Santa Fe Women’s Business Center

Santa Fe Region Contact Info

Wendy Stein, Regional Manager
Roseanna Perea, Business Consultant and Trainer
Patty Sipe, Business Consultant and Trainer

Phone: 505-474-6556
Fax: 505-474-6687

Santa Fe Business Incubator
3900 Paseo del Sol, Suite 351
Santa Fe, NM 87507
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Available in person or by telephone M-F, 8:00 am-5:00 pm, or by appointment on evenings and weekends
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Libélula Financial

Brenda partnered with her husband to start J&B Gardens, a family-owned landscaping business. She began taking care of their bookkeeping needs while continuing to work with another contractor as a full-time office manager. Brenda then decided to open her own business: Libelula Financial, a bookkeeping service that assists businesses with acquiring the permits and applications needed to become registered businesses. She focuses on working closely with the Spanish-speaking community and those in need of assistance. Her desire to assist others with their bookkeeping needs and business questions motivated her to fill a need and begin…

Artists, entrepreneurs, growing businesses and community-based organizations call WESST Santa Fe their business development community “home away from home.” Covering an expansive eleven county region including Taos, Mora, Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, Los Alamos, Colfax, Union, Harding, San Miguel, Guadalupe and Quay, it’s not surprising that the Santa Fe team collaborates with many regional organizations throughout rural New Mexico.

WESST Santa Fe offers

One-on-one consultations that help clients explore new concept viability and plan for strategic business growth/development
Targeted and meaningful workshops and talks geared toward helping emerging new businesses and growing small businesses optimize their potential
Microloans specifically created to serve the financing needs of qualified start-up and growing business entities.

Clients and Services

WESST Santa Fe/Northern New Mexico clients are predominantly women of all demographics. About half of WESST’s clients in Northern New Mexico are involved in the arts. Many clients live in rural areas. Many men and women clients are evolving entrepreneurs who seek a broad and objective marketing and growth perspective.

Initial one-on-one consultations usually consist of a face-to-face (or videoconference) meeting. The first consultation is free and provides an opportunity for both the client and the consultant to determine next steps in the working relationship.

Consulting and Training Services

Workshops are often created to address specific community and organizational business skills and development needs. Workshops and talks range from short, topic-specific conversations to multi-week series created to help businesses start, market, become profitable and sustain growth. Topics addressed include, but are not limited to: basic licensing and start-up processes, web development and social media, taxes, marketing, pricing, financials, intellectual property, film production, financing, credit and identity theft, as well as commercial kitchens/food service and craft entrepreneurship essentials.

Often, clients who are skilled professionals in particular topic areas will share their knowledge at Brown Bag lunch and evening workshops. Many WESST Santa Fe clients and consultants have delivered TEDx talks and offer very engaging perspectives on a wide range of topics and issues.

Small Business Loans at WESST

WESST’s microloans are available to qualified clients with viable start-up or growing businesses. Business plan development courses are offered to help clients prepare to apply for a WESST loan or a conventional bank loan. WESST loans range from $250 - $10,000 for start-up businesses and up to $50,000 for existing businesses.

WESST Santa Fe is one of six offices housing a Women’s Business Center (WBC). Each office is funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The WBC program was founded to foster the growth of women owned businesses by providing access to education, training, mentoring, business development and financing opportunities to women throughout the United States and its territories. The Women’s Business Center Program at WESST’s Santa Fe regional office offers a variety of training and consulting services geared to, but not limited to women. Visit our Women’s Business Center Program page for more information about the resources available for women entrepreneurs.

In 2014, WESST Santa Fe collaborated with LANL Major Subcontractors Consortium to provide training and support to rural businesses in Northern New Mexico.

Watch the following video to learn more: Collaboration’s Harvest – Investing in Our Collective Future.

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Why WESST?

At WESST, we have developed a process for helping our clients truly understand what it takes to start, grow and build a thriving, sustainable business. We start with "strategy first, tools second" to help our clients implement financial, marketing and organizational systems that support the entrepreneur AND the business. Our talented employees undergo a rigorous hiring process in order to provide only the best business advisors and trainers. Our employees are 100% committed to providing the best opportunities for our clients to succeed.

WESST staff are all dedicated to our Mission, Vision and Values and will work with anyone who is committed to the process of exploring, developing and living entrepreneurship. We work with clients at every stage of business from pre-venture to mature, from 1 to 100 (or more) employees and can provide business consulting, training, lending, incubation and digital media production.

Thinking of Starting a Business?

Quiz: Should You Start A Business?

This quiz will help you evaluate whether starting a business fits well with your personality and skills.

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Business Planning

Thinking through your business idea carefully and putting together a solid business plan is essential for every entrepreneur. This is true whether or not you need to raise money to start up your business—even if you don’t need to approach a bank or other lender, putting your business plan into writing is a key step in the path to success. Here you’ll find a sample business plan, a detailed outline, and several worksheets to walk you through this vital process.

Get Started

Free Tools: Startup Risk Calculator; and a Startup Valuation Calculator

These free easy-to-use Crowdfunding Tools from EquityNet* are designed to help companies less than four years old analyze their businesses before they engage investors. Both tools are based on the company’s patented Enterprise Analyzer™ technology. The Startup Risk Calculator helps entrepreneurs better understand their business risk and improve their odds of business success. The Startup Valuation Calculator helps entrepreneurs estimate, compare, and better understand their business valuation.

Go To Calculators

*EquityNet recently received a perfect 5-star rating by Crowdfunding Website Reviews. The independent review rated EquityNet as the number one crowdfunding support service website. The company has been recognized by Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Bloomberg, Worth Magazine, CNET, and other journals as the inventor and pioneer of equity crowdfunding.

Business Plan Tools and Examples

Thinking through your business idea carefully and putting together a solid business plan can be an essential exercise for any entrepreneur. This is true whether or not you need to raise money to start up your business—even if you don’t need to approach a financial institution or other lender, putting your business plan into writing is a key step on the path to success.

Despite what many people think, business plans do not need to be complicated or intimidating, and many of the exercises and activities undertaken as part of the planning process can be important steps to financial self-suffiency regardless of how close you are to starting a business. To help you, WESST offers a business plan template and a sample business plan, both downloadable from this page. Feel free to adapt the template to suit your own unique business needs.

DreamBuilder Online Learning

DreamBuilder is an intensive online business skills development curriculum that guides women entrepreneurs through interactive exercises and videos, including stories from real-world, successful women entrepreneurs. The program is not only relevant for women who are thinking of starting a small business, but also those who already own small or medium-sized businesses and simply need additional support to increase their success and income.

The DreamBuilder online business skills development curriculum will be taught in a "flipped classroom" model. During the first session, participants will receive their log-in credentials and an overview of the online platform. They will then be able to work at home, at their own pace. Participants will typically attend three (3) subsequent in-house sessions at WESST that will allow them to share their learning with other entrepreneurs, ask questions of the WESST trainer regarding specific topics and review information related to starting a business in New Mexico. Participants may also have the opportunity to work on the online curriculum using a laptop provided during these sessions. This enables any technical issues to be handled by the WESST trainer.

To find out more about DreamBuilder in your city, please contact your nearest WESST office, or visit the WESST Upcoming Training and Registration webpage.

Women’s Business Center Program

woman teaching with a whiteboard Aquí puede encontrar Información sobre el Centro Empresarial para Mujeres en español.

One-on-One Consulting and Training Designed to Help Women Become Self Sufficient Through Self Employment

WESST is proud to be a part of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Women’s Business Center Program by hosting a network of Women’s Business Centers at each of our six New Mexico locations.

Through the management and technical assistance provided by Women’s Business Centers programs, entrepreneurs — especially women who are economically or socially disadvantaged — are offered comprehensive training and one-on-one consulting on a vast array of topics to help them start and grow their own businesses.

At WESST, we understand the unique challenges and needs of women entrepreneurs. Our Women’s Business Center programs are designed to be flexible and responsive to those special needs. We offer a variety of workshops designed to help aspiring and established women business owners succeed — many of which are scheduled during evening hours to accommodate busy daytime schedules. Our popular Brown Bag Lunch workshops, held conveniently during lunch time, are free. Topics can range from money management and Quickbooks training, to leveraging Social Media and writing an effective Business Plan.

Individual consulting appointments can be arranged to discuss a specific topic in depth, at a time that’s convenient to the client. While our Women’s Business Center Programs are geared to women they are open to anyone, at any stage of their business development.

For more information or to register for any of our Women’s Business Center training or networking events, please visit our Training page. To request counseling, please complete the Business Assistance Inquiry, or contact one of our Women’s Business Centers via our Contact page.

Santa Fe Staff

Our accomplishments reflect the character of our team.

From the top down, our experienced staff operates in a team-oriented, collaborative environment that helps foster small business solutions to share with our clients. We are prodigious learners, meticulous listeners, and natural problem solvers. Our collective experience is our foundation and it grows stronger with every new challenge we face and every new client we help.