And the winner is….

Michelle Davenport //May 23, 2011//

And the winner is….

Michelle Davenport //May 23, 2011//

The Denver Small Business Development Center recently hosted a bumper sticker contest to show support for local small businesses. The winning phrase with 480 votes, “Small business IS big business in Colorado,” was coined by Joel Anderson.

Anderson decided to enter the phrase, with 15 minutes left in the contest, which his grandfather, Barney Flood, used to say. His grandfather was an insurance agent for small businesses.

“He was an insurance agent for small businesses centralizing on the insurance products that catered to small businesses,” Anderson said. “He used to tell us, if you treat every customer like they are your only customer then you’ll never have to look for business.”

Anderson says it is small businesses that support the local Colorado economy.

“It is nice to have the big businesses, but the small businesses are the ones that have the passion,” he said.

Tameka Montgomery, executive director of SBDC, says small businesses need the support of the community.

“I wanted to have some sort of public display of support for small businesses,” Montgomery said. “Our purpose at the small business development center is to help small businesses grow and prosper.”

SBDC received 157 entries for the bumper sticker contest, but they internally narrowed it down to five before opening it up to a public vote. The other four phrases were: “We’re not just small business, we’re a BIG business in training!” “Denver Small Business: We’re Kind of a Big Deal,” “Support small Business…it makes great cents for our economy,” and “I love (picture of red heart) small business: the heart of our economy.”

The prize of the contest was having the sticker distributed throughout the community, a free round trip airline ticket and attendance at SBDC’s training classes.

“One of the things we try to do with our training classes is make sure they are relevant, practical and the attendee receives things he or she can walk away with immediately and immediately implement into their business,” Montgomery said.

Anderson has not used his free plane ticket, but he plans to visit family in Alabama.
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