life. I started out from school. I got hired by a Fortune 100 company, uh, which I worked for 30 years, which I retired from. But along the way, I got involved in owning my own companies in that, and uh which over time turned into a portfolio of five different entities. So when it came time to liquidate those and move on, uh I had a lot of free time and I was used to mentoring. That's what I did in my own companies, that's what I did in corporate life. So I looked around and discovered score. Um, actually, I started out with score in New England because that's where my corporate life was, but then uh family kind of drew me down to the Florida area, and with that I discovered uh SCORE down there. I've been with SCOR almost uh seven years now. Um I I've been the uh the chair for the last four, so it has been a very uh exciting, enriching, and you know, challenging time, uh, especially with the way business conditions are and the things that have changed in Florida.

What SCORE Is And Who It Helps

Gail Langner 2:10

I've actually taken a couple of classes with SCORE, but for those people that don't really know what SCORE does, what could you explain what it is?

Bill Robertson 2:19

SCORE is actually a national organization. Uh we're 60 years old nationally. We have about 8,000 volunteers nationally. The chapter in our own backyard, which I covered Lee and Hendries County, uh is a little over 50 years old. Well, that's amazing. Uh we have about uh 25 uh mentors with us right now, and what we really focus on are startup, small, and medium-sized companies. I mean, when you think about it and you're starting a company and you're ready to uh kind of get engaged with not only the taxation situation, am I an LLC? Am I an escort? What should I do? Wouldn't it be nice to have somebody walk the path with you that has already been there and maybe done it more than once, as would be in my case? So what we do, um we do uh marketing. Uh we are on the internet at score.org. So anybody interested in in getting a little bit of hand holding, working on what your plan might be, uh, is it feasible? Is it profitable? What is the path I need to take to get where I want to go with my particular uh wish in a company? Um, you can go to the website, request a mentor, and we will assign you to an individual that may have your background right away, or maybe an individual that you can share your ideas and concept with. And we're not afraid to call in co-mentoring. Uh, as an example, if I get somebody that uh really wants to launch a major marketing campaign, yeah, I know marketing and I know the differences there, but things have changed since I've been in business. So we have an individual that uh, and we have more than just one that are very strong in this category. So we could come in and we would co-mentor and talk to you about you know what's your choices here? What can we do in Facebook? What can we do in TikTok? What can we do with Google? What kind of dashboards do you need to look at to see how your marketing is going? So we have we have a lot of support teams back and forth uh being able to do that uh to get you where you want to go as as far as how you define success in your business. Business to us can be several different things. It could be an individual coming to us. Um my kids are in sports a lot. I need some extra money to help, and I I want to do kind of a little side hustle, maybe. I work a full-time job, but I want to do this, and I'm interested in doing well. We can help you set that up, take a look at what kind of money is feasible to come from this for the time that you're going to invest, how is that going to work for you? Or maybe you're deciding that I've always had this idea about starting my own company. What is what does that involve? What do I what do I have to do for that? And do I have enough money to start this? Is that going to be profitable for me? I mean, those are all excellent questions to bring to us in regards to helping you figure out what all that might look like.

The First Session Is Listening

Bill Robertson 5:36

I think the main road that we lean towards when we talk to individuals is really the first session. Is that whatever you fill out on the request form to talk to a mentor doesn't necessarily translate into what you actually need. So that first conversation is a heavy listening session. We want to hear where you want to go. We want to hear what you have in mind, we want to talk about what your long-range plan for this company might be. And is it going to be a full-time job? Uh, you know, are you supporting your whole family with this? And all those kinds of good things. I think the two things that normally come from those kinds of conversations is that we never feel that it's one and done. You come to us, we're not a Google search. We are the folks that walk the path with you to help you in making sure that you have all the information available to make a good decision or a decision that you feel is best for how you want your company to go. I think no matter the size of the business, ones that have been established for a while, ones that are starting up, or ones that are just thinking about it, Gail, the two things I come away with every time is that number one, we need a plan.

Business Plans In A Tough Market

Bill Robertson 7:03

We got to figure out what your roadmap looks like. We got to figure out really where you're going and what kind of time frame you need to get there. So to do that, we really got to talk about a business plan. Now, a lot of people have heard of those, and sometimes they get afraid in the verbiage. A business, I don't know what that is. I don't know how to do that. Well, we can help you through that. We don't necessarily get involved in the physical writing of the plan, but the plan is your roadmap, no matter if you're an established business or you're one starting up, or you haven't done this for a while and you want to come back to it. It is the one tool as an entrepreneur that holds you accountable. There's nobody else that looks in the mirror with you in the morning and say, Hey, I I was successful today. I had good sales, things are going well, or it's on the other side. Wow, I really did. Wow, I'm I my cash flow is not where I need it to be. I got I gotta figure out what I do next. I also tell my clients choosing not to do a business plan, you might as well go out to Vegas because if you want to take a risk, there's a good place to take a risk out there. I don't want to take it in business. It's tough enough as it is. I think of business, especially in today's climate that we're faced with in our local market. It's it's a tough market to a certain extent. So you look at it, it's almost like nailing jello to a tree. You think you have it in the right position, you think you have it where you want it, and along come tariffs, along come new taxes, along come distributor disruption, along comes another hurricane, along comes whatever along comes. And you you need an alternative. You need something to look at to say, okay, this isn't working, this is what I need to do differently, and this is what that might look like and how that needs to be.

Gail Langner 9:00

I know that when I know you've probably seen the same thing where you see a restaurant open and then six months later they're closed, and you go, you you know, weren't you prepared for summer, you know, when when the snowbirds are gone? I mean, were you, you know, where did you you know, where did you go wrong?

Bill Robertson 9:19

You know, I totally agree. I I think sometimes, and and this is this is the advantage of coming and talking to score. Uh we have real-world experience. So we talk through those kind of things. We talk through, okay, you have summer coming. What what is what is your game plan? Right. I think oft times, and I mean this a little tongue-in-cheek, they think of being a business owner, an entrepreneur, as getting their own ATM machine. Uh, some of it look at it as that, well, I can work this part-time, I can make some money, but you know, I don't really have to pay a lot of attention to it. Right. I'm afraid that's not the way it works. No. Business is a 24-7 job. It comes to you day or night. Uh, there's nobody else to ask questions of but you. And the ATM machine can be good for you, but it's also the concept that you have to have some retained earnings along the way for the summer months. A piece of equipment breaks down. I want to expand. What does that look like? How much money do I need to have? One of the things that comes out of your business plan and a tool to look at and developing that, I use it all the time. I go over to YouTube and I simply look up business canvas model. Business canvas model will give you a 20-minute video in all the elements that are involved in a business plan. Now, you certainly can come back to score. You come back to score.org and you type in business plan. It's gonna give you a very detailed description of what a business plan looks like.

Feasibility, Funding, And The Elevator Pitch

Bill Robertson 10:58

We have a lot of folks now with new tools out there, AI is one of them. Well, you know, I'm gonna do my business plan with my AI, and I I mean it's gonna be great. Well, it is verbally, it'll be excellent, but is it really yours? Have you really thought through the difficulties of what you're going to deal with? And have you done the second piece? The second piece is the feasibility study. The feasibility study comes out of your business plan in the real in the relationship to all the hard costs that are involved to run that business. And your business cost is certainly going to be different in my business cost because of my overhead, because of my type of business, because the way I want to expand, the cost of materials for my business are different than yours. I need that kind of information because from that it helps me drive who I am as a business, what my profitability picture looks like. The other question we get constantly, Gail, we are not a funding organization. I am a nonprofit. I have I I don't have that kind of money. But they but we we have those that need that for their business. In a startup, you really have to have the business plan and the feasibility to know what kind of money and what your roadmap looks like to go out to the marketplace and look for funding. Now we can help with that, but we need those two pieces so that we can help you develop that popular elevator pitch. It's like going fishing. If I'm gonna go fishing, I've got to put something on the hook that really interests the fish, the individual, the bank, the lending institution, the grant, whoever it may be, of wow, I'm I'm worth talking to. I'm worth, hey, I've done some homework here. I know what my hard costs are gonna look like, I know where my company's gonna be pretty much in a year, and I almost know where it's gonna be where I want it to be in five years. That's a major, major difference today because when you walk in there, we have to remember they don't know us. Right. So we have to put our best foot forward, and the way they do that is really that first five minutes telling the overview of who we are. We can always bring in more documentation in our business plan, but that that elevator pitch, that that first few minutes is how we set the tone of who we are as a business.

Funding Cuts And How SCORE Adapts

Gail Langner 13:34

Right. You just mentioned your nonprofit. Um, obviously, that's the reason that state insurance care is donated to you. Uh, when you when you and I had a chat earlier, um you mentioned that your funding has been cut. How is that, your federal funding, how is that gonna affect um your going forward helping um prospective business people?

Bill Robertson 13:59

We're not gonna let it affect it. Uh, I've pretty much taken the position that we're gonna do whatever we can do without funding, and uh uh we're kind of working on some program ideas, uh working with others, and I can't tell you how grateful we are uh at our score chapter in regards to your company stepping up and and being one of our supporters now. We're happy to do it. That that issue really came from almost two years ago. Uh back in 25, we received funding from Congress as a grant through the SBA, and it's paid in arrears, is how the system works. So, with the way things have been, uh it took, it has taken up until about a week ago, it's taken a year and a half for the in arrears for 25 to be paid. So we don't know what 26 is going to look like, we don't know what 27 is looking like. As a businessman, uh, and that's my background, I had an opportunity to do a zero budget. A zero budget means here's what I need, but I don't have any money. Right. So we've been aggressively looking around for supporters to help us with our mission. Uh, we still have funding enough through National to be able to do some marketing. So we have our website, so we receive clients through the website. Uh, we're going to continue to do that. We have a strong outreach program for the Babcock branch reason. Uh we are members of the Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce. We're members of the the Chamber over in Bonita Springs and Asterel. So we're we're not rolling up and just uh hiding someplace. We're a business. We have to adapt to what's going on. So we have been uh reaching out looking for additional supporters.

unknown 15:53

Okay.

Bill Robertson 15:53

Uh, if you go to our website, uh there is information there on how you might be able to donate uh to score. And quite frankly, it's not a um pay-to-play game. We don't ask our clients for any kind of funding whatsoever. We don't come back to them and say, geez, you're successful. Can you come and that's not how this works. We are a nonprofit. We uh look to outside businesses that uh such as yours that uh are gracious enough to come and support our message and help us uh in in what we're doing. Our main focus right now, I believe, is in regards to education.

Mentor Expertise And Defining Success

Bill Robertson 16:35

Education both for our clients and education as far as our volunteers are concerned. There are so many new things coming to the marketplace, and I'll I'll just use AI as the first example of what I mean. Um I stepped out of the market a few years ago, and yet I've been very involved in these meetings and catching up with what AI means, what AI can do for us, and how important it's gonna be. And that's the piece that I want to bring as far as our volunteers are concerned. But our clients, if you're gonna start a business, wouldn't it be nice to talk to somebody that's been a CPA, knowing how you should set up your books, what that should look like, what things are important for taxes. And oh, by the way, how should I form my company? Should I be an LLC? Should I be an S-corp? What does it require me to do to be a nonprofit? What does it look like if I want to have somebody come in with me and I'd like to be a partnership? How do I develop that? Where do I go to get that kind of information? That's the caliber of mentors that we have at the local score chapter. We can talk about those issues. We can talk about where do you go to find more information or what that might look like and how you develop your success as far as your business is concerned. I'll say also in developing success in business, I came from developing five different companies, all small startups for the most part. When I'm working with an individual, I always caution myself to think of success in their eyes. My perception of success might be entirely different. I may, because of my background, think, oh my gosh, this company could be five more DBAs and in doing business as in different directions. They could, they could be this, they could be that, and in five years, wow, what could this be? I try to remember that's not necessarily the vision of how they want to do this and where they want to go. So we caution ourselves along the way to, you know, take a step back, listen to what they have to say, what is their vision? And I think it develops some somewhat over time as they see their businesses grow and change.

Gail Langner 18:57

As as we wrap up here, Bill, um, I was I was actually just thinking about Blake and how he how he could really help with with new

Volunteers, Outreach, And Wrapping Up

Gail Langner 19:05

businesses. They they approach our commercial department and have no idea what kind of insurance they they need. I think, oh wow, the the wealth of knowledge that Blake has. Well, what that makes me come to as we close is are there could you use more volunteers? Could you use different kinds? Oh, you laugh. It's for sure you could use more volunteers, right?

Bill Robertson 19:24

I could use I could use all of everything.

Gail Langner 19:26

Okay.

Bill Robertson 19:27

I could use more funding, I could use more volunteers. Yes, we we always are in a need for volunteers. Um, our organization is retired executives, and I must remind folks that life happens. Things happen where they need to be away for a while. Um, life happens in regards to their health, so a lot of different things. And as a member of SCORE, you can be on pause for a while and be a way to take care of family issues or health issues or whatever it may be. So we are constantly looking for anybody that has somewhat of a background in business that has time, and I would liken it their time if to give them a concept. If you ever play a round of golf, that's normally about four hours.

Gail Langner 20:15

Four hours.

Bill Robertson 20:16

If you gave us four hours and were involved in the mentoring piece, and also considered in being on one of our committees that was to deal with education or training, or if you've done a lot of presentations, that would be very helpful. All those kinds of things. And you can you can apply to be a member of SCORE right at our website. There's a volunteer listing there as well. Go in, fill out the application. We'll give you all the detail. There's a lot of it right there. You'll probably get a chance to chat with me because I like talking to all the individuals that are going to come and be a part of our chapter. Sure. Uh, we'd be excited to have you. We we really would. And that opens the door for all communities. Um we lack, I think, and has been troublesome to me that we don't do more in the Hispanic community. I'm very pleased to say I've been able to recruit some individuals to come in and be a part of that now. I think it's important to us to have the ability of speaking Spanish and have that ability. So don't let that hold you back or don't let that uh be a stumbling block. We're glad to have you.

Gail Langner 21:25

Oh, Bill, thank you. I can we can actually just sit here and talk for a really long time. I I it has been so no, it's been so interesting to to find out more about SCORE and uh to find out what you do and and what a blessing you are to so many people. So I just want to thank you for taking time out of your day to.

Bill Robertson 21:43

Listen, anytime we're more than happy to share the story of SCORE. It's just it's it's been kept a secret for way, way, way, way, way, way too long. And there's so much more out there that we could be doing. No question.

Gail Langner 21:55

With you belonging belonging to all these chambers, and you know, you and I chatted before Fort Myers Beach Chamber is very near and dear to my heart. So um, with you getting out there and and letting people know um what a wonderful resource you are. So thank you again, Bill Robertson from South, um, I'm sorry, Score, Southwest Florida. And um thank you, thank you for taking the time today. We appreciate it.

Bill Robertson 22:18

Thank you for the opportunity.

Sponsor Links And Sign Off

Intro/Close 22:20

Thank you for joining us on State Insurance USA cares.com or call 239 567 9992. You can also visit cabowabojim.com. Until next time, be sure to let your sun shine and keep sharing good and positive vibes wherever the waves take you.