When Boissevain residents talk about minding their own business, what they mean is, “Let’s help someone start one.”
“The next time someone says, ‘You know what this town needs,’ say, ‘How can I help you get that started?’” said Marj Billaney, host of a chamber-sponsored business fair here last week.
“And let’s not say to the kids, ‘Go get a job.’ Let’s say, ‘What kind of business can you start?’”
Last week Boissevain’s business community sponsored an evening that began with swapping stories among local business owners and wannabes, and ended with a lighthearted version of the popular CBC show “Dragons’ Den.” Prizes included free chamber memberships, offers of mentorship and $1,000 worth of ‘chamber bucks’ for spending locally.
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The Mind Your Own Business fair impressed Manitoba Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Chuck Davidson. He drove out from Winnipeg to see what was happening in Boissevain and said he plans to start talking up this kind of event with the rest of Manitoba’s 67 chambers of commerce.
This is about growing local business from within, and differs from the usual approach of trying to spur community economic development by attracting business from outside, said Davidson.
“This is a unique approach and something I’m not seeing in a lot of communities. What Boissevain is doing is taking a proactive approach to looking at business development within its own community. I really applaud it for that,” Davidson said.
Knowing where to begin
Speakers such as Kamara Sisson said that kind of support is key to encouraging entrepreneurs like her. She opened a hair salon here after moving to Boissevain with her husband and their young family. At first the whole prospect of running a business was daunting, she said.
“I was terrified to own a business,” she told her audience of about 100 local farmers and business owners. “I just knew how to do hair.”
She got the advice she needed through a provincial business start program, but says she remains convinced there’s others unaware of those supports, and never pursue their ideas.
“People don’t know where to begin, and I think a lot of people are scared to start, so they don’t,” she said.
Electrician Marc Loewen is owner of Copperman Electric in Boissevain. He and his wife moved their young family here for the quality of life in Boissevain, as well as the opportunity to start a business, he said. There’s plenty of work and good opportunity to build your business because it’s easier to earn a good word-of-mouth reputation in a smaller centre, he said.
Conrad Klassen, who moved here last summer to become a regional representative for Primerica financial advisers, joked how he’d miss a cup of coffee from Starbucks if it weren’t for Boissevain’s Sawmill Coffee and Tea Company. But there’s not much else he misses about city life.
“A handshake out here means something,” he said, adding that even at age 26 he’s put off by reliance on technology that doesn’t do much for creating meaningful relationships between people.
“I believe relationships are built with quality time spent with each other.”
The evening’s free-ranging discussion generated more ideas about how to spur on local business including setting up a fund contributed to by existing businesses to provide seed funding for startups, and low-cost commercial space to incubate new companies.
Cam Clark, general manager for CKLQ/STAR FM radio, one of the evening’s guest speakers, said things have changed dramatically over the last decade and a half, making it possible to live and work virtually anywhere people wish.
There are new opportunities to attract people into smaller centres because high-speed technology now makes it much easier to set up shop outside larger centres.
“It makes it a lot easier to do business where you are. And you’ve already got support networks in place… family and friends, cost of living is pretty reasonable.
“A lot of people say the grass is greener somewhere else. But today technology allows people to stay where they are. They don’t have to leave to succeed.”
