Northern Lakes Economic Alliance • 231-582-6482 • info@northernlakes.net
Hannah Sanderson, Business Attraction & Growth
Failure to prepare will prepare you to fail when it comes to most things in life, and in the realm of business attraction.
If you were to have a new business come to your doorstep today with a business plan in hand and a burning desire to locate there, would it be easy for them to open their doors in your community?
Does your community know the types of businesses they would like to attract? Is everyone that could possibly work with this business on the same page? When it boils down to it, is your community prepared for their desired development?
A new business wanting to move to your town may love your community’s location; maybe your community has the ideal acreage on a class A road, or maybe they simply vacationed there growing up and have now wandered back; whatever their reason may be, it is vital to attracting and retaining this new business for everyone to be on the same page, from local government to the downtown development authority, to the chamber of commerce, to planning & zoning and beyond. Community preparedness is vital in the attraction process, and even in the success of local businesses.
Be prepared
- Communities should know what types of businesses their constituents would like to see in their town.
- To go along with the desired businesses for the community, community leaders should also know where that business would locate and if that location is appropriately zoned.
By having these aspects in place, your community will appear highly organized, which is further attractive to a new business or developer. Knowing that a community has previously vetted and accepted a vision for a site and considered the type of business they want, tells a developer or new business that the process of launching should be relatively painless.
Resources
It is also important that the people within your community know the various resources within the community or within the region that can council a business.
Northern Lakes Economic Alliance frequently works with the Small Business Development Centers of Michigan (SBDC) and the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) to help a business launch, jump over current hurdles or move forward to the next leg of their entrepreneurial journey.
To learn how your community can prepare itself for new development, please call Hannah Sanderson, Business Attraction and Growth at (231) 582-6482 or email hannah@northernlakes.net.
