Beyond the Gift Card: Ten Ways To Cultivate Your Local Small Biz Community

 
 

At this point, it is not a secret to anyone that local businesses have take a beating during the pandemic. Some losses are obvious: closure of restaurants, drinking establishments and event venues. Some are less so. Our business, for example, experienced an off-the-charts boom in demand for bicycles as people desperately sought ways to safely get outside. Unfortunately, supply failed to keep up with demand —not just for us, but every single bike store on the planet— and after the initial stock ran out, we turned away customer after customer, literally watching potential business walk out the door at peak season. When you run a sesaonal business, with a mere 4-5 month window to make the bulk of your annual revenue, sending customers away empty-handed mid-season is literally a reason to cry. Our store is just one tiny example. These stories are repeated all over the country by small local merchants of all ilk.

At no time was it more clear than during the pandemic that people crave, and possibly can’t go for long periods, without human interaction, socializing and community. This is precisely the time when we need our local community to be strong, our local merchants to be thriving and our local establishments to ensure we have places to gather for interaction and conversation. Every time I visit our neighborhood Facebook page, I see people mourning the loss of some local business, or bemoaning the fact that there aren’t more of them in our neighborhood.

Without a doubt, this is a period of time when many businesses desperately need support. However, though it can be incredibly helpful in a crisis, support is remedial, and not a sustainable long-term strategy. I believe that as we restore our towns and neighborhoods to health, we need to stop thinking of small businesses as something that needs constant support. Instead, let’s recalibrate that relationship, and begin to think local businesses as essential drivers of positive change in our cities and towns. Let’s cultivate a local culture, economy and community in which all of us —residents, businesses, and social organizations — can thrive.

Here are ways you can get to know, promote and cultivate your local businesses:

  1. Check out their website. This may seem counterintuitive to local shopping, but many businesses have websites with tons of useful information, that may cover everything from preordering, buying services or products for curbside pickup or to be shipped as gifts to someone out of town, to information you can use to help with your own buying decision, or to expand the usefulness of something you’ve already purchased. Many merchants (including us!) put tons of energy into creating an engaging, informative and inspiring site.

  2. Local gift baskets. Whether it’s your Realtor or your kid’s teacher, they may appreciate a gift bag of personally chosen, thoughtfully assembled local offerings, rather than an arbitrary collection shipped from a large mail order outfit.

  3. Give your party a local theme. If you’re planning a gift exchange or shower, give it a local theme, and ask guests to shop locally in your (or their) neighborhood.

  4. Variation 1: Local treasure hunt. If you think your local neighborhood can’t supply, you might be wrong. Set a challenge for yourself and see how many commonly bought items can be found in a two mile radius from your home. I’m not talking gift items here. I guarantee that within our location in Jefferson Park, I can find excellent groceries, basic household goods, tools, hardware and housewares without ever setting foot in a national chain.

  5. Variation 2: Have a local-only day. Set aside a day a week or a month to only purchase from or dine at local establishments.

  6. Variation 3: Hold your own Small Business Saturday. Get together with a few friends and make a day of exploring local offerings, including coffee, lunch or drinks to round out your experience.

  7. Walk or bike your neighborhood to really get a sense of what businesses are there. When you drive, you may miss things.

  8. Be flexible about what local means for you. In a community dense with small businesses, it may only be a few square blocks. Here on the NW side, where businesses are more far-flung, it may include Edgebrook, Gladstone Park, Jefferson Park, Old Irving, and Portage Park. Though not exactly walkable, they are all within easy bikeable distance, and they all have small businesses that depend on the wider community. If you do drive, don’t plan on parking in front of each business you visit. Park your car nearby and explore on foot before heading off to the next neighborhood.

  9. Attend your local business events. Business owners work hard to put on community events, many of which are free, and those that are not usually include a valuable service or learning experience. From trivia nights, mini-concerts, kids’ story time, to soap-making classes, cooking lessons and bike repair workshops, chances are your local merchants have something to offer that will enrich your life, and help you get to know your neighbors.

  10. Post great reviews and promote local shops on your social media. This authentic, word-of-mouth publicity is priceless.

Our world would be lot different without small local businesses, and we have to imagine if it’s really the type of world we want. Empty storefronts are an eyesore, and they fill us with regret for what was once there. But they also fire the imagination with possibilities of what could be! And it really could be, if we can change how we think about what it means to live in today's economy. We can’t just be passive consumers; we have to become engaged and fully invested partners with our local businesses. Cultivating small business is not so much about support for the daring local merchants, and more about forging an alliance between them and the local community they serve, for deep and lasting mutual benefit.

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