Laneways business development program

To qualify for one of the new grants, a business must enhance a lane in the central business district. Some applicants may not be given cash but will benefit from advice from council business-development officers. The council will also host a laneway art program - By George! Will you come home to history? From new 9 foot concrete foundations and mechanicals to restored exteriors and thoughtful interior design, each of these homes is move-in ready.

Come home to history. On the edge of downtown Des Moines, the Sherman Hill Historic District is a collection of thoughtfully restored houses and apartment buildings set along tree-lined streets.

Many high visibility experts have built their practices and firms upon this strategy. It often takes a good part of a career to execute this approach.

But changing times and technology have reshaped this strategy. With the onset of digital communication it is now easier and much faster to establish your expertise with a target market. Search engines have leveled the playing field so that relatively unknown individuals and firms can become known even outside their physical region. Add in video and social media and the budding expert can access a vastly expanded marketplace. But these developments also open firms to much greater competition as well.

You may find yourself competing with specialists whom you were never aware of. The impact is to raise the stakes on your business development strategy. It is common to combine different business development strategies. For example, networking and referrals are frequently used together.

And on one level, a combined strategy makes perfect sense. The strength of one strategy can shore up the weakness of another. But there is a hidden danger. For a strategy to perform at its peak, it must be fully implemented. There is a danger that by attempting to execute too many different strategies you will never completely implement any of them. Good intentions, no matter how ambitious, are of little real business development value.

Under-investment, lack of follow through and inconsistent effort are the bane of effective business development. It is far more effective to fully implement a simple strategy than to dabble in a complex one.

Fewer elements, competently implemented, produce better results. Next, we turn our attention to the tactics used to implement a high-level strategy. But first there is a bit of confusion to clear up. The line between strategy and tactics is not always clear. For example, you can think of networking as an overall business development strategy or as a tactic to enhance the impact of a thought leadership strategy. Confusing to be sure. From our perspective, the distinction is around focus and intent.

If networking is your business development strategy all your focus should be on making the networking more effective and efficient.

You will select tactics that are aimed at making networking more powerful or easier. You may try out another marketing technique and drop it if it does not help you implement your networking strategy. On the other hand, if networking is simply one of many tactics, your decision to use it will depend on whether it supports your larger strategy. Tactics and techniques can be tested and easily changed. Strategy, on the other hand, is a considered choice and does not change from day to day or week to week.

Which business development tactics are most effective? To find out, we recently conducted a study that looked at over professional services firms. These High Growth firms were compared to firms in the same industry that did not grow over the same time period. We then examined which business development tactics were employed by each group and which provided the most impact.

The result is a list of the ten most impactful tactics employed by the High Growth firms:. There are a couple of key observations about these growth tactics. First, these techniques can be employed in service of different business development strategies. For example number five on the list, speaking at targeted conferences or events, can easily support a networking or a thought leadership strategy. Sydney New South Wales. City of Sydney Press Release A new small bar called Grasshopper and a new gallery and coffee shop will soon help enliven two CBD laneways and create exciting new spaces for people to explore.