- The importance of involving a community in supporting local entrepreneurs
Community is the source of consumers for local entrepreneurs and their involvement in any business transaction has a lot of significance in today’s growing economy. Local entrepreneurs are recognized as the main contributors to the economic development, general wealth and welfare of economies and sources of employment for community members. Involvement of a community helps in creating a positive business environment that is essential for economic development. In addition, community involvement in local entrepreneur assists in creating cultural awareness that promotes celebration of the value brought by local businesses. The local community plays a major role in supporting and encouraging local entrepreneurs whenever they invest in a new culture (Walzer, 2007, pp. 261-262).
Secondly, involving a community in supporting local entrepreneurs keeps the community unique because locally owned businesses cater more for the welfare of the community it serves. In this context, the community gets to enjoy various benefits that come along with business improvement such as promotions, discounts. In addition, entrepreneurs find new adventures in a familiar environment leading to diversity. Moreover, community members will benefit from other incentives such as knowledge of unique products sold because they receive better customer care from entrepreneurs in presence of a good relationship. Thirdly, local entrepreneurs live in the community they serve hence; community involvement makes a business increase more assets in order to satisfy the community.
Involving a community also improves the business reputation that affects the number of customers willing to buy from a local business. People tend to buy from shops that have positive reputation in their respective communities and who are genuine in terms of caring about their customers. An impressing business image makes customer build more trust, become more loyal, and gain confidence in that particular business. The campaign will press the local entrepreneurs to build good reputations for their respective customers in order to promote community involvement (Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp, 2012).
On the other hand, the community helps in implementation of local programs and initiatives that provide a wide range of support to entrepreneurs. These programs and initiatives help entrepreneurs in networking processes and identification of potential markets for their products through small business centers, consumer education, and mentoring. Finally, community involvement gives local entrepreneurs willingness to work beyond community boarders to improve the target customer range, and tap resources. Good inter-community relationship provides an avenue for expansion for local entrepreneurs leading to growth and development of business activities (Walzer, 2007, pp. 263-265).
- Identify community leaders, local business and civic organizations, and local politicians that you would collaborate with and what they would contribute to the campaign
Community leaders, local businesses, civic organizations, and local politicians play a major role in encouraging customers to buy from a community’s local business. These people have a lot of influence to the community because they are leaders and the community follows them. Community leaders influence the activity of locals by giving them advices on the best businesses to purchase their products. In addition, politicians have a great impact because they are capable of shifting consumer demand to local businesses by lowering the cost of conducting businesses through reduced local taxes and low license fees. Collaborating with these bodies would be a perfect move in promoting a campaign to encourage local people to buy from local businesses (Finlay-Robinson, 2013).
Local community leaders
- Chiefs
- Village elders
- Church clergies
- Women and youth representatives
Local businesses and civic organizations
Local businesses –
- Local open market places
- Butcheries
- Mini supermarkets
- Service businesses such as laundry works, dispensaries
Civic organizations
- Las Vegas Host Lions
- Liede Vocational Center
- Lions Club
- Ladies Benevolent
Local politicians
- Members of parliament
- Senators
- Determine how you and the city will encourage local businesses to participate in the program
The campaign plan is an effort to make local people gain confidence in their local business owners and start purchasing their products with the objective of supporting locally owned businesses. The campaign will encourage people to change their buying habits and come together as a community by combining their resources, that is, local customers and local entrepreneurs to improve their business environments. In order to encourage the local community participate in the program the following essential processes will take place.
Firstly, a team of experts will be selected to conduct door to door campaigns to encourage local businesses sell their products to the local community. In most cases, entrepreneurs are used to produce goods for export services because they generate more profits. In order to ensure local business owners offer their products to the local community, the above team will give encourage the state to buy promote local trade. In addition, the local businesses will be promised of increased prices so that they generate the expected outcomes.
Secondly, the campaign team will hold seminars at various localities. These seminars will provide attendees with some benefits such as capital, business ideas, or tenders. Those who attend these seminars and workshops will receive gifts that will promote their businesses. The seminars and workshops will be aimed at encouraging local businesses to sell their products to the local community. Some of the invited guests on these seminars will include politicians, business professionals, community leaders, and civic organizations.
Thirdly, the campaign team will push the government to adjust the size of contracts offered to organizations in order to cater for the smaller businesses. This initiative will make contracts more available to local small and medium businesses hence, encouraging them to serve their local communities. In addition, a policy will be debated in the parliament through political leaders that ensures the government charges fewer taxes to businesses who operate locally, and scrutinize licenses of entrepreneurs who do international businesses only.
- Create a slogan or catch phrase to use in your marketing and promotional material
“BUY LOCAL EXPRESS YOUR LOYALTY”
- Explain how you will market your campaign to local businesses and to the community at large
The following process will be used to market the campaign to local businesses and the community. To start with, all participants will be served with coupons that they will produce when performing any transaction. In case of entrepreneurs, the coupons will assist them get discounts from wholesalers and manufacturers, while for buyers, they will be offered goods and services at lower prices when they buy them from their local communities. Secondly, advertisement will be made on all media companies. All television channels will be asked to bring the advertisement before any news bulletins, and during commercial breaks of important programs.
Social media is today the best form of advertising in the technologically advanced nation. The campaign team will create a page on social media sites, such as facebook, bearing the campaign slogan. The page will request for as many likes as possible for individuals who would like to encourage customers buy from community’s local businesses. In addition, advertisements will be placed on such social media sites to promote the ‘buy local campaign’.
- SWOT Analysis
The campaign plan will have different strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as shown in the following SWOT analysis.
Strengths
- Support from local community leaders, civic organization, and politicians
- The government encourages the campaign because they promote local talents
- High turnout of campaigners from small and medium sized companies
- Conducted by a team of professionals with business management background.
Weaknesses
- Some community members failings to take part in campaign leading to poor results
- Lack of adequate funds to cater for media advertisements, road shows, and other forms of promotion that are likely to increase the outcome
- Some leaders and politicians promising to support the campaign, but taking no actions
Threats
- Big organizations might block the plan
- Local community members boycotting the plan
- The high court might declare the campaign illegal
Opportunities
- More customer turnout leading to increased revenues to the entrepreneur
- Success of the campaign might make it more popular and used by the government as a strategy to bring home foreign investors
- Increases and encourages local productivity
- Changes based on the results of SWOT analysis
- Removal of politicians from the program
- Increasing funding
- Eliminating people not interested in the campaign
- Rationale for changes
After the SWOT analysis the following changes were realized. Firstly, it was found out that political leaders would support the plan for their own personal gain because they show no actions. It led to the removal of politicians as stakeholders in the plan implementation. Secondly, because of the threats of big organizations who export their products, more funds would be required to hire lawyers and increase the number of participants in order to make the campaign more powerful. Finally, a survey would be conducted to determine the percentage of people who are for the plan in order to determine its effectiveness and reliability.
References
Dun & Bradstret Credibility Corp. (2012). Community involvement helps generate capital.
Retrieved from:
http://accesstocapital.com/community-involvement-helps-generate-capital/
Finlay-Robinson, D. (2013). “Change and opportunity: the role of leaders and SMEs in creating
new business futures.” Development and Learning in Organizations, 27(3), 5-7.
Walzer, N. (2007). Entrepreneurship and local economic development. Lanham: Lexington
Books.
