Having traveled to 15 different cities in about 20 days over the last month I had a great opportunity to see how other cities are dealing with the economic issues that are in the news.

I was surprised to find that other cities were doing much better than Cleveland and NEO.

In Glen Falls, NY, I taught a class on how to deal with difficult people based on the books The Platinum Rule for Small Business Mastery (www.amazon.com).

It was a small class (20 people) as classes go and that is what made it interesting.

One kitchen design company sent three people because business was so good they were having some customer services issues with the influx of new business and they want to know how to deal with people.

In the same city there were other companies that were growing and hiring new people. They were in customer service and wanted to help the employees deal with difficult people over the phone.

There was a minister in the workshop who was experiencing significant growing pains and he needs help in dealing with some of the challenges that surfaced as a result of growth.

The same thing in Framington, NM. Some many people have migrated there over the last few years that it was difficult to get a reasonably price apartment.

In Florida, where the housing market really took a dip, the 85 people in my workshop were talking about the opportunities they were seeing in water treatment, customer service and other service areas.

I get back to NEO and I read about Dimora accusing the Plain Dealer of being pro- republican. I read that municipalities were filing law suits against each other for companies moving down the street (Hudson and Macedonia) and a Cleveland union wanting paid for work it did not perform.

I did not see any of that nonsense in newspapers in the other cities I visited.

I am coming to one conclusion: NEO is different. Our divided government structures (50+ municipalities), our need to protect our turf (Dimora) and our entitlement mentality (Cleveland Union) is causing problems.

Other cities are dealing with difficult economic issues. What I read in other local newspapers were intelligent articles about important issues.

Don’t get me wrong. NEO is my home and I am proud to live and do business here but we make it so hard. I run Business Mastery Advisory Boards for small businesses (www.businessmasterynow.com) and I am surprised about how the discussion keeps moving to how to do business outside NEO. I recently read a NEOSA survey that local IT companies are doing well with 50% of the business coming from outside NEO. I find that strange with the glut of IT talent that companies have to go outside the region. I would think there is more than enough business in NEO.

If you are from NEO and are reading this post please share your thoughts.

To Your Success
Ron Finklestein
www.businessmasterynow.com
ron@akris.net
330-990-0788