Building Stronger Veteran-Owned Businesses Through Strategy and Support

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Veterans Business Radio, brought to you by ATL Vets, providing the tools and support that help veteran owned businesses thrive. For more information, go to atlvets.org. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Veterans Business Radio. And this is gonna be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, ATL Vets, inspiring veterans to build their foundation of success and empowering them to become the backbone of society after the uniform. For more information, go to atlvets.org. Today on the show, we have the founder CEO with Veteran Women’s Enterprise Center (VWEC), VR Small, welcome.

VR Small: Hey, thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about VWEC. How are you serving folks?

VR Small: Oh, wow. So one good thing is this is our ninth year and we are going into what we call our next level transformation. So we actually have a program called the Next Level transformation. So this is kind of a spin off of that. And clients that know us kind of get the the spin. But what we’ve seen in our nine years of service is that veteran women entrepreneurs need more than just support services. What we need for our businesses is infrastructure. And we say something that’s kind of cliche is we say that what we do is different and that makes all the difference. Our programs are pretty intense. We have four, six and nine month programs. Our curriculum is around strategic growth, and we work with the women to have their outcomes in program. And that’s the difference. So many of our clients see anywhere from a 30 to some, a 50% or more increase in their revenues while participating in our program. We focus on helping them create replicable models that when they leave us, they can continue to replicate, to continue to grow their business, to expand their business, to acquire new clients, to grow their revenue. And what we learned over the years is really interesting. Um, I think we all think that revenue growth is really important to businesses. And it is, but revenue growth alone is not enough because we’ve seen businesses with great revenues fell because they lacked real financial and real financial frameworks, which include cash flow management. So a business that’s generating great revenues but not adequately managing their cash flow may often see their doors close. So this year we’re really focused on building out our program.

VR Small: It’s been very much in person here in the DFW area. We’re headquartered in Dallas. We are now moving to a global virtual platform. So women all across the nation, and I do want to say we’re serving women across more than 40 states. And at some point we’re going to get to all 50, which we’re excited about, can participate in our programs. This virtual platform will be AI driven, so it’ll help us with performance tracking, collecting all the data we require from the women, but it’ll also help us see how the program is really working for the ladies. So we have pre post tests and we have tests within the programs. So we’ll also be able to track how fast they’re completing the program and whether the information is really resonating. So we’re excited about the transition because everybody has to grow. We just can’t keep telling our businesses to grow. But as business support organizations, we also have to be focused on how can we grow? How can we better serve our population? How can we help them be stronger? Um, I have a Substack platform called Smashing Survival Statistics because what we notice is that although we’re doing all this great work, statistically we’re not changing the number. So how do we do that? How do we build businesses that truly last? And so those are the bigger issues that we’re looking at as we build out our platform. And we work to support veteran women entrepreneurs, we say empowering her success. And so we want to empower her success from leadership to having a great business.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? Um, what made you decide to take on this adventure?

VR Small: So I moved back to Dallas about, well, probably ten years ago. It took me about a year and a half before I started this, this organization. And I didn’t move back to Dallas to do this. You know, I, I love teaching, so I was looking at teaching opportunities and other things and, and nothing was really working out for me. And I participated in this program specifically for women veterans. Um, it was something the state was kind of rotating from city to city, uh, three day program. I thought, wow, this is exciting. Um, are they coming to Dallas? And initially I wasn’t getting a response, but I’m pretty persistent. And they finally got back to me and they said no one was interested in Dallas, and so I asked him to look again. And we, you know, did a call and had about 15 different organizations on the call. And we hosted this event. And because I owned the business before they asked me to do the entrepreneur session, we had about 25, 35. I can’t remember the exact number, but we had a good number of women that participated. And what was interesting was a follow up. I kept having women reach out to me about entrepreneurship services and, and support. And I’m thinking, hey, this is a once a year event. What’s going on? And so my background in organizational development inspired me. Do some research, see what’s out there. Why are people reaching out to you? How can you be a better resource? So on and so forth. And what I found was that during that period, uh, research was out there literally from the census that women veteran entrepreneurs had grown from 4% of all veteran owned businesses to more than 15%.

VR Small: That was nearly 400,000 new businesses in just five years, and nobody was talking about it. Now the SBA has started a women’s veteran entrepreneur training program. Um, but the investment was only $300,000. So that was less than a dollar a business. So I started thinking, you know, what could we do? I knew that women veteran wanted and needed camaraderie. And so we wanted a sinner, not a name, but a real place. And we found a location and we thought, what should the center have? So we had a conference room so that other people can provide training, not just us, because we wanted to be a source of connection, but a cafe lounge where women could just come and learn about entrepreneurship, connect with other women, veteran. And at that time, co-working was really just starting to build out what we were. And so we had our own co-working space because a lot of women were, you know, working from home and, you know, wanted a place where they could come and work. And so that kind of developed the BWC. And interesting enough, the Presidential Veterans Task Force, the SBA Veterans Committee, and the Women’s Veterans, the Women’s Business Task Force all had said, we need more programs specifically designed for women veteran entrepreneurs. So one of the things I love to say about BWC is it wasn’t something we pulled out of the sky. It was data driven. Uh, research was already out there saying this was something that was needed. And given the opportunity in the space, I decided, let’s see how we can help these women.

Lee Kantor: Now, is the is the target primarily kind of seasoned entrepreneurs or can they be aspiring entrepreneurs like. Maybe they’ve worked in, um, in businesses as an employee, but had an idea that maybe had been on the back burner that they’d like to take a swing at.

VR Small: So it’s interesting. Initially we were trying to serve everybody. And you know, that’s never a good model. Um, and then as we started to build out our program, we noticed that here, particularly in the DFW area, there were a lot of startup programs and we felt like, hey, we don’t need to duplicate. We need to fill in a gap. And so we focused on those businesses that wanted to grow. They started, they had revenue, but somewhere along the line, they hit a wall and they couldn’t scale for whatever the reason. And so that’s that kind of became our niche strategic growth. And we focused, as I said, in program, helping these women develop strategies that can grow their business that would generate revenue for them over the years. And as we build out this virtual platform, we are making sure we have programs for all levels. So right now, as we speak, we provide mentorship for all women veterans. Starting a business. Just got a business concept. Growing a business. All levels. But once we launched the virtual platform, there will be a structured curriculum for startups as well as those looking to scale. And we have a program that focuses on international trade.

Lee Kantor: So now is once, um, that platform is activated, is, is there still going to be an, um, a physical location where people can gather? Or is it going to be strictly online at that point?

VR Small: No, we still want to build out our physical center. Um, we’ve been using other people’s spaces. So this is our second location for the VWEC. Once we get. So our focus has always got to be on the business owners. So the first thing is to make sure we can reach them and help them continue to grow their businesses. We don’t want to have a gap in that, but once we get that going, then we want to continue to look at where can we get a permanent space, a permanent center that the building and the land, um, preferably belongs to the VWEC, and we don’t have to keep, you know, moving around so that that’s a two fold agenda to have a location. And the vision is to have five locations, one in each region. So we don’t plan to be in every city because of course, there’s not a, a continuity really of women veteran in every center in every city. I mean, however, they are regional. And so I believe if we can have a center in each region, we can meet that region’s need adequately. So that would be the goal down the line is to first get the platform back up so that we can engage these women across the nation. Really, this issue is interesting. One of my first mentoring sessions was someone out of Alaska, and then I ended up connecting with a young woman who was in Washington, but nowhere near Seattle. In fact, she didn’t want to tell me the location because she’s like, you’re not going to know it. So we have a lot of women across the nation that are not in the major metropolitan cities, so they don’t have access to a lot of these great programs that position themselves in these metropolitan cities, but they still have amazing ideas. And I’m going to tell you, both of those ladies, I think, have million dollar ideas and deserve the kind of support everybody else is getting to grow their business.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have kind of a profile of the types of businesses that the women veteran entrepreneurs are gravitating towards. Are they brick and mortar or are they more online digital businesses or consulting coaching? Like what’s a typical entrepreneur? Um, you know, working on.

VR Small: I love that question. It’s everything. Um, they are not situated in any one industry or arena. We have consultants, transportation, construction, digital, um, caterers, everything. And I love that we always have a really unique, uh, consistency or diversity of women in the program. They’re doing some of everything and we love that. But here’s the thing, and I say it all the time, entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship. It doesn’t really change for women, not the strategies. What changes and what we have to work on is the challenges, the challenges that women face are going to be different. And entrepreneurship, but the strategy, the way you go about it is pretty much going to be the same across the board. There are things all of us need to do if we want to be successful in entrepreneurship. So what we really want to do is just make sure that we’re giving them the basics. So many business owners just jump out there and they start making money and they think they have a business, but there’s no foundation. And so eventually things start to get shaky because they never built it on anything. And they have to end up doing a lot of backtracking.

VR Small: And that backtracking cost them money with branding and all the things that they should have kind of thought about before they jumped out there. Now they got to go back and rebuild and redesign and put all these things in place, and all of that costs money and time. So we really work with our business owners to make sure they have a good, solid foundation. That’s why we say. Infrastructure is so key. You don’t build a city, um, and not think about all the elements. Highways, schools, hospitals, grocery stores, uh, residential areas, commercial areas, all of it is a part of what makes that city work. And each city is going to be different based on the culture and the needs of that environment. And that’s the same thing with each business, although the foundational elements are the same, how they go about instituting them and building them are going to be a little bit different. Somebody just wants a consulting firm, as opposed to someone that wants to build a franchise, or someone that wants to have multiple brick and mortar facilities in a region or across the nation.

Lee Kantor: So now what are some of the ways that entrepreneurs could interact with the center right now. You mentioned mentorship. I’m sure there’s education and boot camps and things like that. Or what are some of the ways that an entrepreneur can plug in and kind of a benefit from all of the work that you’re doing?

VR Small: So first and foremost, uh, mentorship. You go right to our website at the very top. It says book a session. So you can always book time 247. Go in, see what’s available, what meets your needs. Not the call. Unless you don’t have the email us, you book it. We also offer here in the DFW area. Group mentoring sessions. So women that want to dive into a specific topic. So we’re not wasting your time. We might focus on marketing. We may focus on sales, uh, key performance indicators, setting up Smart goals. But it’s a group session. I like to call it an hour of power where we really dive into that topic. So if you feel like you’re struggling there. This is a great place to connect a second right now. This is an opportune time. We are launching our summer series Financial First Boot Camp. And the reason why we’re doing that is because we realize we did a lot of focus on revenue. A lot of our programs were focused around revenues, and our programs are performance based. I want to add that in. So once the lady is accepted into our program, they have access to a grant started out at $5,000. Now we’re up to $10,000. But those grant funds are performance based. So as you reach your goals that you set for participation in the program, you receive like five monthly allocations. And we decided to do that because we saw that women were struggling in the program to actually implement their strategic growth plans.

VR Small: They needed a new website, but they didn’t have the extra money to build it out. So they’re just sitting, waiting. You know, to finish the program to access the money. Now they’re able to access that money, implement whatever that is, and improve out. This website is helping us generate revenue or access new clients through blank. If what the goal they set works, they can come back with a new goal and ask for more money. If the goal they said doesn’t work, they need to figure it out before they can ask for another contribution or another distribution distribution, as we would say. So right now they can’t do our program, but they can do our financial boot camp, which is so important because if you don’t understand your finances, you really can’t understand how to grow your business. So it starts with accounting, which a lot of businesses don’t have their accounting system set up properly. So they can’t create financial documents which are reports their profit and loss statement, their balance sheet, their cash flow analysis because their accounting system isn’t set up properly. So we start there and then we go over each one of those documents. How do you have a good profit and loss statement? How do you manage and and forecast your cash flow, making sure that you understand and have a good balance sheet that’s keeping a, a, a, a balancing of your assets and your liabilities. And then also forecasting, how do you project business is not a guessing game. So how do you project forward and how do you manage all that to see where you have your highs and lows? Does it turn out you’re a seasonal business, or are you going to be able to generate revenues year round? And a lot of times they don’t actually know and those things are critically important.

VR Small: So I wouldn’t encourage people who are local right now. We’re doing it in person because it is in depth. So the training is allowing them to literally bring in their financial documents. You’re going to be on your computer. He’s going to go through those documents, help you figure out how things need to be segmented in your accounting system. Uh, it’s very hands on. Um, we want to look at how we can structure that so that someone virtually can get the same kind of value. So we always start in person so we can weed out any complications and, and figure out like, how do we really make this work? If we want to do it with someone in Georgia, how do they stay connected? How do we review their documents and make sure that they’re on point? So we’re working through that now. But if they’re local, they can be a part of our financial, um, first boot camp. We’re also doing our navigating the nation’s small business expo. We do that every year. This year we are we’ve already hit Boston. We spent time in San Francisco in September, will be in Las Vegas and in November we’d be in Dean Phoenix. So we asked the ladies to come.

VR Small: They can volunteer at our booth. Uh, share their business with thousands of potential clients in their area. So this is right there in their area. We also give out a little, uh, Grant, I think it’s about $100 for the best setup, and it’s a great opportunity for them to network, to meet other veteran women in their locality, as well as other business owners that might be interested in doing business with them. And last but not least, we are relaunching our focus group. And we’ll be doing that at each one of our locations, uh, this year to really just tap into the ladies and make sure we understand what their needs are, what they feel that’s really working for them, what they feel isn’t working for them. And so as we build out this platform, we want to make sure we fill in any gaps. And if we can’t fill them in, we know other people that can’t. So a lot of times, you know, I know I have my perspective perspectives, uh, we have our feedback from our clients, but that’s here. So what about San Francisco? What about Oklahoma City? What about Las Vegas? What about Phoenix? Are they having the same experiences? Do they have the same resources or are there additional needs? And so we want to make sure we completely, as much as we can understand the challenges that these veteran women entrepreneurs are facing, and look at how we can meet those challenges as we build out this platform.

Lee Kantor: Now, as you continue to grow and continue to build and nurture this community, do you have any advice for other entrepreneurs who would like to also kind of be a community builder in their work? Is there some do’s and don’ts when building a community, especially of the size that you’re building?

VR Small: I’m not sure I understand the question.

Lee Kantor: Well, part of your work is building community around the veteran woman entrepreneur.

VR Small: Right?

Lee Kantor: So do you have advice for other entrepreneurs or business leaders who might be listening right now, who would also like to build community? Is there some do’s and don’ts when it comes to community building that you’ve learned in, in the nine years you’ve been building this community?

VR Small: Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you so much for that clarification. So number one, I believe that collaboration is cash. Um, there are hundreds of thousands of veteran women entrepreneurs across the nation. And I don’t know of any organization including mines, uh, that has said they’ve served hundreds of thousands of women veterans. So there are plenty of women veteran entrepreneurs to be served. That’s first. Second, you want to do your research and make sure that you’re not duplicating efforts, but that you’re filling a gap. So. You don’t really want to look at what somebody else is doing, per se. What we’re doing and say, oh yeah, it looks like what they’re doing is good. Let me copy that because that may not be what’s needed. You always want to do your research, whether you just do a general assessment within your community, whether you talk to other partners in your community, but you want to make sure you understand the need because of course, there are needs. We’re not filling all the needs. I don’t know of anyone in the industry that’s filling all of the needs, but what we don’t want to do is duplicate your efforts, and then you actually end up becoming competitors instead of collaborators. Um, and last but not least, just really talk to the women veteran. If that’s the group you’re looking at, or if you’re just looking at veterans in general, you know, make sure you’re talking to the client and you’re really digging into what they say they need, and not an assumption in your mind or your own perspective. You just kind of eyeballing and saying, hey, I think this is needed. Make sure that whatever you’re doing is data driven and that you’re really talking to and connecting with the population that you want to serve, and you’re connecting with other people that can complement that. So again, that collaboration is cash. Uh, there’s no reason to do it on your own or to be isolated. You want to find opportunities to connect, to partner, to collaborate, because it’s going to be so much better when we’re all working together.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share about maybe one of the entrepreneurs that you work with and maybe share the challenge they came into your community with, and how you were able to help them get to a new level. You don’t have to name the name of the person or the organization, but maybe just the story.

VR Small: While there’s there’s so many. But let me, let me think. Um. Can I do two? Sure. Okay. So, uh, we have veteran entrepreneur, I think 2024, uh, came to us at one time. She had a multi-million dollar trucking company, multi-million dollar. And I think she was a little over 5 million at that time maybe. Um, and, but she had had a relationship with another trucking company. A smaller trucking company broke off from them, but never officially dissolved that partnership. So the smaller company, uh, ended up being involved in a accident in a suit. And the lawyers for the plaintiff found out about their connection and somehow drew them into this whole ordeal, and they ended up literally having to file bankruptcy and close her business. Nothing she did other than not separating herself from this other company officially. Lesson learned. So when she came to us, she was like, I don’t know if I want to start this all over again. You know, just really not feeling confident, you know, feeling like, you know, I made all these mistakes. I’m scared of making mistakes again. And, you know, I know I want to do something, but, you know, I’m not sure what. And she was still doing some trucking. Uh, she had a couple of trucks and trailers, but not really doing any big business. And we started looking at, what do you want to do? You know, what do you really want to do? What’s really kind of tugging at you and what are the strengths does the company have? So took us through the whole process and doing her Swot.

VR Small: We found out that she was a CDL, trained that she could train people to get their trucking license. And I was like, well, you know, there could be a good bit of money in this. Let’s let’s do some research. Let’s dig a little bit deeper. Well, the trucking company itself wasn’t doing that well. It was very sporadic. So we started looking at this training and she ended up getting two, not one, two county contracts to start training their people, uh, who had to drive trucks. And this just continued to, to snowball, uh, till she picked up a prison and she finally got signed up with the, the Texas Workforce Commission and she got online and started like really promoting her business because I don’t want to be on social media. Like, you know, you gotta get out there. You gotta let people know you have a service. Um, blew up literally, um, on TikTok and now she’s actually like sponsoring products for people. She’s got more clients. She is. She was picked to be, uh, Miss USO from Maryland. The NFL, um, acknowledged her last year at the Super Bowl, um, as a, as a nonprofit and some of the work that she was doing because she has a nonprofit called Drive her where she works with single moms, uh, to get into transportation because that’s what she did as a single mom when she first got divorced.

VR Small: She, that first trucking company was how she took care of her family. So just a lot of times people will come to you and they don’t know what they want to do, or they’re not feeling confident. And that’s why we use the word empower and not just help, because empowering someone is really about helping them become stronger, helping them become more confident. It’s not just the process, but it’s, it’s that whole build up and it’s helping them realize that they can pave their own path to success. They just may have to be a little more innovative in how they look at it. Um, so now she’s doing fantastic and in this side and she, she, I think she turned the trucking company over to her children and she’s just now doing the training and she loves it. And, um, and, and, and making good money doing it. And then we had a, and that was in our six month program. So she was a part of our next level transformation six month program in 2024. And then we had another young lady that came to us last year in 2025, and she was making less than 30 K and she said, I want to get serious about my business.

VR Small: I really want to do this. Um, I’m, I’m doing events. And I, she had kind of like a flower company and she was really looking at weddings and stuff like that. And we started talking to her about what, what are some of the things you can do should a sustainable flower company? And then we started looking at, well, what about what about staging for real estate and hotels and, and other industries? Let’s not just look at weddings. And she already had a government contract, but she hadn’t been picked yet. And I think you know how that work. You might get a contract, but you’re on with several other people they can pick and they actually have to pick you to do the work before you actually start making any of that money. She already had a contract, but she needed to start building out her inventory. So again, six months, she came to us under 30. She left us in October at 67. But by the time she wrote her success story, which we asked the ladies to, to write their own, you know, journey, we don’t try to write it for them. Like, what did you go through? What did you experience? By the time she wrote her story, which was closer to November, she was projecting 121% increase in revenue.

Lee Kantor: The impact is real.

VR Small: I’m sorry.

Lee Kantor: The impact is real.

VR Small: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The impact is real and it’s in it’s in program. So we’re not waiting six months out or year to go back and say, oh, look what our businesses did. And I think that’s great. We do want to track the ladies because that’s so important, but we want to make sure when they leave us, they’re doing well. So as much as we can and again, they have to do the work. I can’t go and sell your company for you. I can’t go out there and and, you know, acquire new clients for you. You have to do the work. But what we’ve seen is that when the clients do the work, they get the outcomes.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

VR Small: Oh, we need more impact investors. Definitely. As I said, all of our program comes with a grant because I don’t believe in wasting time with a business, helping them develop this this intensive strategic growth plan and then they can implement. And that happened to me when I first started the VWEC back in 2019. I worked with a lot of clients and I was so excited for them. And I said, okay, now implement and then let’s get back and tell me how everything went. And nobody was getting back to me. And so I just started following up and come to find out, probably 97%. And that’s a huge number. Um, I didn’t get the grant. I didn’t get the loan. We didn’t have the extra revenue. And so I have been 100% committed that if we’re going to work with these businesses, we’re going to make sure that whatever we’re telling them or whatever, we agree with them. Yes, this is a growth strategy that works. We can help them implement that. That’s a $10,000 investment we made. And that young lady who came in at under 30 who left us at a six digit figure. So that’s a good investment.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more and connect with you or somebody on the team. What’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

VR Small: So number one, everything we have, our website and all of our social media is at Veteran Women SEC it’s just an abbreviation of our name. So if you go to the internet internet, use the at sign and type in Veteran Women SEC all of our information will come up on our website. At the very top is an opportunity to give. But if you want to talk more about giving. If you want to really become an impact partner, if you want to become a sponsor, if you want to look at a specific program, you can always email us. We are excited to talk to people about the next level. And the thing I want to say is that we’re not asking anybody to invest in something new. What we’re doing is tried and true, and we have the testimonials, both video and written, about the impact that our work is doing. What we’re asking is for support to expand it so that women all across the nation, not just those here in the DFW area, can benefit from this curriculum.

Lee Kantor: Well, Dr.. Thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

VR Small: Oh, thank you for having me. Um, we’ve got to get the word out there. Uh, marketing is a challenge for everybody. I’m not a marketing guru, but we do the best we can. So every opportunity we get to spread the word, to share what we’re doing, we are so thankful. And so thank you guys for giving us that opportunity.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Veterans Business Radio.