Who's the best of the best?

By DEVIN HEILMAN

Staff Writer

Readers, it's your time to be heard.

Voting is now open for the North Idaho Business Journal's 2017 Best Of people's choice competition. From automotive to restaurants and retail, you're invited to cast your vote and show your favorite businesses a little love.

"It helps give local businesses a leg up," Press digital sales manager Renee Fast said Tuesday. "It gives businesses a thumbs up, especially local businesses. If there's maybe a hardware store that's competing against a big box store, this will maybe give them more foot traffic."

This year's Best Of includes 14 categories with 170 detailed subcategories. Voters will find the Best of 2017 — VOTE! tab at the top of the www.cdapress.com home page. Once the tab is clicked, voters will choose a category and a subcategory and select or write in the business of their choice. Voting can only be done online and requires users to create a free login with a password. Users may vote one time per person per hour. New write-in businesses may take up to 24 hours to process and appear in the options.

Voters can also go directly to http://cdapress.secondstreetapp.com/l/Best-of-North-Idaho-2017/Home.

"It's a popularity contest," Fast said. "The voting is done very much like 'American Idol.'"

The contest had already received nearly 500 votes by mid-day Tuesday. Last year, The Press received more than 186,000 votes from more than 13,000 registered voters.

Aside from earning bragging rights for a year, Fast explained that Best Of provides winning (gold or silver) businesses with marketing tools and a seal of approval from friends, neighbors and patrons.

"It proves that you are seen as the best in class in your business segment," she said. "Other people have said, 'This is a good business. You can trust these people.'"

Press sales manager Kari Packer said the Best Of contest is an opportunity for the community to support businesses "that you like, that care for you, that do the things that you need that are good for consumers."

"That information being out there is very valuable to other consumers," Packer said. "It's valuable to those businesses who put that extra effort into running their business and taking care of their customers. We vote with our dollars, but this is an opportunity to vote outside of that."

Voting will be open through Feb. 3. Winners will receive an invitation to a reveal party March 30 at the Best Western Plus Coeur d'Alene Inn. A special Best Of 2017 tab announcing winners will be published March 31 with the daily edition of The Press.