Running a business requires balancing a wide range of decisions. From securing financing and protecting against fraud to managing a workforce and evaluating new technologies, priorities often compete for attention. Finding time to look beyond day-to-day demands and think about what’s ahead isn’t always easy, but it’s an essential part of long-term success.
National Small Business Week recognizes the vital role small businesses play as America’s job creators, innovators, and economic anchors. As part of this year’s observance, the 2026 National Small Business Week Virtual Summit, hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and co‑hosted by America’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network, provided practical education, federal resources, and expert insights for business owners across the country. Sessions were led by organizations including Visa, Google, Amazon, T‑Mobile, Verizon, Paychex, TriNet, and America’s SBDC Network.
We’ve highlighted key focus areas from the summit and gathered resources to help you plan for what’s next for your business.
One of the central themes of this year’s summit is access to capital, a persistent challenge for many small businesses—especially startups, women‑ and minority‑owned enterprises, and businesses preparing to scale.
In the session “Access to Capital: Closing the Small Business Gap,” Visa shared practical guidance on funding readiness and strategies for improving bankability and financial positioning. Tips included exploring financing options before you need it and understanding what is required when you apply. When speaking with your bank, you’ll want to ask questions such as:
The session also discussed how credit enhancements, such as an SBA guarantee, can assist businesses who may not qualify for traditional financing.
In addition to our VISA-sponsored business credit card, American Riviera Bank offers a range of financial solutions to support your business growth. Nonprofits may also access capital through more flexible financing options, a recent example being our work with a local nonprofit to secure financing for a $10 million remodel for their downtown Santa Barbara medical facility.
Additional programming such as “Becoming Bankable: What Makes You a ‘Triple Threat’ for Loans, Deposits, and Growth,” presented by Grasshopper Bank, encouraged business owners to assess where they are in the business lifecycle. By understanding how lenders and financial institutions evaluate risk and opportunity, you can better align your goals and search for the right banking support. You may also find our Guide to Growth and Business Financing helpful as you think through your own funding needs.
Alongside access to capital, the summit placed strong emphasis on risk management and fraud prevention, an increasingly important concern for small businesses operating in an increasingly complex digital and payments environment.
Visa’s session, “Protecting Your Business from Risk and Fraud,” focused specifically on safeguarding business operations, cash flow, and customer data from emerging threats. Visa identified the following top 5 threats for merchants:
Fraud, disruptions, and operational risk can significantly impact small businesses that lack internal control or security teams. We’ve included several key tips for protecting your business from the growing risk of threats stemming from online banking account takeover and vendor email compromise scams in our National Cybersecurity Awareness Month blog. The Federal Trade Commission also released a helpful video in honor of National Small Business Month covering Cybersecurity Basics for Small Business.
Business identity theft is also a growing concern. In fact, each year, business identity theft results in millions of dollars in losses. You can find more information on how to protect yourself from being a victim of business identity theft on our blog.
T-Mobile shared information about resiliency titled, “Built to Stay Open: The New Standard for Business Continuity” as well as a session on connectivity strategies. They stressed the importance of planning ahead and creating your own plan, noting that “uptime is no longer a goal, it’s a standard”. Strategies included having a mobile tablet as a backup in the event your computer goes down, and ensuring the tablet is already loaded with the applications you need. Cybersecurity was also a hot topic, including having a separate guest network, mandating strong passwords, and considering remote employee security.
They continued their presentation with a discussion on network slicing, the idea of splitting one physical 5G network into multiple virtual “slices” with different performance characteristics to ensure you prioritize traffic that matters most. You don’t want your network slowing down while employees watch streaming services on their lunch break, nor do you want your CEO competing for cell service with hundreds of people at a big event when they need to be able to log in to approve a critical transaction.
Other suggestions included looking into satellite, and using two carriers (e.g., Verizon + AT&T/T‑Mobile) rather than two lines on the same carrier to ensure diversity. This sort of dual eSIM setup is used to keep a primary line while having a backup profile available.
Our blog post in honor of National Preparedness Month last September, provided additional practical steps to consider when developing your own business disruption plan.
Paychex shared insights in their session on hiring and workforce strategy titled, “Hiring Secrets: Staff Up Smart & Fast – Presented by Paychex” which covered personnel considerations regarding seasonal employees, including a discussion of the labor laws that come into play.
Fair Labor Standards Act
Most seasonal employees are non-exempt under the FLSA, meaning:
There are higher-risk industries that often need to staff up for seasonal work, such as hospitality, agriculture, or even retail when tourism surges. Extended peak-season shifts may also occur during the holidays or other peak times for business. Remember that seasonal staff are prone to pre/post-shift tasks (setup, cleanup) that may extend their work hours. If you are unable to schedule employees in such a way as to avoid overtime, you must have good systems in place to ensure they are properly paid to protect yourself against wage claims.
In addition, many seasonal workforces include minors subject to additional constraints, such as working hours limits and hazardous job restrictions. Make sure you understand the definitions under California law for:
Affordable Care Act (ACA)
The ACA allows employers to exclude seasonal employees from certain employer mandate calculations, but only if employment is ≤120 days/year. This definition is not always clear or consistently applied. The risk can be failing to offer coverage when required, or offering coverage incorrectly. Penalties may also be assessed. While the ACA defines full-time as 30+ hours/week on average, seasonal employees may cross this threshold during peak periods. If you have any concerns regarding coverage, you should consult with your legal counsel.
Not having documented seasonal periods with written classification criteria can create problems during Department of Labor audits or IRS ACA audits. Coordination between HR / Payroll / Benefits is critical too in determining overtime hours for payroll purposes as well as eligibility for benefits under the 30-hour ACA threshold.
The session, “Reclaim Your Time: Make AI Work for You,” presented by Google, shared helpful tips on using Gemini to perform mundane tasks. They cited studies showing the average person may save an hour in a week leveraging AI, but those who master the tool may save as many as 8 hours. Currently, only 5% of users are operating at that level. Google shared practical use cases and provided guidance on creating helpful prompts to get better results, including “prompt chaining” in lieu of trying to include everything desired in a single prompt. The most successful outputs may take 4 prompts.
Google also presented a session called, “Getting Ahead with AI: Google Coaches Share Their Favorite Tips.” One of the tips shared was to treat AI like a very fast, very good intern, that produces results but needs proper oversight. They encouraged leveraging it to perform more mundane tasks that don’t require training, helping you to “think, listen and hone in even better” on the things that matter:
Another tip was to use “reverse prompting”, using AI to help you create a more effective prompt based on the output you want—such as a piece of text, image, or code—and asking it to generate the prompt that would produce that result.
Fun fact: Google’s quantum computing business is located right here on the Central Coast in Goleta, California. You can read more about what they are making possible in our recent blog post about the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber’s Techtopia event.
We’ve also posted information about both the benefits and potential downsides associated with using AI incorrectly and compiled information to educate you on how to recognize AI-generated scams and how to protect against them.
National Small Business Week is an opportunity to pause and think about what comes next. This year’s Virtual Summit focused on how preparation, an awareness of risks, and flexibility can help your business navigate both challenges and opportunities.
Whether it’s access to capital, fraud protection, workforce planning, or exploring new tools to improve productivity, progress doesn’t happen all at once. It’s built through thoughtful choices made with what’s next in mind.
Taking time now to reflect and plan can help business owners feel more confident. And if you’d like to talk through your goals or explore what these ideas could look like for your business, our team is here to help. Stop by your local branch, give us a call, or connect with your relationship manager.
Member FDIC | Equal Housing Lender
All loans are subject to credit approval. SBA loans are subject to SBA eligibility. Not intended to be legal advice. Consult legal counsel for considerations for your business.
