by Timothy S. Robinson, CEcD, EDFP
Director of Operations, Lenawee Now
In the economic development world, a lot of effort is traditionally directed towards attracting large new business development and expansion. There is a focus on large deals that would bring large numbers of new jobs and investment into the local community. Marketing efforts are targeted towards attracting the attention of site selectors and business owners, both locally and nationally.
At Lenawee Now, we realized there is a problem with this model. First, the math is not on our side. There are roughly 1,500 such deals available worldwide each year and approximately 15,000 economic development organizations in the world – that averages to landing a large deal once every 10 years.
Second, the new emerging workforce is not the workforce of yesterday. Driven by different motivations, they want to work for a business or a cause they believe in – and for many of them, that means their own. They are less motivated by wages and benefits than they are the intangibles: passion, social change, and making a difference.
Third, we were losing sight of the rich history of entrepreneurship in Lenawee County. Lenawee County was built by entrepreneurs. Many were businesses that grew to attract and employ large numbers of community members. Not only that, but these business owners cared deeply about our community. They built schools, libraries, and hospitals. They lived here and sought to improve the quality of life through generous charitable donations.
These changes have led to a pivot at Lenawee Now over the past few years. While we will still seek to attract business through collaboration with our state and regional partners our focus is now on talent and entrepreneurial programs. We’ve developed the Entrepreneur Series over the past three years which features a full line of entrepreneurial programs that help local companies grow into the large businesses of the future. We will discuss the talent issue in part two of this series.
We believe this change makes for a more sustainable economic development model for our community. If we help many small new businesses launch each year, they will each employ several employees, eventually adding up to quite a large number. And if our past is precedent to our future, some of those small companies will grow into big businesses right here in Lenawee.
The future for Lenawee County is bright, and we are just getting started.