Day 115: How Does My Community Stand Out?

Day 115:  How does my community stand out?  I’m going to throw out some numbers that are pure assumptions on my part.  I did no research to back them up.  (Too much to do this week)  But let’s say there are 600,000 cities, towns, etc in the world.  I think there are about 27,000 places in the United States.  BUT let’s stick with the 600,000 number.  We are in a world economy.  Your community is no longer just competing with other communities in the United States.  600,000.  How many companies are there in the world?  I have no idea.  I’m not sure anyone has really taken the time to figure it out.  But there has to be at least a billion?  So that makes the 600,000 not look so big, does it?  So, I will take the 600,000 number and say only 25% are viable communities, so 150,000.  Now there are millions of businesses starting up in the world every year.  I’m going to say that out of the billion businesses only .001% are looking for new space to expand ( don’t ask how I came to this number).    That means 100,000 businesses in the world are looking for new space.  Let’s say 95% will expand at home or in their respective countries.  I think that is reasonable percentage.  That leaves 5,000 businesses in the world looking to expand outside their city our country borders.  I think you get the point.  There are not really many projects that would be looking at your community.  So, my first question is, should you really be spending a lot of time trying to stand out?  Probably not.  How do you stand out when you are competing for 5,000 projects against 150,000 communities worldwide?

The better question to ask yourself  is can you even compete?  Most of my posts have talked about your community/region should be thought of as a product.  Before you can compete for these projects, your product has to be complete.  Your [product has to be something these 5000 “consumers” want to buy.  You have to have skilled workers, infrastructure, sites, quality place, etc.  So, I would argue the best way to stand out is to have a great product.  That doesn’t happen over night.  It requires a lot of work.  You even owe it to your existing businesses and citizens to have a great product (community).  So, this was not a trick heading.  To stand out you must get your community/region to be the best it can be.  You also must look for what makes you unique and build upon that.  Your uniqueness may grab the attention of one of those 5,000 “consumers” projects.  Next:  Trick or Treat

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