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Welcome Putting the Business Back in Business Retention SmartBusiness – The Smart Way to Help Halifax Businesses Relationship-Building and Business Retention Making the Most of Statewide Business Retention, Expansion, and Modernization Efforts Chicago’s New Direction: Leading the Race in Global High-Performance Manufacturing Five “Musts” for Business Incubator Success Growing and Keeping Your Region’s College-Educated Workers Learning to Learn: What to Do Different in the New Modern World Competing in a Global Age: New Skills for Our Nation’s Students Business Retention on a Budget: Billings’ BEAR Program Leverages Volunteers  Subscribe
About Economic Development America
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SmartBusiness – The Smart Way to Help Halifax Businessesby Brad Smith, Vice President, Business Development, Greater Halifax Partnership
Since June of 2004, we have met with nearly 1,200 businesses, representing over 35 percent of our workforce. But the real measure of the program’s success is its effect: Through the direct intervention of SmartBusiness, more than 2,500 jobs have been created or retained in Greater Halifax, the largest city in Atlantic Canada and Nova Scotia's capital. This article covers key aspects of SmartBusiness’s design that we believe make it so effective: the program’s branding and marketing; the composition of our Account Executives and Action Team members, who conduct outreach to the region’s businesses and respond to their issues; and our proactive response to labor issues that affect the entire business community.
Why build a brand for a business retention program? Imagine having a no-name soft drink.What makes that sugar and water combination better than any other? Building a brand is about positioning and creating distinction – a way of building recognition and credibility among your partners and customers. The Greater Halifax Partnership originally was formed around building confidence in our community. Ten years ago, confidence was low. Research conducted at that time into what distinguishes Halifax from competitor regions found that we have the best-educated workforce in Canada, with 63 percent of the working-age population possessing a university degree or a non-university trades certificate or diploma. From that knowledge came our SmartCity brand, and we simply leveraged the high brand equity of that experience for SmartBusiness. The campaign reinforces business confidence and highlights the fact that Halifax is a great place for business to thrive. It encourages people to visit our Web site or call a tollfree number for more information on ways to grow their business. We advertise extensively in our market, with $400,000 in media space that comes from billboards and local or regional radio, television, newspaper and magazine outlets – all partners who buy into the concept that they are investing in the future of their community through the Partnership. They believe that if we can make the pie bigger, we all win. The brand works in two areas. From the customer (business) side, when someone from SmartBusiness calls a company to book a meeting, the company already knows something about it and typically wants to learn more. Branding helps answer the question in the businessperson’s head:Why would I want to invest my time to meet with these people? From the partner side (what we call our Action Team, the agencies and people who have the expertise to help the businesses), it helps answer the same question: What’s in it for me to partner with SmartBusiness? It builds momentum, awareness and credibility, the chance to “coattail” on success. The partnering organization is in the same boat with SmartBusiness, and both are responsible for delivering on the brand’s expectation.
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