SBR a Strength Building Exercise:

This was my Letter to the Editor responding to an anonymous Sound Off, Oct. 31^st. 2019 Eagle Herald edition titled “Let’s build on strengths, talents”

Yes, we should build on strengths, and on our differences, too; If building is our purpose.  For that reason, I am grateful for the anonymous Sound Off submission.

Our community’s participation in the Small Business Revolution, by Deluxe Corp. was a strength-building exercise.  It was not to win for the sake of winning, but to discover what we have. It was an exercise worth its weight in what the community makes out of it.  Here is a sample of what we did. 

Our citizens pulled together to challenge the other towns in the competition. Both Marinette & Menominee High School Bands inspired us when they practiced and performed together. The first time was not the last time that would happen.  Citizens and both cities displayed banners across the interstate bridge connecting both towns, counties, and states in admiration of a newfound unity. A bridge walk was held on New Year’s Day sacrificing warmth to experience solidarity. Marinette & Menominee City Council’s met together in one session for the first time in history, acknowledging citizens' hope for collaboration in government.  We discovered the large ratio of local small businesses for our size community.  There was an awakening of local companies, and what they can accomplish when working together.  We got a taste of the potential community impact of buying from local independent businesses. We generated an overwhelming and positive social media narrative with reach more significant than any other community in the competition.  We can be proud of holding the most real and impactful joint community welcome event deluxe had experienced before. We had a voting network established that would have put our community on the national map. Businesses that previously competed locally realized they are all on the same team when it comes to serving our community.

We were not chosen as the top town, but I was not participating to win for the sake of winning, but for discovering what we have, for proving to ourselves what we can accomplish. Participation was only an objective on the path to a higher purpose. So, what did we gain?  The answer rests in how we act on our strengths and talents going forward and choosing not to waste our energy on bitterness. Taking action to move forward, using our abilities, and gaining a new perspective is what we are doing.  The process of Regional Branding, and living a shared vision helps us focus all our good works along the lines of one mission. That is, to build a more vibrant community.

The mission that we had before The Small Business Revolution still remains.

The Purpose is a Vibrant Community

Taking Stock of Buying Local

Today, we are in the kitchen making chicken stock.  The stock we make today will last us all winter as a base ingredient to make flavorful recipes.   Imagine our big pot on the stove, filled with the ingredients for the stock, the liquid simmering, steam rising with a rich and tasty fragrance. 

Now imagine that the stockpot is our community, and the stew inside represents all of us working and striving to add value to the recipe of love, ways, and means that enrich our households.  The imaginary stockpot is different.  It has a spigot on the bottom that is always stuck open to some degree, running off the broth.  So, to make the recipe, we must continually add at least as much as is flowing out. The ingredients for this recipe are limited to the goods and services that our commerce sells to the world outside our community. This is our challenge, to add more than flows out and keep the makings in the pot longer to increase the quality and flavor.  Over time the runoff in our community has been higher than the input.

Currently, we are approaching the holiday season of potential joy combined with the tension of financial choices.  It might be the best time to practice investing in ourselves and our neighborhood to make a better broth. 

When we buy outside our community, cyber shopping, Mall of America style, we open wide the spigot.  According to the American Independent Business Alliance www.amiba.net/resources/multiplier-effect, when we buy from a local chain or mass merchant, we keep about 43% of the dollar you spend in the community stockpot. However, the best investment is when you buy from local, independently-owned businesses.  This is when you keep 68% of the stock in the pot, give it more time to cook, and allowing enriching the flavor and quantity of this stock we share. It is a delicate balance that is reliant on the small choices we all make every day.   A vibrant local business community adds flavor, character, and improves your financial stock.

There is no price low enough to overcome the cost of buying something that does not bring you joy or deliver value. The value that includes keeping your dollars working in the community pot.  Chicken stock is a recipe where better is more unless you like a tasteless, watery soup.

You have the freedom to choose how you cook. Will you decide to invest in yourself, your household, your neighbors, and your community? 

One Ship - Drifting or Sailing

Would you like to improve the direction of our community? Help us uncover the hidden strengths in our region?  Continue to expand on the unity that we so vigorously exercised earlier this year?  The team that brought you MyMarinetteMenominee is hosting our biggest event yet.  Add your voice to the conversation. Attend the upcoming Regional Branding Summit, Tuesday evening, October 22, at 6 p.m., doors open at 5 p.m., the  Auditorium,  810 Frontage Road, Peshtigo (inside NewLife). Find it - FB@mymarinettemenominee 

Please imagine our region, Marinette & Menominee Counties together, as one ship.  It is a significant ship, equipped with enough compartments and assets to be a manageable, capable, and preferred vessel. We are aboard this ship in open water, working hard to maintain it.  But maintaining and sailing a boat are two different things.  It is not enough to keep a ship; it is the action of sailing that matters.  If we are not sailing, we are adrift, staying afloat, until inevitably running aground with our children and grandchildren left aboard.  Yes, maintaining the ship is foundational, but floating and drifting is not the purpose of the vessel. The use of the boat is to sail with a clear and present purpose. 

Our region’s economic health is rated a low, 436^th out of 530 communities our size in the nation. Yet in comparison, we have a better ship than communities that perform much better.

Our purpose before we entered The Small Business Revolution, was for our participation to help unfurl our sails. We were not awarded the reality show’s top spot, but our purpose persists. Creating our regional brand and the process of branding is the step we would be taking now, no matter what place we were awarded. 

If you are trying to decide how branding is essential, you can define it as all that we do beyond the minimum required: sailing versus drifting. Branding is a process of discovering how we see ourselves reflected in how others see us.  The method of branding will resume where we left off in creating a sustainable power of “Unity in Community” that we discovered with the #MyMarinetteMenominee effort.

We seek to develop a place where youth wants to stay and contribute their talents. A place other’s desire to belong and bring their skills to contribute to our success.  The branding process helps us clarify our purpose.  Branding merges economic and community development. The captains of our ship need to know the clear and present purpose we have for our community.  They need to understand how to invest to achieve a return to economic and relational prosperity.

Freedom to Choose

Having everything at our disposal may not have been the promise our ancestors had in mind. But we do. We have all the things that we need and access to any merchandise we may want.  Our responsibility that comes from having so much is for us to choose wisely to preserve this kind of freedom. 

There are some items that I cannot get locally. For example, parts for an electric razor that I received as a gift. My mother-in-law lives in a remote rural area.  She cannot just hop in the car and travel 90 miles to buy curtains or a toy for the grandkids. This is where Amazon meets a need.  But careful of this choice. Amazon’s goal is to dominate, they always need more. If we buy into their massive artificial intelligence-driven messages and needlessly transfer our spending to them on impulse, unnecessarily, they get more, you get less, and your freedom of choice will go away. (i.e., ShopKo, Younkers) Each alternative that we lose is cancer on our liberty and prosperity.  To keep your independence, choose wisely. 

Choosing to buy from local independent merchants is your wisest choice, your dollar is worth more than double any other option. Not only do you get what you pay for, but your money also recirculates within our community 7 times.  Each time is providing jobs that support our family, friends, and neighbors. For example, it helps my neighbor pay for little league, swim lessons, or dance class for their children. It provides for the volunteers, the non-profit organizations, small businesses, that support little league, swim lessons, or dance classes. It perpetuates the cycle of local enterprises that contribute to all of this.  This example can be said about every program in our community. Buying from locally-owned companies recycles your dollar 7 times. The next best option; buying from local chain stores recirculates 3 times in the region.  Buying from Amazon does not power your family, friends, neighbors, and community.

If you opt to buy first from locally owned businesses.  And, second from other local options, and hold Amazon as a last resort, there is no need to feel guilty about how you shop. You will have continued guiltless buyer independence.  Today you have the privilege of choosing. Will you prioritize your choices to protect this freedom? Buy Local First!

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YOU Have the Power

Our communities were built for a population greater than what we have today.  Our public assets are more than our declining population can support. Therefore, we struggle to maintain what we have, and we miss out on the opportunity to make improvements for the future. As taxpayers, each of us absorbs the higher cost of this shortfall which has been nine decades in the making.

By rebuilding our population to what it was 100 years ago, a 30% increase, and being shrewd in how we do that, we can nearly double our economy in the next 20 years.

Why does this matter?  You will see the effects right away. Making improvements like buying local first will create a thriving small businesses backdrop that will attract a variety of new shops. Thriving shops are what it takes to build our downtowns.  Attractive downtowns create a greater sense of belonging for citizens.  Retaining local talent creates a thriving community.  That thriving community, in turn, attracts new talent.   This allows local industries to flourish which expands our economy, and thus, creates a better place to live.  And the cycle continues. There would be promoted job opportunities for you, and yours. This boost in earnings would make possible a new model for middle-class prosperity.  Local entrepreneurs will flourish which provides jobs and expands the tapestry for a more connected community.  The capacity for giving and supporting our volunteer organizations will rise dramatically.  Our municipal budgets will be funded with enough to protect us and adequately maintain what we have. We will build a new model for our community without growing beyond the infrastructure we already have.  We will do it in a way that will enrich our relationships and enhance our lives. This will yield a kinder, more manageable lifestyle where joy is within reach.

My Marinette Menominee’s mission is to create a vibrant community attractive enough to rebuild our population and do it in a way that creates a quality economy.  It is about a brighter future for our family, friends & neighbors. We want to be proud to see the growing promise of a brighter future for our children & grandchildren.

Now if I am wrong, wouldn’t you prefer to fall short on the upside here?  Do you choose to strive to double our economy, or to live with the chronic pain of continued significant shortfalls?

If this seems a little complex, all you need to remember, is you have the power to make this happen by choosing to Buy Local First

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Wake Up!

A few years ago, I was a chaperone on a bus trip.  The trip included overnight travel.  At about 2:30 am, we were traveling on the interstate southbound.  Seated in the front row It was evident to me, that the bus driver was sleepy, I could see him nodding off, swerving, head bobbing.  From our different perspectives, the bus driver was lulled into believing that nothing would change, you know the rational, “I have felt this way for a while, I am still on the road, it’s OK.”  But anyone in my seat could see the future.  Without doing something, the outcome would involve traveling off the road at a high rate of speed.  Calling the driver on his misguided belief and talking him through pulling over was the kindest thing I could do for the driver and a busload of youth. Is your vision for the future for our community viewed through the lens of “what I see now will be forever?”  I am stuck with what I have, “nothing will change.”

The REALITY IS that everything changes, always.  However, the system works gradually, at such a pace that we can be lulled to believe that what we see and feel today is the future.

Concerning our regional community; If you put yourself in the passenger seat you can see, we are dozing and lulled into believing that what we have is the future, because that is all we see, and from our narrow perspective it looks as if we are stuck in a system that will never change.

Hey, let’s wake up, refresh, and get on the road of a promising future.  Remember our youth are counting on us to pay forward the promise of a brighter future others have provided for us. What do you need to see the road that will get us there?

I know I run the risk of seeming radical, but calling you awake is the kindest thing I can do.  Eyes glazed over on the road directly in front of you, your subconscious believes nothing will change.  But look down the road, and you can see what changes, all the time, and you are in the driver’s seat.

We have all we need to create a brighter future and build a new model for prosperity.

What can YOU do to drive us to success?  Without anyone else permission and at little or no extra cost, you can start by choosing to Buy Local First.

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Invest in Your Community

I have the good fortune to be a part of the My Marinette Menominee Movement and am proud of the work we are doing to build a more vibrant community.  Today I would like to challenge you to invest in our community.  I am not asking you to spend more than you are currently spending: I am asking you to use your dollars in a way that benefits our neighbors and neighborhoods. 

When you make an online purchase, your dollars are stripped from our local coffers forever.  Alternatively, when you purchase goods and services in Marinette County or Menominee County, your dollars recycle over and over again providing needed fuel for our M & M economy. 

The best way to ensure the economic health of our region and the businesses within it is to support local businesses and organizations.  Please make the conscious choice to utilize the professionals, suppliers, and resources here at home.  The folks who own and operate our businesses are the lifeblood of this great community.  We volunteer, donate, mentor, sit on committees and boards, and invest in our community in a myriad of ways. 

Please look at everything you currently buy online, from insurance to cleaning supplies.  Take the time to learn who the local providers are.  Whether you are buying for your household or for a large employer or organization, make the choices that will strengthen our local economy. 

Multi-million dollar advertising campaigns aim to convince us that shopping online is a good idea, but the consequences of those actions can be devastating to our local businesses.  Your choice to buy everything you can locally will be the catalyst for a stronger community.  By adding your dollars to the economy, you break down the barriers for entrepreneurs who want to open new businesses or expand existing businesses.  A broader base of goods and services will add to our quality of life.  Stronger companies will lead to higher wages.  Stronger tax rolls will lead to improved services.  And so on.

In creating a more vibrant community, you can benefit from a more robust region and will enjoy a better place to live.  We hope to entice our youth to stay here and our talent to remain here.  We are lucky to live in one of the greatest places in the nation.  Please join with me and invest in the health of this great community. 

Proud local business supporter, Kim Brooks

MyMarinetteMenominee Blog

The Fork in the Road

What if we are at the fork in the road where one path leads to prosperity and the promise of a brighter future? I believe we are at that point today.

There is a stump in my yard that I see each time I mow. I asked a local tree removal company to cut down certain trees in my yard.  Showing him the ones I marked, he said, “you are going to want to remove this one too.” A tree I had not scored. He said, “this one is rotted on the inside and will be the first to fall on your home in a windstorm.” “It looks OK to me, I said”; from my perspective, it looked OK, I liked where it stood.  His reply, “trust me.” Once cut, it was more hallow than I could have imagined.  He saw indicators of the problem that I did not see. I am reminded of the illusion each time we have a windy day.

Think about how we see our community. There are hidden indicators of problems that are not obvious. For example, being in the bottom 15% of economic strength for regions our size in the nation. Similarly, our small to midsize town livability index is not how we see it. We do not rank as a top place to live in Wisconsin. There are missed opportunities that we do not see that rot away unnecessarily at our prosperity.  Please resist the tendency is to say, “It is not that bad.” Let’s replace that with “we can do better.” Because we are capable of something better. We have what it takes, and are responsible for, paying forward the promise of a brighter future.

Despite that many of us care, and that we make some noble efforts, our culture and economy are in a slow decline. Pointing this out is the kindest thing I can do.  Realizing that our responsibility is more significant than settling for “its not that bad.” We can choose the path to success. How we do that is to use the energy we are already expending. We can transfer that energy to travel down the better road. If you want a hint of where to start; Step 1, choose to buy local first. You do not need anyone else’s permission, and the choice costs little to nothing extra. “Trust me.”

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We've Only Just Begun

Recognition for all 
who pulled together 
to begin this courageous journey 

#MyMarinetteMenominee is grateful to receive the Ron Wipfli Award.  This year’s Chamber of Commerce Ron Wipfli Award has been awarded to the efforts of the hundreds of people who are involved in the My Marinette Menominee Movement.  I am grateful to be a part of this developing initiative.  Our team flourished when My Marinette Menominee achieved “Top 10” status in the Small Business Revolution.  Achieving national recognition is significant because it proves that we are as creative and capable as any community in this country.  By pulling together as one community across our many boundaries, we are showing that we can amaze ourselves.  

The “My Marinette Menominee” label was given to us by the folks at Deluxe’s Small Business Revolution.  But, it just so happened to be the personification of the vision that our core group already had before the SBR competition. Last fall, we were looking for a community development vehicle with the kind of energy to give us a boost in the right direction.  SBR was a valuable tool, and now that energy supports our vision for future community development.

During the Small Business Revolution frenzy, I made a statement – “Why wouldn’t you love where you live?”  Loving where you live is at the heart of why I am on this journey.  Where you live and with whom are worth the investment of your time, talent and energy.  Our team emboldens me to embark on the journey between where we are now and the promise of creating a brighter future for our children and grandchildren.

We can all recognize that where we live has a natural abundance of beauty: our waters, wildlife, and woodlands.  And, we have a growing list of things including a strong manufacturing base, a new Recreation Center, new Hospital, historic buildings that are being renovated, and more.  We are obligated to honor all the sacrifices others have made that give us today’s opportunity.  If you read Larry Ebsch’s articles in the Eagle Herald each Monday, you learn the stories of people that gave of themselves, they built, donated money, land, and time.  We must exercise the opportunities they have laid for us and keep that promise alive for our grandchildren, children, friends, and neighbors.

For me, the vision is about creating a place where my grandchildren can learn, develop their talents and prosper where they grow-up.  I hope to replace the advice of my generation with a new message.  Instead of telling our youth to “get a good education and move away to be successful,” we can become a place where talent from anywhere might desire to locate. We have all we need; however, it is about what we do with what we have. It is up to us to grow wisely. We can pave the way daily when, without other’s permission, and at little or no extra cost, we choose to pull together with mutual trust and respect and build on our abundance of strengths.

Thank you to those who chose #MyMM for the Ron Wipfli award.  It is encouraging to know that you believe in what we are doing.  Please join us on the journey to foster an even brighter future for our regional community.