A Great Coming Together by Dean Barber
Some things just make sense. Discussions take place. Ideas are bandied about. And then it dawns on those involved -- "You know, this could really work." We see the possibilities.
It began with a simple followup. I sent a message via LinkedIn to Aaron Brossoit, CEO at the Golden Shovel Agency, thanking him for "liking" one of my blogs. (I do that a lot.) That in turn lead to a conference call in which we talked about what our two companies do.
A few weeks later, John Mashall, the president of GSA, flew down to Dallas and we had dinner. We concluded that what GSA and what Barber Business Advisors do are different but complement each other.
In short, when working with economic development organizations, BBA does the front-end work and GSA does the back-end work. BBA helps communities determine their strengths to be leveraged as a value proposition for corporate investment. GSA takes that information to create a community narrative.
All communities need to know their strengths and weakness to determine how to play and where to play in business recruitment, retention and expansion. That's where BBA comes in. All communities have stories to tell on an ongoing basis. That's where GSA come in.
This partnership is not in the same league as the First Transcontinental Railroad, but we think it's a good thing. We won't be posing for pictures, but we do have an official press release. So there you go.
Golden Shovel Agency Partners with Barber Business Advisors for Economic Growth
DALLAS (May 17) –- Barber Business Advisors and the Golden Shovel Agency have agreed to a strategic partnership in which the two firms will jointly offer consulting services to economic development organizations nationwide.
The announcement was made while representatives of the two firms were attending the Consultant Connect ECONOMIX conference in Frisco, a Dallas suburb. BBA is based in Dallas and Golden Shovel is based in Little Falls, Minnesota.
Representatives of the two firms attending the conference said the partnership is designed to bring additional services to communities that seek to market their locations for business attraction.
“Promoting the economic development narrative of communities has never been so important. Golden Shovel is continually looking for the best strategic partnerships to offer to our clients,” said John Marshall, President of GSA.
“We occasionally come across communities that want to use our array of communications services, but they haven’t done the necessary groundwork for us to fully help. BBA can help with that foundational work, so that we at Golden Shovel can better serve our clients.”
Dean Barber, principal of BBA, agreed with Marshall, saying the complementary aspects of the two firms became apparent during discussions.
“BBA works for our economic development clients to develop what will be an actionable formula for success. In doing so, we provide an outline for a story to be told, a business case to be made,” said Barber.
“GSA takes that ball and runs with it. Using the foundational work that we do, they complete the story through an array of great marketing and communication services. This is where the EDO plus BBA plus Golden Shovel equals five. It is an approach that will drive community growth.”
Marshall and Barber said the partnership means that communities have access to a variety of new services. Economic development organizations need not use the consulting services of the two companies in tandem. However, a joint approach could maximize results for purposes of business attraction as well as business retention and expansion.
“Partnerships like this take time, time to develop, time to implement. But they will be for the benefit of our clients,” said Marshall.
