Interise’s 2018 Impact Report shows that businesses powered by the StreetWise ‘MBA’™ created jobs at 11 times the rate of the private sector as a whole. Also indicated in the report, most Interise businesses were job creators, and among them, each company created and filled an average of 7 new positions. These aren’t just “jobs,” they’re good jobs that provide employees and their families with benefits like paid time off, health insurance, and professional development. Additionally, these jobs pay well. The average salary for new jobs created by Interise businesses was $61,288 — more than $10,000 above the national average.
While small businesses may typically have fewer resources than larger companies, established small businesses are able to provide “personal touch,” as Victoria Washington, CEO of Vision IT Consultants, describes her company’s focus on employee satisfaction. Washington, a 2015 Little Rock StreetWise ‘MBA’™ alum, runs a company that provides enterprise IT systems, primarily to the US Military. As CEO, Washington has more than tripled the revenue of Vision IT Consultants in the past few years, and has also been named Arkansas’ 2017 Small Businessperson of the Year.
Arkansas Small Business Person of the Year for 2017 Victoria Washington (left) Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon (right)
“The biggest thing that I bring to the table is that I know how to treat my people,” says Washington. “They’re the lifeblood of everything that we do.”
Richard Grundy, CEO of Avtech Software, Inc. and 2016 Providence StreetWise ‘MBA’™ alum, has led his company to grow revenue and staff by over a thousand percent. Grundy’s leadership is community-focused, which encourages high employee retention.
Grundy says, “It’s not always easy to compete with much larger companies… what we can provide is a friendly, family-focused comfortable environment to work in and still provide the benefits. We pay 100 percent of the medical and dental insurance for not only our employees, but their entire families — all their dependents as well. We really just try to make sure we’re taking care of our employees — show our employees that we’re trying to be good stewards towards the community and, as a result, the longevity of our employees is solid.”
Through scaling, Interise businesses stimulate local economies and provide opportunities in their local communities. Employee retention is a positive outcome for both employers and employees — and it comes from providing good jobs with both tangible benefits (insurance coverage, good salaries) and intangible benefits (strong company culture, relationship to the community), like those described by alums Victoria Washington and Richard Grundy. Retaining and growing your people provides small businesses with greater capacity to navigate and manage strategic growth. Interise businesses are growing rapidly — as is the Interise Network, which represents over 6,000 small businesses nationwide.
ABOUT INTERISE
Interise works to reduce economic inequality through job creation and wealth building by enabling small business owners to grow their established small business. Interise partners with government agencies, anchor institutions, and business associations to build the capacity of minority-owned small businesses, and small businesses located in low-income communities. With over 75 program locations in the United States, Interise’s StreetWise ‘MBA’™ uses a peer-learning method to provide small business owners with the business knowledge, management know-how, and network necessary to scale their established business. VIEW INTERISE’S 2018 IMPACT REPORT.