Bank of America Has Tools For Small Business Owners

Johnny Wilbon is a Small Business Community Officers at Bank of America. PHOTO PROVIDED BY BANK OF AMERICA.
Johnny Wilbon is a Small Business Community Officers at Bank of America. PHOTO PROVIDED BY BANK OF AMERICA.

Bank of America Has Tools For Small Business Owners

By Tia Carol Jones

As Chicago’s small business community grows, there are experts who can help entrepreneurs on their journey.

Johnny Wilbon is one of seven Small Business Community Officers at Bank of America. In his role, he brings awareness, literacy and education to business owners across Illinois. Wilbon does this by connecting with community partners, small business incubators and not-for-profit organizations. He delivers this through events, presentations and webinars. He is also the Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Ambassador for the Chicagoland area.

“Bank of America has actually funded up to $2.5 billion across the country to these CDFIs to provide non-traditional credit means to our small business owners when traditional credit may not be the priority at that time,” Wilbon said.

Wilbon said one of the biggest challenges of starting a small business, concerns scaling a business and growth. Entrepreneurs starting out might use their personal capital to fund their business endeavors, which is something Wilbon advises against doing, “Commingling funds is really the first no no.” He believes education when it comes to entrepreneurs understanding access to capital is really important.

Wilbon said that education and resources are crucial to small business owners. Bank of America has a Business Empowerment website which has resources for those starting a business, as well as insights and inspiration for financing, access to capital and acquiring an EIN.

The Education Resource Center is a business education website that has in-person webinars taught by Wilbon and other Small Business Community Officers. These webinars include information about access to capital, money management and building business credit. Additional resources include an entrepreneurship directory, which has a list of venture capitalist and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs).

Small business owners can take advantage of these kinds of resources when traditional forms of receiving capital might not be available to those entrepreneurs. Another tool is the Capital Connector, which can pair small business owners with a CDFI or venture capitalist based on the needs and industry the entrepreneur is in.

Business owners building credit can take advantage of a small business credit card. If they do not qualify, Wilbon said, they can do a secure credit card, which uses their own deposits and finances to secure that card and enables them to build their credit.

“Another thing they can do is called a trade line, where maybe the small business owner purchases merchandise or equipment from vendors and with those vendors, they can make monthly payments and ask the vendor to report it to the credit bureau, which will help them develop small business credit, as well,” Wilbon said.

Small Business success stories happen when small business owners talk about the challenges they have overcome and how they solved scaling issues. Wilbon said a successful entrepreneur understands the priorities of running a business, learns how to apply education and resources to their hobby or passion, scales the right way and continues to strive within their community, and is able fundamentally and financially sound within their business.

For more information about Bank of America’s resources for small business owners, visit www.bankofamerica.com/smallbusiness/

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