By : Jenny Munro
Source : http://www.greenvilleonline.com
Category : Small Business Grant
Owning a bakery was a long-standing dream for Dawn Stevenson, who opened Coffee To A Tea three years ago with her daughter, Aubrey Stevenson.
Family members did research, talked with business and church advisers, took a state health department course and finally found a place in the art district of the West End that they could afford.
It’s how small businesses are built and also how jobs are created, tiny ripples that gather strength in a new small-business economy driven by loyalty and dreams.
And in that world, there are stirrings of optimism.
The Stevensons operated the coffee house and bakery in the old Tucker Drugstore building for more than 18 months and then found their current location behind and beneath Smoke on the Water on Augusta Street.
Along with Moody Black, they are having a poetry reading there on March 24 from 7-9 p.m.
Business is picking up as the economy improves, they said, but costs are increasing at the same time.
So far, they haven’t drawn salaries from a business that employs one full-time worker and three part-timers, Dawn Stevenson said.
“People are finding out about us. It’s growing every day,” she said. “I really do believe it will happen.”
Her business goal is to pull the bakery out and make it a separate business that provides specialty desserts in Greenville. That would require several employees. She also wants to keep the coffeehouse operating with full-time help so she and her daughter would not have to be there every day.
“We are doing everything at God’s direction,” she said.
Many small business owners say the economy is improving. They see customers returning to buy, and they are at least considering hiring more workers.
An annual forecast by CareerBuilder.com shows owners and managers of small- to mid-sized businesses are more confident about hiring and retaining their employees this year.
Among those with up to 50 employees, 16 percent plan to add people, up from 14 percent last year. Twenty percent of larger companies, those with 250 or fewer employees, expect to add employees, up from 19 percent in 2011.
Source : http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20120311/BUSINESS/303110019/Small-businesses-Upstate-growing-more-optimistic?odyssey=nav%7Chead
