What Big Companies Get From Helping Small Companies

What Big Companies Get From Helping Small Companies:

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One question frequently comes up when The Agenda discusses the recent storyabout how the employees of Boston Beer Company sometimes spend hours helping small companies tackle the myriad problems of managing and building a business.

The question is this: Don't those employees have enough to do in their own jobs? Shouldn't they be solving Boston Beer's problems?

Companies that borrow money through the Brewing the American Dream program, which Boston Beer runs in partnership with a microlender, Accion, are presented with an extraordinary opportunity.

(Read more: The Story of Sam Adams)

They often get media exposure, and Boston Beer goes to some length to provide market opportunities, too. Not only does it sometimes become one of its borrowers' biggest customers, it often works with them to develop new products based on its brews. Carlene O'Garro, for example, incorporated Boston Beer's seasonal Harvest Pumpkin Ale in a pumpkin bread.

Most important, though, is the intensive, hands-on mentoring that Boston Beer employees undertake. As we described in the story, one staff member helped Ms. O'Garro, a nascent entrepreneur, figure out how to price her products for Whole Foods by actually going to Whole Foods and studying the competition. Then that employee, Mike Cramer, wrote a spreadsheet to report his findings. "Mike has spent hours with me," Ms. O'Garro said.

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