- May is Small Business Month, and that means it's time for the 10th Annual Small Business Workshop.

The free event is put on by The LEE Group, and it takes place on May 15th at The Corner Ballpark in Detroit.

This year's theme is embracing change while moving forward.

Small business owners are gonna receive information, resources, and solutions to help them navigate issues this year and beyond.

I got all the details from the workshop's founder, Mark Lee, and Tawnya Rose from Fifth Third Bank, which is the event's presenting sponsor.

Let's start with going back to the beginning.

Talk about where the idea for this came from and what made you feel like this was something Detroit absolutely needed.

- Well, again, thanks for having us.

We appreciate it.

10 years is a long time, and I'm very appreciative of that.

And very briefly, historically, what happened 10 years ago, we were coming out of bankruptcy.

And people were beginning to approach me.

I've been focused on entrepreneurship over the last 15 or 16 years.

And people were coming to me and asking me, was there anything that I can do to help entrepreneurs kind of, you know, help fight off that bankruptcy talking and get them back on their feet?

So the idea of the Small Business Workshop was formed.

It was formed out of the bankruptcy with the idea of helping entrepreneurs get the foundational pieces back on the ground and move forward.

So 10 years later, along with Fifth Third support, they've been with me since day one, we have reached a significant milestone, and we're very proud of it.

- Yeah.

So if you think about what's happened over that 10 years in Detroit, it's almost like we don't live in the same city, in many ways.

There's been a lot of substantial change, and especially in the business environment.

What have we learned, Mark, over that 10 years about small business, about the needs of small business, about the needs of small, African-American-owned businesses in our city?

- Well, there have been a lot of changes in our city.

The one or two things which have not changed, Stephen, quite frankly, one is our entrepreneurs are resilient people.

They are strong people.

They're resilient people.

They want to be successful.

That has not wavered.

The other component that's not changed over the 10 years is access to capital.

We're still finding out that small businesses need to, they need the resources, quite frankly, in order to invest back in their businesses.

Probably the biggest change, obviously, is this thing called the pandemic.

And that really forced businesses to rethink their business models, their overall strategies, and other components of their businesses.

So bottom line is a lot has changed, but a lot has not changed as well over the last 10 years.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Tawnya Rose, I wanna bring you in the conversation here.

You work on community impact at Fifth Third.

This is a great way to do that.

Talk about the affiliation of Fifth Third with the Small Business Workshop.

You've been a sponsor the whole time.

- Well, the reason why it's been so important for us to continue to partner with Mark on this for 10 years and being the presenting sponsor, because the small business community needs this.

Mark just talked about some of the key challenges that small business owners have in this market.

And that's what we wanna do.

We wanna partner and overcome those challenges, to make access to capital available to those that need it the most.

And some of those, many times, are our most vulnerable small business owners.

And many of them are minorities or family-owned businesses that need that extra support and help.

And we wanna be that good community partner to provide that access to capital, the resources that they need, so they can really thrive and move forward and push the rest of the economy forward, because we know that these small business owners are really the backbone of the community itself.

- Yeah.

Now, let's talk more about that lending environment here in Detroit.

You know, a lot of people are critical of the role that banks are playing in that environment.

They're even more critical of the role that big banks, right, multi-state or national banks, are playing in that role.

Fifth Third falls into that category.

Everyone seems to agree that the best approach is a community approach, right?

People lend to people they know in so many cases.

How do you pursue that at Fifth Third in a way that kind of overcomes the institutional and historical obstacles to getting capital?

- What that means is that we really have to roll up our sleeves and be involved within the ecosystem in the community so that people know about the resources that are available and partner with others in the ecosystem that do what we do.

And more importantly, get the story out, get the word out as to what we're doing.

Because if we don't get the word out about the resources, and you don't tell the story, people have no idea what's available to them.

So really, as Fifth Third and as big banks in general, we have to do a better job in telling that story and making sure that we're out there partnering with the appropriate partners that do programs like Mark Lee's, that are very important to the community, and keep our pulse to the ground and be active in the community.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So Mark, let's talk about this year's Small Business Workshop.

As you said, we've been through a lot here in Detroit, and, of course, other places around the nation have experienced some of those things.

Where are we right now with the small business environment?

Of course, the economy's really good by lots of measures, and it seems like a great opportunity for small business.

But things like inflation, which drives interest rates, they're not so great.

So what's going on, and what are you going to tell the folks who participate?

- I'm very excited to announce this year's theme, which is embracing change while moving forward.

And it gets to exactly what you're referencing.

The economy, you know, continues to do fairly well, but there still could be some roadblocks along the way.

How do you embrace those challenges with the economy, for example?

And we have the chief economist, the chief market strategist from Fifth Third, who's going to give his perspective on what can we expect for the rest of this year, for example.

And it is an election year.

No, it will not be an election conversation, but what impact could that possibly have on the economy, moving forward?

Secondarily, we're gonna be focusing on technology.

10 years ago, technology was not where it is today.

Now we have something called artificial intelligence.

What impact is that going to have on your business?

So we're gonna have someone talking about the impact that artificial intelligence will have on your business.

I'm also pleased to announce we're gonna have Herman Moore, former Detroit Lion, who's gonna be joining us.

We're gonna have a fireside chat.

He's gonna talk about how he's embraced change for his business.

He's made the transition from the football field to entrepreneurship.

He has a very successful business as well.

So we're gonna get his insights in terms of what's going on.

So bottom line is this year's theme is embracing change while moving forward.

We have business experts coming from across the City of Detroit, across the region, and to address some of these challenges that we're referencing.

So we're very excited about it.

- So one of the things that happened recently here in the city, one of the big things that happened recently in the city, was that we were a host for the NFL Draft, right?

You know, hundreds of thousands of people, literally hundreds of thousands of people in Downtown Detroit who probably otherwise might not be there.

And the whole time I was thinking about the effect or the boost that might be for small businesses.

And I saw a lot of small business owners kind of skittish about the whole thing or standoffish, saying, "Well, actually, this is hurting me, 'cause people can't get to me."

But then I saw other businesses who said, "Look, we're full, and we can't even serve all the people who want it."

It seems to me that that balance between the opportunity of something like that in today's Detroit, and perhaps the danger of it, is one of the things that businesses really have to be thinking about.

- Another example of embracing change, okay?

And you look at the NFL Draft, it brought estimates of close to $160 million into the city's coffers.

And so a lot of businesses ramped up leading up to the NFL Draft.

The challenge is going to be, after the NFL Draft, which is now gone, of course, we have other opportunities coming into the city, but is your business, again, are you prepared for upcoming events?

Are you prepared to focus on business sustainability?

And Fifth Third is gonna help us to share that story in terms of what do you do to embrace change, moving forward, beyond the major events such as the NFL Draft?

What about the day-to-day operations?

How do you build that level of support, moving forward?

- Yeah.

Tawnya, it seems like if I'm somebody who's thinking about starting a business and looking for capital to help do that, that's the key question, is how you reach that stability to be able to weather whatever comes along, and we never can predict, so that it doesn't sink you.

So that it doesn't jeopardize your ability to operate.

And I would imagine that in the conversations with the lender, maybe that stuff comes up.

- It comes up all the time.

And I think that's the great thing about Fifth Third.

We have that one-bank approach, where we bring in all of our key lines of businesses, whether they are a startup, a small business, or they are already excelling in their industry.

No matter where you are within that process, we have somebody that can hold your hand along the way.

We're not just a transactional bank.

We work with folks like Mark Lee to bring these types of workshops, to help prepare them all along the way.

And this isn't a one-time-a-year thing.

We are involved with the ecosystem throughout the community and continuously have this type of programming available to folks that are in that very situation so we can get them up to scale so when things like the NFL Draft comes, or the Grand Prix, or anything else that might be coming on in the city, that they're ready and prepared to take advantage of that.

- And Stephen, before I forget, I'll be remiss if I didn't say, I wanna thank Detroit PBS.

You have been with us basically from day one as well, helping us to get the word out.

We appreciate the support of Detroit PBS as well.

Thank you.

- That's right.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well, congratulations on 10 years of this Small Business Workshop.

- Thank you.

- And thanks for being here with us on "American Black Journal."

- Thank you very much.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you, Stephen, and thank you, Mark, for allowing us to partner with you both.