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Maximize the potential of Michigan’s small businesses

January 28, 2019

By Brian Calley

The team at SBAM didn’t waste any time getting the member-driven agenda started in the New Year. A huge thank you to all the small business owners that participated in our past task forces to establish our proposals. This has allowed us to put plans into action straight away.

While our agenda and positions include a wide range of policy areas, I wanted to touch on one subject that I believe will play a central role in keeping the Michigan economy strong and growing.

You may recall that a few years ago, we had great success in working with the Snyder Administration to shift to more of an “Economic Gardening” approach to economic development rather than just business attraction.

In short, this means that our best opportunity for job, income, and economic growth comes from our existing businesses expanding. Yet much of the time, the focus seems to be about mostly recruiting businesses in from someplace else.

Now that we have several years experience with the “Economic Gardening” way, we believe it is time to super charge the programs, expanding both capacity and scope. The aim is to make sure that smaller companies (second stage) that are already rooted in our state have everything they need to grow. Small businesses already account for most of our jobs and most of our job growth. Now it’s time to maximize their potential.

Our advocacy efforts couldn’t be going any better. Stay tuned as we hope to have a steady stream of news in this area in the coming year.

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