Community Engagement  

Being involved in your community is not only awesome and productive for your community, it is awesome for your business too!  Find an organization that you believe in, and volunteer!

Our core value of Advocacy – A series of actions taken by a person or group to change “what is” into “what should be.”

• Seek opportunities to act as a civic-minded servant leader.
• Generously donate time and talents to better your community.
• Compassionately assist and lift up those who are less fortunate and inspire others to do so.
• Embrace philanthropy as a way of life, not a function of your job.

How community involvement increases your business  (excerpts from Chris Romer: Vail Daily column: Why community involvement is important to business:

• Visibility. Yes, you’ve heard it said time and time again, that out of sight means out of mind. This is not a smart strategy for any business, whether times are good or not so good. As Jim Collins said, “good is the enemy of great.” While good is the enemy of great, complacency and short-term thinking is the enemy of sustained business success. Get involved in your community to help increase your visibility and increase your word-of-mouth referrals and overall awareness of your business.

• Access. Unless they are crazy or enjoy consistent rejection, no one likes making cold calls all day long. It’s a painful, tedious process that often wastes far too much time and mentally drains even the most upbeat and friendly person. When you get involved in your community, you’ll discover that meeting prospects, who may have an interest or who can refer you to key contacts you’re trying to reach, is a huge benefit. Being involved also makes it likely that you’ll find yourself in situations where you can identify and meet decision makers face-to-face versus making cold calls.

• Networking. A huge part of a successful business operation is, of course, whom you know. Out of sight, out of mind (as noted earlier) is also true when it relates to networking. Community involvement gives your business different venues and opportunities to meet new people. The positive outcomes on the bottom line of your business, be it a business-to-business operation or a tourism dependent operation, are evident via your community network.

• Voice. A foolish belief among many companies is that they’re too big or too small to care about getting involved or joining their local community. A few things they should think about: Are their employees and customers local? Are taxes and school systems important in finding and retaining a high quality work force? These are key areas that help all businesses succeed.

• Collaboration. There is strength in numbers and in learning from others. Collaboration doesn’t mean losing your business identity or sacrificing your customers to a competitor. Rather, working together with an industry group or a regional chamber of commerce or your neighborhood gives your business the access (see above) to tools you might not otherwise have at your disposal and to increase your visibility (see above) to grow your market share. Doing business, and growing your business, in a community requires a manager/owner to ensure people know about them – even in these days of social media and other mass communications tools, word of mouth is a hugely powerful driver of awareness and traffic to both service providers and retail outlets.

So get off the sidelines and get involved in your local merchant group or your industry trade group. You’ll likely extend your personal and professional network, meet new friends, and promote your business to those that didn’t know about you.

At the end of the day, that’s good business.