Should You Join a Small Business Association?
A Home Business Article Contributed by Elizabeth Fox-Wise
What are the Benefits of a Small Business Association Membership
Being a member of a small business association can have a lot of benefits for the businesses who are members. These benefits will vary from one small business association to another and you should consider them carefully before making your decision to join a particular small business association.
Generally speaking, the membership numbers of a small business association, afford the members a "collective buying power" Which means through the association you can typically get better rates for goods and services your small business will need than you would be able to get on your own.
These collective buying power services available through many small business associations include better rates on: Health and Life Insurance policies, prescription discount programs, Web site development and hosting, Internet access, shipping carrier rates, travel, car rental, Legal services, ecommerce software and lots more!
Who Can Join Small Business Association?
Typically, any owner of a small business may join a small business association. However, there are some restrictions and limitations on this. For example, some small business associations are geographically restrictive. If your small business in housed in Connecticut, you would not be able to join the "small business association of a Maryland" Another example of small business association membership restrictions are those associations that cater to a particular type of small business.
For example, a small online retailer would not be welcome to join the "small business association of medical technology" . For the most part; however, small business associations have open membership for all small businesses.
A Small Business Association Can be Local or National
There are several choices of small business associations which you can join. Again it is important to review the benefits that each one offers, weight them against the cost of membership and choose the small business association that is most able to meet your unique needs.
Most states have a small business association at the state level. Typically, your business MUST be housed in that state to be able to join the SBA for that state. For example, here is the site for the Small Business Association of Michigan. http://www.sbam.org/ if you look under the Join page, you will see that to join this small business association, you must be a Michigan-based company with 500 or fewer employees.
A well known national small business association is the American Small Business Association (ASBA). Their web site can be found here http://www.asbaonline.org/ . For membership in this association you must own a small business in America.
Another well known national small business association is the National Business Association. To include them for consideration in your review you can find them here http://www.nationalbusiness.org/.
Whether or not you choose to join a small business association often boils down to whether or not your small business needs the buying power and the discounted rates for the services they offer. the number one stated reason that small business owners give for joining a small business association is the need for affordable health care plans.
