| Written By Craig Scharton |
OK, this is going to seem painfully obvious to all of you, but I had a clarifying moment last month about the value of what we do at the Central Valley Business Incubator. It was one of those situations where I understood the pieces of the puzzle, but hadn't seen the complete picture yet.
It happened at the end of a talk that I gave to a group called the Central California Association of Health Underwriters. I told them about CVBI, our unique role in developing the region's economy, the inspiring companies that are in the Incubator, our classes for entrepreneurs and our two new facilities - all good information. But I failed to connect the final dot, which is that every company that launches from the Incubator is a potential customer.
At CVBI, we are doing economic development that actually affects real people and real businesses. I should have explained to my health insurer audience how they will directly benefit from our efforts. Consider this: about six high-growth companies a year will be launching from our two new facilities. Most of them will have five to 20 employees - a few will even become the next PELCO-sized employers in our region. Annually we also have about 70 start-up businesses that graduate from our Entrepreneurial Training Process classes, and they will all be needing services from a variety of business partners.
Every city and county economic development department in the Central Valley should be hovering around CVBI and letting our members know of their particular community's benefits. Commercial real estate brokers should be strolling through occasionally to see who is going to graduate and need space. Insurance companies, banks, sign companies, personnel services, attorneys, accountants, advertising agencies and other business-to-business-focused companies all stand to benefit.
At CVBI, our success comes from our members' success. If your business sells to businesses, then you have a direct stake in our success.
The door is always open. See you soon.
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