'Choose Local First:' Let's do it again

The Heart of Business is an association that seeks to help grow and protect local businesses. We feel that we can best accomplish this in two ways. The first is to provide weekly inspirational trainings and robust networking. The second is to spearhead a Choose Local First movement designed to encourage consumers to shift more of their buying habits from the national chain stores to the locally owned businesses and the backbone of our community.

The Local First Fest held Tuesday, Oct. 18 at the Fairgrounds was the best blend of both missions.

Starting at 8 a.m., we held a business conference with 24 business-related workshops with topics that appealed most to business owners seeking to grow their businesses. Those who trained on the topics were selected because of their expertise on the subjects that ran the gamut from social media to handling legal issues. Running four workshops at a time, more than 100 business owners had hard choices to make as to which workshop to attend. Even so, based on the surveys they filled out at the end of the day, the event and quality of the workshops were given the highest marks.

At 5 p.m. the doors were opened to the public. They were introduced to 64 locally owned business vendors who were able to showcase their products and services, perhaps for the first time, to the consumers of our community. Despite heavy rain, the community made a good showing and the vendors were pleased with the quality of the contacts they made.

Very heartening was the praise we heard from the public in attendance. They found the atmosphere warm and inviting and enjoyed talking to the various vendors. Many came because of the drawings for gifts from each of the vendors and the great prizes donated by some special sponsors including Super 1, Vertical Earth, and Fins and Feathers, but left impressed by the quality of the event. The most common question upon departing was, “When are you going to do this again?” That question was exactly what we wanted to hear and the answer is, “sometime in the spring.”

Throughout the event were the undertones of the Choose Local First message. This event was our first major introduction to the community of the need to support locally owned businesses and that by doing so, you actually support what we all love about living here. Yes, North Idaho is the most beautiful place to live, but you can’t eat beauty. It’s the locally owned businesses that provide the jobs, currency and the tax base that fund the services we all depend on.

For those of you who have sponsored a major fair such as this, you’ll appreciate the amount of work it takes to host any event, especially for the first time. Given the many accolades from both the business community and the consumers, we feel good about the results and deem the Local First Fest a success.

We wish to thank The Coeur d’Alene Press for being a major sponsor of the Choose Local First movement and we are pleased to partner with them in an effort to help the community see the value of shifting even a small percentage of their spending habits to the locally owned businesses. We are not opposed to the national chains; we just ask that you consider a small business first and help keep what is special about our community alive and well.

For more information about the Heart of Business and the Choose Local movement, you can call (208) 659-2726 or email us at heartofbusiness101@gmail.com

Nels Jensen is founder of Heart of Business.