WAYNESVILLE — Susan Rogers saw a market for people who needed help organizing their closets. She asked her friends Vicki Pope and Anita Powell if they wanted to go into business together.

But before they launched More than Closets, the three women had to get organized themselves.

“It was a grueling experience putting the business plan together,” Rogers admitted. But the hard work paid off as they won the first Business Plan Competition and $10,000 from the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce.

“As far as the monetary gain, it helped to get us our brochures, but the award itself gave us a lot of publicity,” Rogers said.

Mark Clasby, Haywood’s director of economic development, would like to see more success stories like theirs. He’d also like the county to better organize its own efforts to support homegrown entrepreneurs.

Haywood is one of the first counties to sign up for the Certified Entrepreneurial Community program, a new initiative from AdvantageWest, the regional economic development agency.

“It’s a great concept,” Clasby said. “The CEC program will help us determine what actions we need to take help entrepreneurs to succeed.”

He had worked with AdvantageWest to add Haywood’s Beaverdam Industrial Park to the growing list of certified industrial sites. That decade-old program for business parks provided the template for communities to improve their business climate.

Business attracts business

“We’re making CEC available to communities of all sizes, rural or urban. We have a checklist to help them become entrepreneur-ready,” explained AdvantageWest CEO Dale Carroll, who unveiled the program in March at a state summit in Raleigh.

Carroll said the program is the first of its kind in the nation.

“We’re talking about a different model of economic development from what many communities have traditionally focused on,” he said.

Instead of trying to lure large manufacturers with ever-larger tax incentives, Carroll said improving the local business climate could help start-up companies and attract other entrepreneurs.

Under the five-step certification program, community leaders will undergo training through the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship. They will evaluate their resources and set out a strategy to improve telecom broadband connections for local businesses. They’ll also look at streamlining the permit process for businesses, and look to forge stronger connections between K-12 schools and local community colleges and universities.

In return, AdvantageWest will help by establishing a revolving loan program for entrepreneurs, secure funding for broadband build-out and provide technical assistance, said Betty Huskins, AdvantageWest’s senior vice president for external affairs.

Local communities need to bank on broadband in particular, expanding e-commerce or business done over the Internet, Carroll said. In the same way, communities invest in water and sewer connections to service businesses, they need to look at broadband infrastructure.

“We want to recruit entrepreneurs by marketing the fact that we have Tier 1 broadband,” Huskins said of Internet access comparable to major metropolitan areas. “It’s time to let the world know.”

Graham sees promise

Graham County could benefit from the Certified Entrepreneurial Community program to bring more jobs to the small, rural county, county planner Melody Adams said. Graham already benefits from the BalsamWest fiber-optic network looping through the county, and officials are saving money to build out broadband access from Robbinsville to Topton on the Macon/Cherokee county line.

“The program is attractive for us in Graham County because it provides a framework to follow in supporting entrepreneurs,” Adams said. “By having that guide, we can spend more time working with entrepreneurs and less time figuring out what we should be doing. In a community like Graham that has limited recourses, working smarter with less is the key to a project’s success.”

Rogers, the Waynesville entrepreneur, liked the emphasis on homegrown businesses.

“There are only so many larger companies that can come in from outside. Staying local within your community is a big asset right now,” she said, especially with government and other companies focused on purchasing from local vendors. “That gives support back into the community.”

WANT TO PARTICIPATE?
County or municipal governments interested in participating in AdvantageWest’s Certified Entrepreneurial Communities program must submit a letter of intent by May 15. The letter should include a commitment to complete the program, the amount of funding or staff-time set aside for the program. Haywood and Polk counties have already sent their letters and other communities are expected to participate, said Dale Carroll of AdvantageWest. For more information, contact Pam Lewis: plewis@awnc.org or call 273-8295