ENID — Budding entrepreneurs, established business owners and business development specialists gathered Thursday to share knowledge at the Northwest Oklahoma Business Expo.

The expo, which took place at Cherokee Strip Conference Center, was hosted by Rural Enterprises Inc.

Jennifer Edwards, women’s business center coordinator for REI, said the event was intended to provide small business owners and developers with the tools needed to “grow a business and to have a positive economic impact in the community.”

“Ultimately, our goal statewide is to promote economic development, and we want to help start new businesses,” Edwards said. “Any resources we can get in front of business owners is a good thing, and we just want to help them grow and succeed.”

The expo offered a wide variety of resources for small business owners, including presentations by Autry Technology Center’s business incubator program, the U.S. Small Business Administration, established small business owners, Oklahoma Small Business Development Center and several northwest Oklahoma development authorities and technology centers.

The event included numerous breakout sessions covering topics such as business incubators, tax credits for small businesses, marketing and risk management. Cally Johnson and Kathryn Mathis, founders and co-owners of Big Truck Tacos of Oklahoma City, delivered the keynote address.

Pam Walker, a business development specialist with U.S. Small Business Administration, said the business expo offered entrepreneurs an opportunity to network with those offering free resources that could help them succeed.

“It provides great workshops and training for entrepreneurs,” Walker said. “The development centers and women’s business centers are here to assist them, and they do a wonderful job at that.”

Walker said now is a good time to start a small business in Oklahoma, “if it’s the right kind of business.” She said small business development specialists can help entrepreneurs determine if their business idea has what it takes to succeed in the current market.

Laying a solid foundation for a new business was the major topic of discussion in a series of presentations by area business incubators.

“If you plan your business to succeed, and it works on paper, that relieves a lot of pressure from the entrepreneur,” said Bonnie Cook, business incubator manager at Pioneer Technology Center, Ponca City. “You don’t have to just go out and ‘wing it.’ There’s lots of help for you all across the state, and often it is free.”

She said she frequently works with entrepreneurs who have tried and failed at starting a business in the past. The key to their future success, she said, lies in proper planning.

“I like those serial entrepreneurs,” Cook said. “They know they have a good idea, they know they’re going to succeed, but they may have never put their plan down on paper before. We’re going to work with them, we’re going to look at their plan on paper and help them build a business plan that works on paper.”

Phillip Gillham, a small business coordinator at Autry Tech, helps small business owners develop business plans. He urged anyone thinking of starting a business to put in the work before any investment to “make sure it’s a viable business idea.”

“The business planning process is so critical, there’s really no other way to start and run a successful business unless you do the work to put that plan in place up front,” he said.

“Starting a business is hard work, it’s difficult,” he said. “If you’ve got a dream, that’s great, but you need to approach it with caution, and with realism.

“If you can’t make it work on paper, then it won’t work,” he said. “And, if you can make it work on paper, that doesn’t guarantee it’s actually going to work. It just means you’re in the game.”

Gillham said education, planning and access to the proper resources make the difference between success and failure in small business.

“If you’re starting a business on your own with no experience and no training, your success rate isn’t very good, it’s about 20 percent,” Gillham said. “The purpose of an incubator is to take that up a notch, to give new businesses the tools they need and to improve their success rate.

“Everyone’s going to make mistakes, but most small business owners can’t afford to make more than one big mistake when they’re starting out ... they just don’t have the money for that,” Gillham said.

That’s where business incubators and small business coordinators come in, he said.

“We’re in the mistake prevention business,” he said. “We’re here to help you identify and mitigate as much risk as possible before you start your business.”

Shavone Whipple knows from personal experience the risks, the work and the rewards associated with starting a small business. She had a booth set up at Thursday’s expo both to market her company and to learn from others.

Whipple founded The Cheese Factory with her mother, Phyllis Rich, in Kingfisher in April. Whipple and her mom worked at another cheese factory prior to opening their own business. They attempted to buy the cheese factory where they previously worked in 2010.

“We went to the bank and got the financing together, but the deal fell through,” Whipple said. “We just said, ‘Well, we’ve gotten this far, let’s keep going.’”

With that the mother-daughter team jumped into the deep end of small business ownership with little prior experience, opening a production line that now competes with their former employer.

Whipple said she started researching small business practices online with some help from the Small Business Administration, and she had some prior business experience from having worked as a loan officer for seven years.

That research and prior experience gave Whipple enough knowledge to know she was taking on a daunting task in starting a small business.

Where they are now is quite a ways from where they started in April. The two women now receive cheese from a producer in Wisconsin, which they blend with a variety of spices in their Kingfisher shop to create more than 20 varieties of “custom-blended gourmet cheese.”

Their cheese now is marketed in 15 locations in Oklahoma, including Jumbo Foods in Enid.

For information on starting a small business in Enid or northwest Oklahoma, contact Jeanne Cole, business development specialist for the Oklahoma Small Business Development Center, at (580) 327-8408 or jmcole@ nwosu.edu. For information on the business incubator at Autry Tech, contact Brian Gaddy at (580) 242-2750 or bgaddy@autrytech.com.