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UVLife Online
Business Advice: SCORE or Tuck Student Consulting Services?
By Roger P. Smith
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Need some advice on running your small business or nonprofit? Those located in the Upper Valley can not only get it, but they have a choice. If points were to be given for the cleverest acronym, SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) would be way ahead of TSCS (Tuck Student Consulting Service), but other factors make the choice much more interesting.
TSCS: The Younger Crew
 TSCS, the newer organization, is supported by the Allwin Initiative for Corporate Citizenship, a Tuck program working at the intersection of business and society. The Initiative provides students opportunities to put their business skills to work in support of social and environmental needs. The program originally focused on nonprofits in the Upper Valley, but it has since been expanded to include for-profit businesses as well. Patricia Palmiotto is its current director.
During the 2006-07 academic year — the seventh in its existence — TSCS is serving or has served 13 clients, a little more than their average. They also expect to launch 5 to 10 projects more later in the school year. Those clients are about equally divided between for- and not-for-profit. A total of 55 mostly first-year students — nearly a fifth of the class — are involved as consultants in groups of three to six. It is likely that the program will be expanded in the future, and there are discussions about opening up the program to selected Dartmouth undergraduates with an interest in business and including one such undergraduate in each working group of Tuck students.
Nonprofits that have benefited from the services of TSCS in past years include the Vermont Center for the Book and the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences. The Dartmouth Co-op in Hanover, N.H., and Nordic Skater in Norwich, Vt., are two for-profit clients that have also consulted with TSCS. Because of their connections in the community, many clients are referred to the program by Tuck faculty or staff. After studying a simple three-page application prepared by the prospective client, the program chairs make the decisions about whether or not a potential client meets the scope and criteria for TSCS help.
The co-chairs for the current academic year are second year students Katherine Birnie and Anneli Schalock. They have no budget, no administrative assistant and no permanently designated space, yet it would be hard to find two more enthusiastic proponents of the program. Birnie is Hanover-born and bred, except for four years at Williams College and five years in the northern California land conservation arena. Schalock is a native of Sweden and a graduate of Linfield College in Oregon. She has eight years of experience as a pension actuary but is transitioning to strategy consulting. Both were involved in TSCS projects as first-year students.
Because TSCS is an “extra-curricular activity,” students who participate are also carrying full course loads. For that reason, each applicant is asked to shape his request to one-man-hour week, or something that a group of students could hope to accomplish in forty hours. In practice, those 40 hours are usually spread out over one or two months. The clients and the team must define and agree on a specific project with a manageable scope, and the team must be willing to deliver and the client(s) must be willing to hear unanticipated (or unpleasant) results and recommendations.
SCORE: The Senior Crew
 In terms of size and longevity, comparing SCORE with TSCS is a little like comparing a prize pumpkin with one of its seeds. The national organization has been around a lot longer. In 1953 President Eisenhower signed The Small Business Act, which created the Small Business Administration (SBA), into law. The law stated that the federal government “should aid, counsel, assist…the interests of small businesses.” In 1964 SBA Administrator Eugene Foley launched SCORE as a national volunteer group with 2,000 members that united more than 50 independent groups that were already providing counseling services to businesses. National membership now approaches 12,000 and in 2005 SCORE served its 7 millionth client.
The local group, Upper Valley SCORE Chapter 184, is located in a suite of room on the third floor of the Citizens Bank Building in Lebanon, N.H. There is no permanent salaried staff, but volunteers man the office five days a week from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Like most chapters, the members are retired men and women who have had successful business careers as company executives, professionals or small business owners. Their annual budget, which pays for travel, rent and other office expenses, comes from grants from the Small Business Administration and from fees for seminars and workshops that they organize.
There are some 35 Lebanon SCORE consultants that assist an average of 350 new clients each year. Only two considerations might rule out a prospective client: Size and location. For the Lebanon chapter, a business of 20 employees and/or a half million in annual sales would be a big client. SCORE requires a simple one page application that can be submitted on line. In most cases the chapter chairman assigns a single consultant to a given project, that consultant is free to involve any other member as s/he sees fit.
Some local businesses that have profited from SCORE consultations are the Salt Hill Pub, Sol Mates socks (would you believe that someone could make a profit from selling deliberately mismatched socks?), the Veremedy Pet Hospital, a sculptor, a company that made brownies with fat-free yogurt and a manufacturer of artificial eyes. These are all businesses that might have been unintentional not-for-profits were it not for SCORE. Today, they enrich our life in the Upper Valley.
Different Strengths
Both organizations provide services that are absolutely free. Both do so for the same altruistic reason — to help the local business community — although Tuck students have the additional motive of seeking experience. Both serve profits and nonprofits alike as well as established businesses and clients considering brand new startups. Both have served an eclectic group of clients. In contrast to TSCS, SCORE places no limits on time or intensity of their services. They have served some clients for as long as 10 years.
SCORE consultants are not necessarily more familiar with the particular business scene in the Upper Valley. Many of them have moved here after retirement from other parts of the country. The current chapter chair is typical. Charles Giersch was a Dartmouth College graduate with a long career as a management consultant who retired to the Upper Valley nine years ago. Consultant Bill Price is a Dartmouth College and Tuck graduate with a 30-year career in general management with Nashua Corporation. He came to this region 12 years ago. Tuck students, in contrast, might be in and out of the community in only two years. So, if long-term continuity is a consideration, SCORE might have the edge.
One obvious difference between SCORE and TSCS is the age range and experience of the consultants. However, Birnie, Shalock and many other current Tuck students are not exactly fresh out of college; they worked in various industries between undergraduate and graduate school. Although TSCS is entirely a student-run initiative, participants may draw on the expertise of any of the internationally recognized Tuck faculty.
TSCS might be more prone to suggest unusual solutions — which says nothing about their merit — and SCORE might be more prone to suggest what worked for them personally in the past. The students might have a slight technological edge in terms of computer literacy and familiarity with other electronic technology, but those gadgets may not offer any real advantage.
The Bottom Line
A client interested in starting a record store might need someone who actually knows the difference between fusion jazz and hip hop. But, in most cases, a familiarity with the specifics of a given business is not that helpful. More than 90 percent of all business problems involve financial or marketing aspects of the enterprise, and those are the aspects that both SCORE and TSCS are best prepared to address. There is nothing like a product that people might want to buy and sound business plan to turn an organization around or get it off to a good start. Both organizations have an enviable record of success.
For many years, a widely quoted statistic noted that 4 out of 5 small businesses in the United States fail in the first five years of operation. Although that statement is debatable, it is clear that a significant percentage of small businesses do not succeed, especially restaurants. As one consultant said, “Perhaps our most valuable contribution is to convince some clients that they should not be in business.”
Roger Smith is the Irene Heinz Given Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Emeritus of Dartmouth Medical School. In his dotage, he is pursuing a lifelong dream of becoming a freelance writer. He and his wife have lived in Hanover, N.H., for 47 years.
Who to Call
Both organizations are wholly staffed by volunteers who have other commitments, so a prospective client may need to be persistent. Keep at it. The squeaky wheel will eventually get the oil.
Contact TSCS at (603) 646-0109 or tscs@dartmouth.edu
Contact SCORE at (603) 448-3491 or SCORE184@valley.net
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