Texas Border Business
EL PASO, Texas – The City of El Paso has teamed up with the Better Business Bureau Paso del Norte again as part of the El Paso Business Strong initiative to celebrate El Paso’s small businesses as part of National Small Business Week.
“Small businesses are extraordinarily important to our local community because they not only provide job opportunities with greater job satisfaction, but they also strengthen our local economy by directly supporting our families, friends and neighbors,” said Economic Development Director Elizabeth Triggs. “Small business also further strengthens our neighborhoods and cultural spirit, which is why every time we want to make a purchase or go out to eat, we encourage the public to consider buying from one of our local businesses.”
Triggs said 83 percent of El Paso businesses have fewer than 20 employees, illustrating the immense value small businesses have on our local economy. El Paso’s annual DBA (“doing business as”) filings, a proxy for new business growth is returning to pre-pandemic levels. Since January 2022, nearly 1,600 businesses have filed a DBA. According to Triggs, if the DBA filings continue at this rate, the community could match new business filings in 2019 which reached nearly 5,300
This year’s theme for National Small Business Week is “Building a Better America Through Entrepreneurship” to acknowledge small businesses for their resiliency, ingenuity, and creativity. National Small Business Week, which has taken place during the first week of May since 1963 as an initiative of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), recognizes the valuable contributions that small business owners make to the U.S. economy.
The BBB in collaboration with the City of El Paso’s Economic and International Development Department supports local small businesses throughout the year with EPBusinessStrong.org, El Paso’s premier business resource center that offers small business owners with financial resource opportunities, virtual learning opportunities and more.
During National Small Business Week, the BBB, with City support, is preparing to launch a data tool called SizeUp El Paso.
SizeUp El Paso is a new free small business assistance tool that provides market research and business intelligence to help businesses succeed. Through SizeUp El Paso, local businesses will be able to access industry-specific and hyperlocal information to help them grow and make smarter decisions using Big Data analysis. The research is individually customized for each company. By using the website service, local businesses are able to:
1. Rank their business performance compared to industry competitors
2. Discover potential customers and suppliers and better understand their competitive landscape
3. Optimize advertising to target ideal customer segments
The new tool is expected to be available at EPBusinessStrong.org by early June. Small businesses can also find other resources at EPBusinessStrong.org to help their business thrive.
