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State official to area businesses: Tell your story
McCOOK, Neb. -- McCook and Southwest Nebraska needs to “tell your story,” says the Director of the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, Anthony Goins, who visited with the McCook Rotary Club and guests via Zoom on Tuesday.
Goins suggested that rural Nebraska create video presentations that the NDED could post on their website and include in marketing material to send to potential firms looking to relocate or expand. “We’ve got a national network and I’d love to be able to push those videos out when we do our international visits.”
Goins said that his department also needs to have a good understanding of the area’s talent pipeline. “What are some of the jobs and what do you really want the McCook economy to look like? What is the depth of talent in your area?” He went on to explain that prior to Covid19, Nebraska’s low unemployment rate caused concern from potential companies.
Since Covid 19, Goins said that there are many firms in densely populated areas that desire to either relocate, or to move part of their workforce from the cities to create some redundancy in their operations. “So if something happens and you have to shut down your operation in Colorado, you could have a second location in greater Nebraska towards the western part of the state and you can still be able to operate. We think that’s a really good story to tell. And we think that is part of the value proposition of the western part of our state.”
Another shift that has occurred due to the coronavirus is that businesses are looking for opportunities to “re-shore”. Companies that have supply chains overseas in places where the population is dense have experienced challenges in meeting demands. Goins said that the shift to re-shoring, or bringing the supply chain back to the United States, provides great opportunities for western Nebraska.
He said Nebraska is special because Nebraska’s business leaders have “access”. As an example, Goins said that Nebraska ranked first in the United States for the Paycheck Protection Program loans partly because business leaders have personal relationships with community bankers. “You have their cell phone number. You can get in touch with somebody and you can have a conversation.” In other areas of the country, that was not the case, as business owners would have to reach bankers through 800 numbers and couldn’t get through.
Nebraska is also special, according to Goins, because the people really care about each other. “You have people with great financial means, but you’re not arrogant. You’re humble. That humility, along with just incredible, incredible business smarts is absolutely amazing.”
Goins warned that sometimes Nebraskans are too humble because they haven’t told their story. “The state of Nebraska has never really had a marketing budget. If you’re in business, you’ve got to do two things. You’ve got to have a great product, but you need marketing and you need sales. Marketing is a really important part of telling your story and making sure the consumer understands the value proposition.” He went on to say that in the state of Nebraska, “the story is under told, and the state is under sold.”
Federal funding will go into broadband, small business support, retraining workers
The Nebraska Department of Economic Development is responsible for more than $300 million of the $1.81 billion that the State of Nebraska received from the federal government’s Covid funding. NDED Director Tony Goins said that his department plans to spend that money across the state in various ways.
First is creating access to high-speed rural broadband. Goins had high praise for the broadband that is in place in the McCook-Imperial-Ogallala area. He said that bandwidth provides opportunity for work-from-home jobs in the financial services and tele-health areas.
According to McCook Economic Development Director Andy Long, MEDC is in discussions with a company to expand fiber connectivity to homes throughout the community. MEDC is also working on providing a co-work space on the fourth floor of the Keystone Business Center.
Secondly, CARES Act funding will award Small Business Stabilization grants. Goins said that approximately 30,000 Nebraska businesses, including some in the ranching community, will receive a grant of about $12,000. The funds must be used for covid-related activities and personal protection equipment such as masks, hand sanitizer, and gloves, using guidelines set out by the Treasury Department. Goins said the grants will go to businesses that have between five and 50 employees as of March 13, 2020.
He said the grants are targeted to the businesses that typically got closed down, such as restaurants, small hotels, and hair salons. “It’s not designed to fix those businesses, but it is designed to give them a small cash infusion that should help get them stabilized.”
He said the application process will be as easy as possible. The business must be registered in Nebraska, and some information from their 2018 tax return will need to be provided. He said they also have to provide “some fairly detailed commentary about how COVID impacted their business”.
Thirdly, a workforce retraining initiative will allocate funding to community colleges to provide training for citizens who are unemployed or underemployed. The training will be in areas of higher growth sectors of the economy, or high-demand jobs. Goins said that they expect there to be a 90% job placement rate for those who participate in the program.
The last piece is a program through Gallup called Back To Business Learning. A small number of businesses will have an opportunity to apply for a grant where Gallup will act as a business coach. They will address topics such as how to build culture, how to coach your team for greater productivity, and how to keep your business model relevant as the economy and demand shift. The program typically costs the business owner $15 to $20 thousand depending on the size of the firm. Using COVID money, the state will grant the businesses the funds to access these Gallup services for a year.
Goins said that the NDED is working on a website and 800 number that will be available to answer further questions about the programs.