STRATEGIC PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT

Your organization will get in sync with microbusinesses. You’ll have the tools to connect with and tap into this tremendous market and constituency.

You will:

• Understand their key habits and characteristics
• Understand their dynamics, priorities and preferences
• Understand how they will better respond to you
• Create a stronger, more focused message which will resonate
• Build strategically delivered programs for your audience

Microbusinesses are partners—not customers!

Strategic Planning & Development

We help companies and organizations get in sync with microbusinesses:

• Understand their key habits and characteristics
• Understand their dynamics, priorities and preferences
• Understand how they will better respond to you
• Create a stronger, more focused message that will resonate
• Improve product or service selection and delivery
• Build targeted communications and marketing strategies
• Build strategically delivered programs for your audience
• Understand and utilize Strategies Paradigm

Economic Development

• Orientation to understand and consulting to apply the differences between “economic development” and “business development” and their regional impacts
• Consulting services to assist in the planning, development and implementation of a regional economic development strategy
• Data and analysis to help entities better understand economic development investments and assess the ROI on those investments; this analysis can occur prior to, during or subsequent to the implementation of a plan or project
  (Services appropriate for local, regional, state, multi-state regional, and national governmental entities.)

"Economic development” is the function of government working with communities (NOT with corporate interests) to establish the conditions necessary for an economy. It is a strategic, comprehensive and coordinated effort to plan, design, create, finance, implement, inform, operate and protect the business and economic activities of a community." That community may be a neighborhood, township, city, county or counties, state, group of states, regional area of any size or group of regions that spans international boundaries. In simple terms, “economic development” is exactly what it spells—the development of an economy.

“Business development” is often referred to as chasing smokestacks; it is the use of a number of techniques designed to grow an “economic enterprise”—a specific business, not an economy. It is the process by which existing businesses are lured or persuaded to locate, relocate, expand, diversify or redevelop a specific business or to remain in a given place. In simple terms, “business development” is exactly what it spells—the development of a business or a greater degree of limited commerce.

Policy Development and Analysis

• Climate Check - a situational overview to understand the current climate that affects the microbusiness community
• Issues Briefing – a primer on the priority issues of concern or deep impact
• Policy Briefing – briefing and interpretation of current policy, statutes, policy initiatives
• Policy Analysis - analysis of current, proposed, developing policy
• Needs Assessment - data collection, interpretation and conclusionary thesis
• Policy Development and Policy Integration – strategic statutory, program, project or regulatory development; impact assessment; integration assessment
• Policy Sampling—feedback mechanism that includes focus groups, stakeholder roundtables or surveys (Services appropriate for public or private entities)

Strategies Paradigm

We use the Strategies Paradigm® to Understand • Develop • Reach • Impact • Benefit

• Research (data collection-who, what, why, how much, how important)
• Interpretation (what are they saying, what do they mean, what do they want)
• Analysis (what does it mean, what is important/less important, what should we do)
• Planning (how does this information help us, what do we do with it,)
• Double check (what did we overlook?)
• Development
• Communications
• Assessment