A long walk down a short Main Street
One of the best things that Deb Brown and I do for communities is called a walk-through.
One of us will come to your town, and we walk down the main street with you. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?
But it’s more than a tour for us as visitors or a chance for you to show off your progress to an appreciative audience. It’s a deliberate process to improve your town.
1. We have to do this at the actual location. Descriptions are good, background info is helpful, photos are wonderful, but none of them replace actually standing downtown together.
2. We involve more than just one organization. It can’t just be the mayor and city manager; that’s too focused on the municipal viewpoint. It works best to have a handful of people with different viewpoints, not necessarily official leaders.
3. We cannot give you any quick fixes. We don’t have a magic wand.
4. We give you an outside viewpoint. You drive past this stuff every day. There are things you don’t see anymore. We’re new; we see them. There are other things that stick out because they bother you, because you know how they got that way. We can give you an honest assessment of whether they are worth being bothered about.
5. We give you lots of ideas. We draw on our broad base of experience and knowledge of what other towns are trying right now.
6. We focus on the practical, the real-world and the down-to-earth. We don’t sell you some grand plan you will struggle to implement.
7. We will not give one-size-fits-all advice. Our suggestions are based on what we see right there in your community.
8. We follow up. We build in a full hour of follow up calls or emails to help you move from idea to action.
It’s the best of the information you’d gather from hearing one of us give a keynote speech at an event, but it’s right there in your community, in the context of your own assets and your own challenges. It costs the same as a one-hour presentation, even though you’ll be getting a lot more focused time with us.
If you’re ready to move your town forward, then taking a walk with one of us could be the right first step. Hit reply. We’ll set a date.
Keep shaping the future of your town,
Becky