Banzo serves up hand-made Mediterranean food from its Madison restaurant, food carts, and catering service. As a client of the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center at UW-Madison (SBDC), Banzo employees get to take advantage of numerous free courses, offered by the SBDC through the Main Street Bounceback Program. The program, available to actively operating Wisconsin businesses with fewer than 500 employees, provides small business owners and employees with skills, insights, and tools to build a strong business, make informed decisions, and navigate the growth process. Banzo owners Aaron Collins and Netalee Sheinman have encouraged many of their 30 employees to attend Main Street Bounceback courses and received positive feedback.
“We recently sent seven new supervisors and managers, including some people who had just moved into a leadership role and found the Launch into Leadership course to be very helpful,” Collins says. “We had some who took a course on dealing with conflict and others who learned about leadership styles, and their feedback was that it was a great experience all around.”
Collins says the fact that the courses are led by experienced professionals, who are leaders in their field, means they’re always engaging. His employees appreciated a change of scenery for a day, leaving the kitchen to spend the day at UW-Madison, getting to know new people in different industries.
“Their feedback was that it was nice to get a change of scenery for a day, get out of the kitchen and go to UW, spend a day there, and get to know other folks in different industries,” Collins says. “They expressed how nice it was to meet professionals from different industries and hear that the challenges we face aren’t specific to our own industry. It can feel that way–that it’s just us, or just restaurants, but various businesses all deal with similar issues. It’s refreshing for most of us to hear that.”
Collins and Sheinman believe their employees learn best by teaching, so they ask each staff member who attends a course to lead a presentation about what they learned, so the rest of the team can indirectly gain some of their new knowledge. The presentations and course resources are combined in a binder at the restaurant, for reference.
“Those resources are extremely valuable as a discussion point, and they entice folks to go to the courses,” says Collins. “Plus, presentation skills are important, and many of our employees haven’t given a presentation in this setting, so it’s nice to see them take ownership of that and lead those activities.”
Collins emphasizes the Main Street Bounceback program’s value for small businesses in the Madison area.
“For me to hear people come back from a course, saying they gained skills they can put into play at Banzo, means a lot,” Collins says. “The courses provide actual tools to help you succeed in business. They’re specifically helpful in certain areas, teaching tools people can bring to work with them and use the next day.”
Collins and Sheinman appreciated having access to the courses when they were new tenants in a previously vacant property.
“The Main Street Bounceback program was helpful for us the first couple months in that space, while we were getting in there and making changes, and now that we continue to be successful and take steps to grow, these courses will help us do that,” Collins says.
They also used the courses as Banzo emerged from the COVID-19 shutdown and as the owners transitioned into more supervisory roles, with other staff members taking on new responsibility for day-to-day operations.
“As we created room for upward growth for staff members who had been at Banzo five to ten years and wanted and were capable of more, these courses were here for us to encourage staff to learn new skills,” says Collins. “For them to go and know we had their backs, that here was this resource we have a long history with that is strong, really showed them we wanted to help them grow.”
The program has provided professional development benefits to Banzo employees that many similar small businesses wouldn’t be able to fund without help.
“Even the sentiment of sending an employee to a course for free lets them know that we see potential in them as a leader, even before they go to the course, has a positive effect mentally on everyone,” Collins says.
The program can be helpful for employee retention, since it provides value to employees at small businesses that might not have the resources for huge pay raises or benefits.
“Anybody who can take advantage of a professional development class within a high-caliber program walks away with skills they could ideally keep with us at Banzo for as long as they’re here,” Collins says. “They can apply those skills to their team and drive success in their department. If they move on from us at any point, that’s something they’ve got in their toolkit and on their resume–I took this course and put it into practice.”
For Banzo, the courses are a way to show employees that the business will invest in them when they take on new responsibilities. They don’t just promote people and wish them luck; they provide a way for new supervisors to learn the skills they’ll need to succeed.
“We’re acknowledging that if you’ve never been a supervisor before, it’s a different set of skills, and it’s important to show our employees that we’re putting effort into them and their new roles,” Collins says.
SBDC Business Consulting
Banzo learned about the SBDC through now-retired SBDC business consultant Rena Gelman , whom Collins and Sheinman met at their first annual food cart review for the City of Madison in 2011, when Gelman was a judge and still working at the SBDC. Gelman introduced herself to Collins and Sheinman and invited them to come meet with her. The three found they had many things in common–Gelman and Sheinman are New Yorkers, and Gelman and her husband ran a successful Madison restaurant for many years.
“Sessions with her often felt like therapy sessions,” Collins says, with a laugh. “She would tell us what we needed to hear, and sometimes that was really hard, but we knew we were walking away with sound advice. We were accountable to her.”
As Banzo grew and expanded from a food cart to a restaurant and catering in 2012, Gelman helped Collins and Sheinman develop new parts of the business.
“There were things we’d put into place immediately upon leaving Rena’s office,” Collins says. “We’re still here and have staff who’ve been with us for over ten years, and Rena helped us make decisions that got us through growth periods.”
While Gelman has retired, Banzo continues to leverage the Main Street Bounceback courses and knows additional SBDC resources are available when needed.
“The SBDC provides a real benefit to this community,” says Collins. “What comes back in return is that we have these businesses that have had SBDC support, and they’re thriving.”
Banzo’s 30 employees include a general manager, team supervisors, production kitchen staff, delivery drivers, cashiers, and line cooks. Collins says he and Sheinman know their staff wants to feel valued and connected to each other and the community and know what their day-to day work is accomplishing, so two years ago, they wrote a company vision for the next seven years, until 2030.
“People can look at where we want the company to be in 2030 and see how what they’re doing now contributes to that, and where they themselves could be at that time,” Collins says. “We started a 401(k) match program last year, so people can see they’re building savings. We offer other benefits, like an HRA, so they can get reimbursed for a portion of their own healthcare. We have a holiday party, and our staff started organizing bowling and poker nights on their own, to let people connect outside of work. We want to be transparent and open and let people make their own decisions.”
Banzo continues to expand, continuing to grow their catering and events, as well as their wholesale department. They are expanding their retail offerings within and beyond Wisconsin.
“We have plans to continue opportunities for staff to bring their own ideas to the table and take more ownership in the company, literally and figuratively, in the next five years,” Collins says. “We’re also focusing on our role in the community–how to give back and how to make things sustainable. We’re talking with MG&E about reducing our carbon and fossil fuel use and going fully compostable with all our disposables.”
Collins and Sheinman are focused on Banzo’s continued growth, food quality, and staff wellness, with leaders in place and a strong team to keep the business running successfully.
“We want to express our appreciation to the SBDC, Rena, and everyone else who’s kept us going,” Collins says. “It’s all about food and the people at the end of the day.”