Yesterday I was driving through the middle of North Carolina on a little two lane road for several, several miles. I always enjoy random off-Interstate travels like this, even though we were on them for a good 3 hours or more. As we drove from community to community, I perked up each time we'd hit a new little historic downtown area. Some were filled with banners, welcoming us to their community, others sat awkwardly on either side of a wide 5 lane highway, while others had brand new streetscape projects underway with signs in the windows saying "Looking good, ____(insert community name)___"!
As we drove along one strip of this scenic highway that had filtered back down to a small two lane road, I noticed something. There, sitting in the front yard of a home, was a large trailer filled with brightly colored birdhouses. Clearly, these birdhouses were being sold by the person who owned this property. Driving by at 45 miles per hour, I quickly scanned the trailer with bright eyes at the beautiful, colorful birdhouses. We continued to drive along the scenic highway as I took note of the front yards of house and after house, all brightened by these colorful birdhouses!
Every single house had one - no, not one, but several in a cluster in the front yard, on the front porch, in the side yard, wherever! I wanted to pull the car over, drive back to that house with the trailer filled with birdhouses, and buy at least 3 myself to take back home with me. I imagined they had painted somewhere on the side the name of the community I was in....and if it wasn't, I would ask that it be painted on the birdhouse. Why? Because this was a part of my road trip I would remember, and this was a community I wanted to remember and share with others. It was a unique element to this town that would have otherwise remained nameless and quickly forgotten had I not noticed all the brightly colored birdhouses.
The uniqueness of a downtown is much like these birdhouses. The look and unique character of each building and business is what sets it apart from others and what catches the eye of the random traveler. The choice of paint; the unique architecture; the welcoming allure it has to the random traveler who wasn't intending to be welcomed into your town. It is this look that causes the random traveler to stop and frequent the businesses within your downtown and enjoy the public spaces within your downtown.
Equally important is the importance small business plays in the branding of your downtown. I don't know who was making and painting the birdhouses, but I knew it was someone local - surely it was someone local. Perhaps this town had a lot of birds. Perhaps this town had a famous bird story. Or, perhaps this town simply woke up one day and wanted to attract as many beautiful birds as it could into its town and someone started a business around that model. That approach may be a bit far fetched, but more likely could be that perhaps a person loved to paint, and loved to make birdhouses. That person took his passion to the drawing board and began making and painting birdhouses and began selling them, one at a time. As the fever caught on, more and more people started buying clusters of the birdhouses and putting them in their front yards and in front of their businesses. Suddenly, one small business owners idea became a brand for a town that caused this traveler to want to stop and buy a birdhouse unique to this town. The small business owner branded the town to this traveler and made a profit in doing so. And, I equally would hope to find this business, or these birdhouses, sold in a little shop (or the product scattered throughout many shops) downtown. That is where all things unique to your town come together and unite.
What is it about your downtown that makes someone want to stop and buy something memorable? Why would a random traveler simply passing through your town want to take a souvenir of your town back home with them? What can you do to encourage a spirit of entrepreneurship that welcomes this type of unique business type to come into your town? If your town already has a brand and you're wondering how to launch it, what type of business could help do just that? What - or should I say who - "brands" your town?
