Northern Lakes Economic Alliance • info@northernlakes.net • www.northernlakes.net
Buck Love, Business Retention & Growth
On October 3-4, 2018 over 115 people from all over Michigan and various states met in Charlevoix MI to hear 26 leading community and economic development experts engage small group breakout sessions.
These sessions addressed best practices to grow stronger more vibrant communities that would attract and support new and existing business ventures. Topic areas ranged from Redevelopment Strategies for Downtowns, Recruitment of young Entrepreneurs and preparing Community Resources (Housing & Workforce!), Tourism Impact & Marketing Ideas, Tools for Analysis and Guiding Business Owners.
These efforts lead by the MSU Extension, Northern Lakes Economic Alliance, City of Charlevoix, Charlevoix Chamber of Commerce, Visit Charlevoix, and Charlevoix Main Street are necessary to help identify, quantify and develop action steps. Three of my top takeaways were from breakout sessions lead by:
Sarah Lucas, Community Development Director at Networks Northwest presenting on Building a Housing Strategy to Support Workforce Housing. Has your community taken an inventory of the existing supply of homes for rent & sale? What are the current zoning and regulatory hurdles for builders and developers to overcome? Can they be changed to ease the cost and time restrictions? “For every complex issue, there is a simple and clear answer…that is wrong!”
Georgia Abbott, Abbott & Associates, LLC presenting on the Business Model Canvas – Guiding the Startup Venture. If the thought of sitting for hours developing a detailed Business Plan with charts & graphs is not your strong suit, then Georgia offers a more streamlined approach that will identify the emotional drivers of owning your own company based on the book “Business Model Generation” by Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur. The BMC builds the infrastructure needed to implement the idea, and scale and sustain a viable long-term product or service.
Samantha Reis, SBDC Business Consultant presenting on Market Research & Data Analytics for Entrepreneurs in Your Community. Samantha’s presentation was a “data-geeks” dream! This breakout session reviewed the importance of information-based decision making. Often, small business owners think that they aren’t big enough to utilize data – which simply isn’t true! And included was a review of SBDC resources available for entrepreneurs in your community and how best to access the assistance. Highlights included information-based planning tools such as analyzing sales data and trends and how that information converts into increased profitability and decreased spending as well as how market research is used to drive a person’s initial business model and to ultimately help secure financing.
For more information on these topics and contact info to connect directly with these area experts email me at, buck@northernlakes.net. And don’t miss next year’s CEC conference!
