Recruit Your Way To The Top

Many downtowns who have successfully revitalized have used the technique of recruiting businesses: planning the mix, looking for anchor "tenants", negotiating right of first refusal with landlords around town. One expert, N. David Milder of Danth Inc., wrote a thoughtful book, Downtown Business Recruiting, with many insights on other subjects as well. Moreover, Mr. Milder has published the book as a 117 page .pdf file on the Danth.com web site, where he consults.

Several of Mr. Milder's comments caught my attention, as they seem to be a little out of the mainstream. For example, many revitalizers swear by the practice of asking businesses and customers what businesses they would like to have fill empty storefronts. Mr. Milder says most of these plans do not work out. The mix of stores must be carefully planned around niches, or specialties that go together to make a whole greater than the sum of the parts. Never lose sight of the fact that finding tenants is about economic development, he admonishes.

Another interesting chapter in the book describes the personality of cities at various stages of sophistication in revitalizing. From the "Do-nothing" program, through Downtown Marketer, Deal Maker, Table Setter, and Targeted Program, Mr Milder describes the most likely actions and results, as far as long term success with the business mix. If you work in urban planning, you will find each person you know in one of these categories, and smile as you recall some of the meetings you have attended together.

Here in Nashua we'd be wannabes in the Table Setter category. Not a bad group to be in, but often unsuccessful in the end, Milder says, if they lack certain specifics such as large commercial spaces, and abundant pedestrian traffic. Oops...

Mr. Milder stresses that the recruiting process is a sales job, pure and simple. Sell the downtown as the right place to be, sell the property as the right place to buy or lease. Active, not passive, planning and recruiting is required. 

To read this book, go to Danth.com and click on the button "Business Recruitment Book" at the bottom of the home page.