Yavapai College’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is a resource center for small business owners and entrepreneurs.
Director Jeri Denniston heads a staff of four who serve Yavapai County with free one-on-one counseling in finance, management excellence and marketing. The SBDC gives owners and entrepreneurs access to a powerful network of business tools extending to the federal, state, county and private sectors.
Resources include free small business counseling services covering topics including accounting, access to capital, strategic planning, cyber security, cost control, marketing, website development, female or minority-owned business advantages, personnel management and more.
The center connects business owners to procurement specialists, a resource library, workshops, seminars and community events.
The three entrepreneurs featured here are clients of the SBDC. For help with your business, visit yc.edu/sbdc or call (928) 717-7232.
Susan Blake
Susan Blake started her Mama’s Smokin Hot Sauce business in 2014. She invented her recipe from natural ingredients, created a label and hired a professional bottler. Susan sold the sauce at four Whole Foods stores in the mid-Atlantic states. After relocating to Arizona in 2015, she sells Mama’s Smokin Hot Sauce in three Whole Foods stores in Northern Arizona and five in the Phoenix-Metro area. By June 2016, she expanded to Tucson, AJ stores in Phoenix and several restaurants and stores.
“I helped two nonprofits by providing them free sauce to sell for donations. One of them, horse rescue organization, was able to feed two horses a month from the hot sauce they sold.”
Get Mama’s Smokin at Backburner Restaurant, Robert’s Marketplace, Spice Traveler and at mamassmokin.com.
Anita Marcus
While hiking the Grand Canyon, Anita Marcus discovered she incurred some sun damage to her chest. She researched ways to correct it and had an epiphany on her career. She gained certifications as a medical aesthetician, which gives her more of a clinical focus to skincare than traditional estheticians.
Anita can work with cancer patients, burn victims and others with health-related issues. Medical aestheticians work in hospitals, surgery centers or other health-care facilities.
Her advice to other women business owners: “Don’t waste your time obsessing about the competition. Just do your best job and the business will happen.”
Earlier this year, she opened a second location in Dr. Mark Fetter’s Advanced Plastic Surgery office in Prescott, at 1615 Petroglyph Point Drive. Her primary office is in Sedona at The Spa of Sedona, 1835 West State Route 89A, Suite 4. For more information, visit lasergirlskin.com.
Dana Mast
Dana Mast is a farm girl at heart. Her nature and farming passion turned from hobby to fulltime occupation after reading Jane Goodall’s book, “Harvest for Hope.” Dana bought her four acres in Dewey about 20 years ago and turned it into a full working heritage farm, Windy View Acres. She grows mostly heirloom vegetables, saving the seeds each season for planting from year to year.
She raises heritage breeds of livestock, which include Holy Cross burros, Dexter cows and La Mancha Nubian goats. She also has mixed breeds of pigs — Yorkshire, Durocs and Berkshires — which produce great bacon and pork. Dana’s passion is to teach others how to undertake sustainable farming and produce their own food.
Her advice to other women? “Follow your dream. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it.”
For more information, call Dana at (928) 632-4525.
