At a keynote presentation I made a few weeks back, I learned of an interesting project that the business owners of that town had recently undertaken. They had arranged for business owners from another town about 200 kms away to spend a day secretly visiting their businesses, and examining the town as a whole for how it assists them by way of signage directing visitors to the main commercial area, etc.. They, in turn, then spent a day in the other city returning the favour, and afterwards, the two towns exchanged reports on what they saw, where they felt improvements could be made, etc..
While these folks ended up disappointed with the quality of the report they received from the other town, I think the idea is a great one. In Trucker Management, we talk about the need to have people other than yourself (employees, customers, etc.) do the same Circle Checks of your business space that you should be doing, in order to get an unbiased, third-party evaluation. This idea of partnering with people who pose no immediate competitive threat to your own businesses by being geographically distant enough, simply takes that notion of independent feedback to the next level.
Perhaps you should consider approaching your local Chamber of Commerce or other business association to organize a similar partnering program for your city or town!
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