Denver Metro Small Business Development Center

The midnight hour fast approaches true believers, and those few remaining who believe in return on investment (otherwise known as ROI) and the elusive beast named «an honest buck,» may take a brief respite in my humble and brief screed proffered up in regard to a series of experiences I’ve had with the Denver Metro Small Business Development Center, a division of the national chain of Small Business Development Centers.
To their credit this organization offers some small business workshops for free. Some. Those workshops are often those like «Business Basics for Newbies» and so on. Information anyone who can still read could easily glean from reading a few online articles or tutorials.
Most of the «classes» however (and I use the term in parenthesis simply because there are no books, no take-​away notes, or other «class» type materials usually provided and certainly no «after class» help without a hefty price tag) cost a fee that is common for such classes — but to instruct these classes — these opportunities are only for a select few elite members of local Chambers of Commerce or otherwise well-​connected local business owners who by offering up such classes are (of course) trying to drum up business referrals for their own businesses. There’s certainly nothing wrong with this, but if you’re a local small business owner struggling to earn a livable wage in the wrost economy this country has seen since The Great Depression, and you’d like to teach such classes in your area of expertise, you will be passed around more than a cigarette at an AA meeting. It ain’t happenin’, not now, not ever. Game over.
Those unwilling or unable to read online tutorials or «overview» articles can take free 1 – 2 hour «workshops» on how to fill out a business plan outline, or how to envision a business model, or something similar. And more complex workshops cost what is a reasonable fee for them, but be aware that if you want help starting a local small business beyond that, it’s going to cost you a pretty penny and if you want to dream of one day teaching a workshop or class in order to build your business — continue dreaming. This is only for the chosen elite who know the right people.
How do I know? Because I’ve contacted different area offices across the state multiple times as a local small business owner asking how I (very humbly and with great politeness and reverence for the power-​brokers) could somehow one day teach a similar class or seminar in my area of business expertise. On each occasion I was shut down before I could finish the sentence. Either «we just can’t fit you into our schedule to meet» or somehow couldn’t figure out how to even begin to organize such an endeavor. Meanwhile the classes/​seminars/​workshops continue daily for everyone else who is already «in.»
Certainly, I don’t want to shoot down this agency/​governmental body for what they’re doing, some of it good, but don’t say that you support local small business owners when your own emphasis is on business and making profit — and not exactly helping local small business owners. They provide no networking of any kind, no informational resources or meeting space of any kind, don’t make referrals of any kind or offer anything like that, and won’t let anyone not in their own private circle present any kind of workshop or class or seminar that could make a huge impact in boosting their businesses. We can make money for us and help our friends, but not you — that’s the imeptus of what I came away with — whether right or wrong.
And you, as a reader, and seeker of the light that occasionally yet burns from on high, deserve to know one solitary man’s journey (however agonizingly) toward that light.