Much of what we share with you comes from the American Independent Business Alliance, and we'll be putting out a synopsis of KeepItQuerque - buy local President Mark Santiago's experience at the Go Local, Grow Local conference last week.

Another important partner is the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and you might add them to your inbox!

The most recent ILSR newsletter provided information on

•  Amazon’s Big Assist from Government
• Walmart's Trojan Carrot
• Understanding the Small Business Credit Crunch

Amazon wouldn't be as strong if it had to charge sales tax.
Walmart is selling organic in a further attempt to put other grocers out of business.
And Credit Challenges may be at teh root of an historically low level of entrepeneurship.

Take a look for yourself and see why it's important we KeepItQuerque.

 

We are seeing the emergence of a growing "shared economy" everyday in Albuquerque; Lyft and Uber, ride sharing services that connect a willing driver with someone who is willing to pay for a ride, collaborations between City, County, the University and more in our Innovate ABQ plans and ShareNM.org are jujst a few of many examples of how people are collaborating in new, productive ways.

Recently I attended an event hosted by the New Mexico Food and Agriculture Policy Council.  There were representatives of different universities - NMSU , certainly, - , the New Mexico Cattle Growers, educators, political players like Eric Griego and many more, all to bring more local food to the table at our schools. 

Apparently this group has been around since 1996 and has had a long road to travel in gaining some recent successes.

Mark Winne is just one of the compelling people who aren't giving up on the important initiative of providing communities with food independence, among other goals.  In his blog Mark shared the following;

"Starting over 8 years ago, the New Mexico Food and Agriculture Policy Council began pushing the state education department to get junk food out of the schools. Their advocacy led to a substantial revision in New Mexico’s nutrition rules which slammed the door on the sugar and fat crowd and opened the door to local fruits and veggies. And like a persistent wind that wears down the rock, the Council spent several years clawing a $325,000 annual appropriation out of the state legislature to purchase local food. This made New Mexico one of the few states to directly fund such purchases .... Today, three-quarters of New Mexico’s school districts are buying over 300,000 pounds of local produce, and by 2015, it is expected that all the state’s schools will participate."

KeepItQuerque - buy local is just one of the cogs in a crucial machine and you may care to know of some of the others.

We'll let you know about the Food And Ag Policy Group and other organizations who share our "local" goals and encourage each of you to collaborate with KeepItQuerque and other organizations. - shifting 10% of your purchases to local businesses is a small step that wil generate a big benefit to our community, and finding where you can take other small steps will also generate further benefits.

Are you getting all you can from KeepItQuerque.org?  Do you know all you can get from your directory listing? Now there's a class to teach you every Wednesday at 10:00am.


At MemberClassroom.Com every Wednesday our KeepItQuerque.org hosts will offer you tips and advice on maximizing your page in the directory - and since KeepItQuerque.org gets nearly 300 searches on the directory EVERY DAY you ought to take a moment or two to leverage those searches for your business!

On the first weekend in May over 100,000 homes received their print directories with your member listing - and with the KeepItQuerque.org website directing your neighbors to find out more about your business online.

Digital is a wonderful means of providing exactly what folks want to knwo about your business, but the old expression still applies; "Nothing in, nothing out."  Okay, that's not exactly how it goes, but you get the idea.

Many of you have invited me in to your office and we've updated your member page by adding photos, connecting to your website, social media, Youtube and more.  Many of you are now taking advantage of the opportunity to promote your events, to deliver coupons and to have your "content" on a directory with a "dot ORG" suffix. Now you can get teh expert help direct from the folks who put the directory together - I promise I'll be taking the class soon!

Let me know if you have any questions in the meantime!  Reach me at ed@keepitquerque.org.

According to the Institute for Local Self Reliance even the Small Business Association isn't lending as much to "small" businesses.  According to John Woolsey what constitutes "small" is determined by a business' NAICS code wiht 500 employees counting as "small" in some categories.

One of the challenges to credit appears to be the compliance lenders have to face.  Not only is compliance expensive, it takes a long time.  So you may have to push a little, and here is the place to start with the SBA.

As they say on their own site, "What does SBA offer to small business owners? The programs are varied and the qualifications for each are specific. Understanding how SBA works is the first step towards receiving assistance."