The Prairie Sky Chamber of Commerce is excited to be launching their new ‘Love What’s Local’ initiative, which is set in place to remind residents within Martensville, Warman and the surrounding region to support local. Members of the local business community were invited to attend a business breakfast to discuss the initiative on Wednesday, November 26th. PSCC Executive Director Jaimie Malmgren took this opportunity to explain what the ‘Love What’s Local’ campaign is all about.
The purpose of the initiative is not only to encourage residents to support their local businesses, but also to empower local business owners by challenging their thinking and helping them to understand different ways to keep their customers wanting to come back. Ways of doing this include ensuring that you are providing a service or product that is desirable within the region, offering a personalized shopping experience and ensuring that they listen to what the community is looking for from their local businesses. “We want to empower local businesses by challenging their thinking and encouraging them to tell their story, because stories have a way of cutting through the noise and make an impact on people,” Malmgren explained. By sharing stories about these local businesses, Malmgren believes it will help create relationships and to connect people without tasking them with something to do. With the ‘Love What’s Local’ initiative, the PSCC created a newsletter to share some of the stories about local businesses.
“A successful shop local initiative is not something one person or organization can do alone. Our ‘Love What’s Local’ movement needs all of us to each do our part to spread the word about the importance of supporting our local businesses,” Malmgren said.
Using a metaphor comparing money circulating throughout the local economy to that of blood flowing throughout the circulation system within a body, Malmgren explained the importance of supporting locally. “When you spend money locally, it gets passed along three to four times within the community. When money is spent outside of the region it is like a wound or a cut, which can cause bleeding. That bleed can be painful and if not healed properly, can lead to death. Just like the body needs blood, the local economy depends on money circulating through it in order to keep it healthy and alive.”
For local residents, Malmgren explained that by shifting their spending habits by as little as five to ten per cent locally, it can have a major impact on the overall health of the local business region.
Local businesses are the ones who in turn, help to support the community through employment opportunities, collaboration with other businesses, donations, sponsorships, scholarships and much more.
‘Love What’s Local’ window stickers are now available for businesses that wish to display them. For more information about the Prairie Sky Chamber of Commerce visit www.prairieskychamber.ca, or contact (306) 292-7066.
