On Tuesday the Mississippi State University Extension Service will be offering a workshop teaching the basics on starting a small business.

“Sometimes we have these ideas, and we don’t have the tools to take that next step,” Ashley Tucker, Extension Agent II for the Lincoln County MSU Extension Service, said describing part of the service’s motivation behind offering the workshop.

Tucker said during different meetings the Extension Service has been involved in around the state the topic of small business development had come up. She said a lot of times small businesses need additional resources and from acknowledging that need the event entitled, The Basics: Business Workshop, was born.

The workshop will take place Tuesday afternoon at 5:30 p.m. at the Brookhaven-Lincoln Chamber of Commerce on South Whitworth Avenue.

Topics include: how to evaluate a potential retail market, determining start-up costs (including have sufficient working capital), applicable licenses and permits, development of a simple business plan with cash flow projections, business financing (including conventional bank loans and SBA guaranty financing), legal business structures and insurance and risk management. The workshop will be led by Hamp Beatty, Economic Development Consultant from the Center for Government and Community Development at MSU.

“It’s not only open to people looking to start a new business,” Tucker said. “It’s also for people who have an existing business for about one or two years who feel they may have gotten off on the wrong foot.”

Tucker shared a conversation she had with a friend who started their own business who said that when they started they didn’t know what type of forms to get, so it was all very “trial-and-error” for them.

“We want to minimize that trial-and-error with the process and give them the things they need,” Tucker said.

She said the Extension Service hopes the workshop will help future and current business owners have long-term success with their endeavors.