Huron County's Economic Development Team recently received the Business Retention & Expansion International's Outstanding Multi Community With a Population 50,000-100,000 award for their 2021 Business Retention and Expansion project.
Business Retention and Expansion Coordinator, Cole Nicholson explains, their projects involved sending out a standardized survey.
"We sent out a standardized survey to all of our Huron County businesses and then the results of that survey we would use to strategic plan for our department and other departments within the county for the next few years just to give us an idea of what is needed by the community and what the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats are."
Nicholson also points out, a projects like theirs would typically involve people going door to door, interviewing business owners and going through the questionnaire. But he says they were forced to make some significant adjustments because of the pandemic.
"We had to completely change it all just due to the social restrictions. So we went to a mail-out survey technique where we used mailed surveys with a self-addressed return envelope involved, so we completely changed the standardized approach and that's part of the reason we were awarded the award."
Nicholson says they worked with several partners on the project and those partners recognized their project as a unique adaptation and encouraged them to apply for the Business Retention & Expansion International's award and he says they were lucky enough to win the award for their project.
More information about the county's Business Retention and Expansion programs can be found on the Huron County/Economic Development web site.
