Diversity Expo helps small businesses grow

AURORA -- For small businesses, the vendor expo is the place to be.

"This is like our shopping mall," said Grant Branch of Gattco Corp., a Naperville-based broad-line food distributor.

On Thursday, Branch joined about 75 other small businesses featured in the Vendor Diversity Expo inside the Hollywood Casino.

The expo, sponsored by the Hollywood Casino Aurora, the QUAD County African American Chamber, and the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, was intended to help showcase minority- and diversity-run businesses and offer them the chance to gain exposure with other potential vendors, both in and out of the gaming industry.

"Providing the access is ... important and the right thing to do," said Roscoe Greene, Hollywood Casino president and senior vice president of the chamber.

The key to these expo events is to provide not only the exposure but the platform for small businesses to develop clients, Greene said.

This year's event was even more successful than last year, when about 50 to 60 vendors attended, Greene said.

Expos provide a "springboard for the economy," and the increase in vendor attendance was a sign businesses are again starting to push for more business, Greene said.

For Lynn Amoni of Just Because ... Gift Baskets in Oswego, these expos and the business associations connected with them offer valuable resources.

"Every time we've done this show, we've always gotten business," Amoni said.

Amoni said she recently received Women's Business Enterprise certification through the Chicago-based Women's Business Development Center.

Working with one client often leads to more business through network connections, Amoni said.

For a small business such as Naperville's Gattco, making the connections at an expo often is the only way to get known.

"This is the only format ... to get in front of the buyers," Branch said. His business provides institutions with food and kitchen supplies, and his client lists includes the University of Chicago.