Lead or Feed: What We Can Actually Do To Help Grow Small Businesses

in Our Community

Della G. Rucker, AICP CEcD

Principal, Wise Economy Workshop Wiseeconomy.com

LocalEconomyRevolutionbook.com

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Your Presenter

• All those letters?

• Economic Revitalization/Public Engagement

• Building: Communities that work long term– – Strong economy

– Resilient economy

– Invested people

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Who’s here?

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We have a problem.

How places work economically has changed on us.

How we try to help places work better economically… hasn’t.

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We got a couple more problems

The tools we have gotten used to using we designed for working with a few big businesses.

Now our local economies mostly consist of smaller businesses.

They ain’t the same.

We need some new tools

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How we try to fix local economies (and often fail)

“We just need a better streetscape!!”

How we try to fix local economies (and often fail)

“We gotta get rid of those vacant buildings!! (Let’s give them money!)”

How we try to fix local economies (and often fail)

We just gotta sell it better!!

Does it look like a nail?

When you try to solve complex local economic issues with a small set of tools….

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The Practical Matters

• More small businesses + less staff and budget = … a big problem for local governments.

• More demand for transparency (read: everyone can be their own investigative reporter) = higher risk in “confidential” plans and deals.

• More economic dependence on small businesses = more dependence on businesses that are overextended, not always seeing the whole picture, and often flying by the seat of their pants.

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Therefore, we need to change:

• Small number of intensive interactions to large number of less intensive “touches”

• Build self-reinforcing connections – networks

• Enable, within reason

• Open up.

• Partner.

• Focus on what we uniquely bring to the table

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So What the Heck Do the Really Need? (Especially if it’s not what we thought they

needed?)

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A Brief Guide to Understanding an Entrepreneur’s Brain and why they aren’t thinking what you might think.

Not all small businesses are the same

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The World of a Small Business

• Independence

• Over-capacity

• Speed

• Myopia

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Independence

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Over Capacity

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Speed

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Myopia

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And… the world of community people

• Responsibility

• Protecting

• Scrutiny

• Caution

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Responsibility

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Protecting

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Scrutiny

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Caution

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Results:

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What does that sound like?

“Why do I need to follow that regulation/get that permit/live by your rules?”

“Just get out of my way and let me run my business.”

“You’re taking too long!”

“That’s what the regulation says.”

“You can’t have an exception.”

“This is the process.”

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How does a business community actually work?

• Brad Feld, Startup Communities

– Startups need “Ecosystems”

• We <3 Tech!!

• Boulder is da bomb

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Is a collection of businesses in a community more like…

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More from Feld

– “Government should always be Feeder, not Leader.”

– [Government and community types can’t do entrepreneurship right – only entrepreneurs can]

– [Economic development is a waste]

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Hm.

• Della sez:

– Ecosystems aren’t just for tech dudes

– Community has a unique role, unique perspective, unique assets. Needs to be part of the equation.

– Feeding does not equal useless. Everything needs to eat.

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The Big Secret

• Most of the time we can make a better impact on our local economy and community if we take a Feeder Role, rather than a leader.

– Feeder =/= passive or unimportant.

– Feeder = adding necessary energy to system.

• But in some situations, we need to be a Leader. More on that shortly.

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The Care and Feeding of Small Businesses

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Leaders |Feeders

• Recruitment

• Sales

• Star Chamber

• Confidential

• Small # Big Projects

• Large Money to Small #

• Connection

• Share information

• Everyone we can get

• Transparent

• Large # Small Projects

• Small money to large #

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So what do government and community groups “uniquely bring to the table?”

• Convening power

• Connector

• Attention-Getter

• Space owner

• Fair Rules Administrator

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So what can we do? Connect

• Convene/Connecting events:

– Not just “Networking”

– Useful information

– Shared group exploration

• Your Role

– Host

– Structure

– Memory

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Connecting: Downtown Las Vegas

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Connecting: Meetup.com

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Give ‘em a little Space (and/or a little money

• Types of space

– Work space

– Selling space

– Meeting space

• Your role:

– Space finder

– Space promoter

– Space manager

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Space: Findlay Market (Cincinnati)

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Fair Rules Administrator

• Communicate permit/license/zoning/etc. processes – Communicate clearly – the how and the why

– They want to know what to expect

– Make it predictable

• Your role: – Make it clear

– Make it consistent

– Make it fair

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Other things you can do that they might not

Pitch stories or collections to media

Lead development of meaningful brand/story for district

Help arrange job/equipment/services shares

Show them stories of Good Ideas

Coordinate peer activities

Convene (and manage) discussion on how to address a big issue

Put on community events

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How do you know if you have to Lead?

• Your community needs entrepreneurs and small businesses but they’re not thriving.

• Your small businesses seem dispirited, tired, burned out or just worn out.

• No one else in the community is stepping up to the plate

• Example: Kalamazoo, MI

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Tips for Leading

• Don’t do it alone • Pull in everyone you can get • Share problem identification and

strategy development • Share jobs • Maintain long term horizon • Test programs before big

investments • Be ready to shift to Feeder • Don’t worry if small business

people don’t show up right away

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NOW: Your turn

• Get with 3 or 4 people (preferably not your buddies/colleagues/coworkers)

• Choose someone to be the Recorder

• Choose someone to be the Questioner

• Choose someone to be the Reporter

• Make sure the Recorder has paper and pen

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What’s Next?

• I’m going to give you a scenario that has a small business/entrepreneurship problem.

• Your job: figure out how you can address that scenario by Feeding. Identify – Three things you could do

– Three potential good outcomes

– Three potential pitfalls

– Is there a conventional economic development way to deal with it?

– What would you do?

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Scenario 1:

We have several strip malls along the road coming into town, and the storefronts are emptying out. Many of our older businesses have closed, and nothing is taking their place.

– How can you Feed

• Existing businesses?

• New businesses?

• Property owners?

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Scenario 2:

We have a graffiti problem. Someone keeps spray painting things on the buildings along the commercial corridor. It looks bad, and the businesses claim it’s scaring away customers, but we don’t have the city budget or staff to stay on top of it.

• How do you Feed: – Business operators

– Building owners?

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Scenario 3

Many of our small businesses don’t seem to be run well. We see dirty store windows, businesses that are closed on Saturdays (when folks around here actually go downtown), and inventory that doesn’t seem to move.

• How do you Feed:

– Businesses?

– Potential customers?

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Scenario 4:

We have a number of small wood product manufacturers and a few saw mills, but a lot of them don’t seem to be doing very well. We’re seeing building deterioration, a lot less hiring than we used to and we’re hearing rumblings that a few are planning to lay off employees.

• How do you Feed: – The businesses

– The employees

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Scenario 5:

We’ve identified that our town has potential for adventure tourism, but we have two problems: One, we don’t have any businesses that actually cater to adventure tourists. Second, we don’t have any money to buy magazine ads or television spots.

• How do you Feed:

– Tourism Demand

– Entrepreneuship around this opportunity?

– Existing businesses around this opportunity?

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Is this a different skill set?

• Connecting

• Listening

• Building trust

• Managing logistics

• Communicating

• Persistence

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What’s the downside?

• No one-shot answers

• Few Big Wins

• Slow and Steady

• Risk of being invisible

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What’s the upside?

• Low costs

• Few big risks

• Opportunity to build broad community support

• Lack of dependence on a few businesses or sectors

• Building long-term health/capacity of community.

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Thank you!

For more information:

www.wiseeconomy.com

www.localeconomyrevolutionbook.com

Twitter: @dellarucker

Also on LinkedIn, Facebook, SoundCloud, YouTube, etc.

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