In less than 24 months, Amazon’s Small Business Partnerships & Education team has grown their programming with small business advocates like SCORE and Syracuse University’s D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) from a few webinars in the greater D.C. metropolitan area to more than 150 events across 41 states, directly engaging with over 17 thousand small businesses.
“It all comes down to demand,” said Ed Coleman, the regional VP for SCORE’s Mid-Atlantic region, adding that small businesses are lining up to take the courses. “Amazon offers many tools to help small businesses succeed in today’s economy and their education programs show someone exactly how to do it.”
“Typically, when companies do this, they want the lowest common denominator; they want super established businesses that are ready to go right now,” said Misty Fox, director of entrepreneurship and small business at IVMF. “Amazon’s taking that unique view of working with individuals who are one step away, in terms of how do we get them ready. They are one of the leading retailers who understands how important it is to work with businesses that may be in operating on different levels, defining success differently based on what stage they are in.”
Over the past 14 years, Matt Butler, a retired Air Force officer, has seen firsthand how Amazon has grown its small business educational offerings. When Butler first started selling his outdoor game, Rollors, on Amazon over a decade ago, he was largely on his own, relying on resources like SCORE and the U.S Small Business Administration (SBA) to learn the ropes.
SCORE, a resource partner of the SBA*, provides free business education and mentoring services to prospective and established small business owners in the United States. With more than 10,000 volunteers, SCORE is one of the largest networks of small business support in the country.
“It was grit and grind back then,” Butler said. “There weren’t the same educational programs and partnerships that exist today to help small businesses get set up on Amazon.”
Now, Butler has become a vocal advocate for the educational support provided by Amazon, after becoming aware of the programming about 5 years ago through the IVMF, and he’s been impressed by their efforts to scale their educational programming nationwide.
“What I’ve liked that Amazon has done with the courses is provide introductory sessions, and now I’m seeing more advanced courses as well, which is wonderful because it’s capturing those people that have been in business a while and need more specialized training,” said Butler.
Butler has gone from student to instructor, partnering with Amazon and IVMF to encourage transitioning veterans to become entrepreneurs. From interactive workshops on advertising and supply chain solutions, to panel discussions featuring successful local sellers, Amazon’s Small Business Partnerships and Education events cover a wide range of topics to empower small businesses at every stage of growth.
“It’s very easy to just say, here’s how to sell, but it’s a lot harder to say and here’s how to be successful,” said Fox. “With Amazon, it’s not just a quick 90-minute webinar about ‘here’s how you sell in the Amazon store,’ it’s supported by ‘here’s how you can be capital ready,’ ‘here’s how we can help build a DTC website,’ ‘here’s how we can talk about supply chain,’ and ‘here’s how we can talk about manufacturing.’”
“Because Amazon builds their programming to be comprehensive, it allows an entrepreneur to walk out and say, I not only know how to sell on Amazon, I know every step I need to do as an entrepreneur to be successful on Amazon,” said Fox.
Amazon’s programming, said Coleman, is one of the highest rated programs SCORE education offers. Adding that in the past 10 years, no other partner has the education, tools and services for small businesses that Amazon has.
“Amazon is in a league of their own. They’ve looked at the hurdles small businesses face and addressed them with their educational programming, tools and services,” said Coleman. “Having a retailer that has a low barrier of entry is incredibly important to those that are looking to grow or start their business. The resources that Amazon has in place and in one location are without-a-doubt a small business enabler, and we know small business drives our economy,” said Coleman.
“Our goal is to meet small businesses where they are by providing them the information that will be the most helpful as they seek to grow with Amazon and as a business,” said Abby Malchow, Manager of Small Business Partnerships & Education at Amazon. Because of this unique approach and our successful collaborations with incredible partners like IVMF and SCORE, we have been able to scale our small business educational programming by 400% in the past year alone, to help fuel their economic growth and impact local communities.”
*Funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.