Who are among the best businesses of the Coachella Valley? |
An overview of the Coachella Valley Page 1: This page. Page 2: An introductory letter and a listing of production resources in the Coachella Valley. (All of these business should be among those considered as a potential subject for an episode of the show). Page 3: An Overview for Chamber executives Page 4: An Overview for Association executives The Daily Video for Inspiration Click here (this is a pop-up window) to go to the special video clip for your local Chamber of Commerce. If you're not a member of your chamber, consider joining today. The story behind the story On Thursday, January 10, 2008 the executive producer of Small Business School, Bruce Camber, began to contact and visit with local Chambers of Commerce. The opening suggestions was, "Let's do an episode of the show about the Coachella Valley. Perhaps we might start on El Paseo and the business community of Palm Desert and the area." The first step is always to start to compile a list of business owners who are loved by the community for their generosity and service and within their industry for their leadership. Coachella Valley is part of the Los Angeles Designated Market Area. The PBS-member stations in the area include KCET, KLCS, KVCR, and KOCE. Coachella Valley, with a population of about one million people (now using the national statistical ratio of 1:13) should have about 77,000 businesses. This would include those sole proprietors who might run their businesses from their homes and even businesses with no employees. Of that total, again using the national statistical ratio of 1:3, there should be over 29,000 with employees. Based on that figure, we would hope to generate a list of at least 2900 businesses from which to have all the local business advocates in the area could vote for those businesses to be included in an episode of the show. That emerging list will be on the left. Resources for each local chamber:
A few episodes involving local chambers Just a few of the business owners who are all very active with their local chambers of commerce: 1. Albert Black, On Target Supplies, Dallas, Texas. When we first met Albert, he was the head of their small business task force. He became the volunteer president, then the Chairman of the Board for many years. Listings of Small Business Resources The first website for the television series was launched in December 1994. For every episode there was an overview, transcript and study guide. There were also listings of resources for small businesses that were national (US Chamber of Commerce, SBA-SBD, Better Business Bureau, etc., and then there were listings by state. All these resources are constantly being updated, yet change is fast. So in the near future, control over these pages will be given to the owners of the information by state and then by Designated Market Area (DMA). Examples of state listings follow (opening in a new browser): Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana , Maryland , New Jersey, New EnglandConnecticut, Maine, and Vermont ), (New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. |
1. The towns of the region, total population 430,000 million: Incorporated towns include Cathedral City, Coachella, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, and Rancho Mirage. Unincorporated towns are listed below.* Although a Wikipedia article about Coachella Valley gives the area nearly 1M residents, the number used by economic development professionals is 430,000. Using the SBA statistical avergae of 1:13, based on that 430,000, there should be about 33,000 businesses. That would include sole proprietors, farms, and businesses without employees. The economic development professionals use 8500 businesses for the valley. More... 2. Role models for best practices, job growth, and economic development
3. Everybody nominates and business advocates help select. Key business advocates of the valley include the Coachella Valley Economic Development Commission, each local town's economic development person, the mayors and town managers, the local chambers of commerce, the local business press, local professors of business, local folks of SBA-SCORE-SBDC, local people of the BBB, and the local chapters of business service organizations like the Rotary, Lions, etc.. Background: Businesses selected will be members of one or more business advocacy organizations in the area. Some volunteer to make the Coachella Valley a better place to live.
4. What happens with the list? First a list is developed which is ordered by the person's last name. As the list grows to over 100 names, the business advocates will all be asked to vote for five. Based on that vote, the list will re-ordered and the person who is at the top will be invited to be in the first episode of the show done in Coachella Valley. However, the very first episode may be an overview and a study of many businesses, and each of those businesses later becomes a complete episode. Then, we will simply work down the list!
5. The first episode The current thinking about the first episode is to provide a visual tour from 20,000 feet quickly zooming down to about 10,000 feet and finally zooming into look at El Paseo. This episode will ask, "Whose idea was this? How did it happen? Is it working?" These are a few of the shops who said that they would be glad to participate:
and many, many more to come. *Unincorporated towns include: Bermuda Dunes and Thousand Palms in the east, Native Cahuilla tribes include the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, Twentynine Palms Band of Mission Indians, Agua Caliente Cahuilla Band of Mission Indians and the Torres-Martinez Band. |