Arkansas Business Navigator Project (ABN) was a multi-partner initiative of the Arkansas Small Business and Technology
Development Center (ASBTDC) that assisted businesses with access to capital, business
development, contracting and procurement, marketing, operations and exporting, and
help small businesses address and overcome some of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs.
Funded through theCommunity Navigator Pilot Program, part of the American Rescue Plan initiative, ABN was designed to increase access
to local, state, and federal resources to strengthen Arkansas entrepreneurs and small
business owners.
What is our role?
We are one of seven partner organizations (spokes) partnering with ASBTDC (hub) to
provide the following services to small business owners and entrepreneurs.
How we can help:
1:1 business consulting
Access to capital and financial resources
Market research
Industry-specific training
We focused on supporting entrepreneurs from communities across northcentral and southwest
Arkansas Counties.
What counties do you support?
We support the following regions and counties:
Southwestern Arkansas Little River, Howard, Sevier, Polk, Pike, Miller, and Hempstead
Is there a fee to participate?
No! All resources, events, and consulting services are 100% free. All we require is
your time, attention, and trust.
Additional Small Business Resources
Our friends at CREATE BRIDGES have created a series of videos to help you connect
with customers on popular social media sites as well as the Arkansas' premier travel
and tourism site.
Short-term rental owners have separate listings for each cabin or cottage.
You can have up to 20 images of your listing and they should be 800 pixels wide.
Event dates require a beginning and end date (even for one day events) and ensure
you save progress when adding an event by clocking the green "add date" button. You
can add multiple dates to an event to show it's annual and add the word "annual" to
your event listing.
Update your listing photography regularly.
Your listing can be included in up to five categories and change listing seasonally.
For two businesses in one property, you can list them separately (for up to 10 listings).
To get a featured listing, reach out to your CJRW sales person.
Chambers can have all cities in one listing or make each city separate. Becoming a
DMO on the site is the best way to help your community on the Extranet. It allows
you to create and edit listings in the county you're the DMO in.
You can see the number of people engaging with your listings in the dashboard of your
Extranet account. Search and SEO work on the site the same way they do in websites
so it's important to add keywords to your descriptions and write in easy to understand
language.
Arkansas Extranet Step-By-Step Demonstration by Suzanne and James Babb, 3Cs Regional
Steering Committee Members and owners of Pepper Creek Properties (3:00 minutes)
Arkansas' premier business assistance program, ASBTDC's YouTube videos helps small
businesses succeed.
The Arkansas Business Navigator is a program of the Arkansas Small Business and Technology
Development Center hosted by UA Little Rock and is funded in part through a grant
from the