Business Expansion and Retention Press Release
The management of BEAR and other programs to help businesses grow and succeed is a complicated, yet achievable goal based on a presentation given by Ethan Migliori at the BEAR General Meeting on Oct. 15.
“The basis of the program is to work with local businesses to grow through economic gardening, helping people to realize they need to shop local and showing the economic impact of local business,” said Migliori, in a sum up of an Economic Development meeting he went to in Denver, Colo. recently.
Migliori said that there is a lot to having BEAR work with businesses rather than just gathering data and touching bases with them once in awhile.
“The first thing we need to do is to build a real relationship with them,” he said. “And when we collect data we need to analyze and track what is going on to predict behaviors in the market.”
He also said that BEAR needs to help in solving problems that could cause a business to either close or relocate.
Obviously money is a key to a successful business. Migliori told the group that there are three kinds of money in an economy. The first is good money or money that is coming from the outside. Then there is neutral money, or the money that is traded within the community with others who are situated there too. Finally there is bad money, or money that goes outside the area with little return for the local economy. That is called leakage.
“What we must focus on is increasing the flow of money that comes into the community,” he said. And he also pointed out that leakage can destroy a local business base. “In Price, for every dollar spent, it recirculates 8.7 times within the community. In Emery County a dollar that is spent there circulates less than one time.”
He said that the kinds of jobs businesses provide are important and the industries that produce the most jobs is also a factor. Wages in different industries are not equal and in some cases some businesses create fewer jobs but those can be higher paying positions.
“That is the reason the BEAR world really focuses on manufacturing,” he stated. “Usually they are good jobs and we know these industries produce more of them.”
He said there are some key things that BEAR and other support services needs to learn to be successful.
- First learn to unlearn things that have been done and that are not as successful.
- Anytime a business moves out of the area, an exit interview should be done with those businesses to analyze why they are leaving.
- A cookie cutter approach to helping businesses is not a good way to do things. Every business is unique.
- To have business be attractive to an area, the workforce available must be ready and have the skills to fill positions with that business. Communities need to position themselves to have a workforce that is where the jobs are and will be.
- Baby Boomers, who are many of the managers today, need to understand that Generation X thinks of work on a project basis, not on an hourly basis. Many want to be paid for the job, not the hours they put in.
- Everyone should remember to thank businesses for what they do, in terms of service and what they add to the economy of the area.