Inland Northwest should be an easy sell

Beginning today, your local Better Business Bureau is hosting a regional conference in Spokane that brings together CEOs, board members and staff members from BBBs in the West and Midwest for three days of meetings and events.

These are interesting times for a nonprofit organization that bases its mission on ethical behavior. The marketplace is changing, service delivery methods are expanding, and nonprofits are serving ever-larger audiences. These are exciting and challenging times for any business, really.

I want to suggest something to businesses that get discouraged by the continued challenges that plague Spokane, the media attention we get for domestic tragedies and the undeserved reputation a few odd souls have stamped on us: Plan a meeting.

As you look around, trying to find activities to shed the best light on our region to your visitors, you’ll find:

• Some of the best and least expensive golf on the planet right here in our back yard, for one. It was tough to select only two courses to show our visiting CEOs, but in the end we decided on the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s Circling Raven and the city of Spokane’s Indian Canyon.

• Diverse regional speakers. For example, Father Robert Spitzer, a nationally recognized expert on ethics and current president of Gonzaga University, will open the BBB conference and spend half the day with us talking about ethical leadership in an increasingly unethical world.

• Venues, food and scenery add to any meeting and we have a whole lot of “wow” to offer. How about a side trip to North Idaho to fly fish or ride Silver Mountain’s gondola, or a winery tour?

• To have all this based at the historic Davenport Hotel, situated in a vibrant, revitalized downtown, how can you miss?

Unless you get away from this area on a regular basis, you have no idea what unique and refreshing things our region has to offer. Sometimes you need to step out of the daily grind to gain perspective in order to project that perspective in a positive manner onto any visitors.

Look at the best this area has to offer, and capitalize on it. For example, because of spring runoff, June is one of the best months to take a visiting client on a walking tour of the Spokane River. Do a little research and share the history of the making of Riverfront Park for Expo ‘74. Let visitors know why it’s so pleasant to live here: shorter commuting times, affordable cost of living, and the best Mother Nature has to offer right at our back door.

Translate this attitude to your business. How can you capitalize on the best your company has to offer? How can you excite your staff to deliver enthusiastic, attentive service? What can you do to make interacting with your company memorable?

Try stepping back and looking at your business as a customer would: ask someone to “shop” you and listen to the feedback; understand your core product or service and stay focused; work on first impressions, because the little things count in a big way; step away, visit other businesses like yours and see what stands out.

Then ask yourself, what do your customers expect from you? How are you doing compared with your competitors? What makes you special? Does your company have a plan or are you simply reactive?

Remember, there are visitors here all the time and each of us has the opportunity to make a lasting impression. So, what are you and your business doing to make an impression? The impact that one courteous or rude comment makes acts like a pebble tossed into a still pool. What kind of ripples are you making?