A dollar is a dollar.

I've been thinking about the local economy.

In the summer months, all of us who own retail businesses and eateries in town can tell you that a lot of Tarboro residents leave town. Some leave on the weekends, some leave for the entire summer.  When they leave, they take their dollars with them and they spend them in some other town.

My husband made an interesting observation.  Many Tarboro folks with money often leave town to shop, leave town to vacation, leave town to dine.  It's the Tarboro residents who don't earn the "big bucks" that spend every dollar they have right here at home.  With gas prices the way they are, folks earning the median income or less in Tarboro ( $34,400 according to edodunk.com) have a pretty tight budget and traveling to the beach for fun in the sun or to Raleigh for a day or two of shopping the malls is probably out of the budget and out of the question.

If you take a look at the local retail businesses you'll see that there are many that are catering to those who shop locally and who shop for the lowest prices.  We have two Dollar Generals, one Family Dollar, one Dollar Tree, one MaxWay and of course there's WalMart.  Now if we also had more expensive department stores in town or a wider selection of smaller specialty shops that would be telling us a different story.  What the existing situation is saying, and what I'm afraid our favorite New Yorkers, Harry and Ernie of Parkhill Mall fame, have discovered.   People (rich or poor) are shopping in Tarboro primarily for necessities and those that can afford the luxury of leaving town, do so.

When we say "Support Local Businesses - Eat Local - Buy Local - Be Local" we're actually trying to reach (and teach) the people who take their money elsewhere.  These same people that leave town to shop and to eat and to vacation can give us a great deal of insight into what Tarboro needs to attract MORE new people.  When they travel to Rocky Mount, or Greenville or Raleigh, what are they seeking that is not available in Tarboro?  Are there specific things missing from what is available here?  Is it that other places have more selections to choose from? Is it simply the "adventure" of getting out of town and going somewhere new?

Asking these kinds of questions can provide us with a two-fold answer. First we can possibly learn how to satisfy the needs of Tarboro residents to keep more Tarboro dollars in Tarboro. Secondly, we can use that information to satisfy the needs of residents from other towns who leave home for the same reasons. We can instead attract them to Tarboro and they will spend their dollars here, too.

Tarboro, SEO and the world wide web

When I'm not writing this blog, or planning a street fair, or running our web-based wholesale business, or trying to renovate our old buildings, or helping with The Unusual Shoppe, I like to mess around with Search Engine Optimization.

For those of you who aren't into the creation of websites or the technical aspect of the internet, let me offer a brief explanation.  Search engine optimization or SEO is manipulating the aspects of a website to improve its ranking in search engines (like Google, Yahoo, and MSN).

Well, I've been manipulating this website in an effort to get it to rank high (the first page) in results when people who have never heard of Tarboro search the web for the "Best place to live in NC".  If they are looking for the best place, I want them to at least consider Tarboro as an option.

I'm telling you all of this because today, in fact, just a few minutes ago, I did a Google search for Best place in NC and there in the #5 spot on the very first page of results was a link to this website.  Not bad for an old gal.

I haven't perfected it.  If you search for Best Place To Live in NC, we're nowhere to be found, but if you put that phrase into quotation marks "Best Place To Live in NC", we're back in the top 10 again.  There are many different words and combinations of words that people in search of a new home town might use to find their "perfect spot" on the internet.   I may not be able to think of all of them but when I do think of them I sometimes create a blog  entry that will improve my SEO status for those words.

I just did another Google search, this time for most progressive town, and guess what?  This website was in the top 10 results for THAT search. How cool is that?  So...anyone searching the web for the MOST PROGRESSIVE TOWN is going to have the opportunity to find out about Tarboro, North Carolina.

Using the web and proper SEO techniques we can make it possible for hundreds of different people doing hundreds of different searchs to find Tarboro and discover all that it has to offer.

What kind of people would like to live in Tarboro?  What words would they be using to find that perfect spot? We can attract them to or at least introduce them to Tarboro by making information about our town rank high in the Google results for numerous search terms. 

This is now the 21st century, we must use 21st century marketing techniques. When we think about the BRANDING of our town, we need to take into account the words that potential new residents will use to look for and find our town.  What words would you use if you wanted to find a town like Tarboro?

We (I mean the big all-inclusive WE as tax-payers) just spent a LOT of money on the new website and I, for one, am going to be watching for it in the Google search results.

Rockin' the Boat

As I was growing up, a little girl in the 1950s, my mother often used the phrase "Don't rock the boat".  It was just another of her "rules for fitting in" that went along with the sayings, "Don't make waves", Just accept things as they are", "Don't cause any trouble",  "Do what you are told without question".  After all, my mother was teaching me how to fit into "polite society".

Well, my poor mother (Bless her heart) is still alive and still wondering where she went wrong.  Her precious little girl never DID listen to what she said.  In fact the rebellious teen phase of doing practically the opposite of what my parents have tried to teach has been going on for decades. 

Today someone thanked me for all that I'm trying to do for Tarboro and said to me how great it is that I've come to town. She said "You've really stirred things up", and she meant it in a good way.

I can honestly say, I didn't mean to stir things up here in Tarboro.  I didn't set out with the goal in mind to "make waves" or "rock the boat", but despite my mother's sincere efforts, I never learned to accept things as they  are  IF the way they are is less than what they could be. 

What I'm trying to do here in Tarboro, is help to make the town as great as is should be, as great as it can be.  It's very apparent to me, that doing things the same old way that they've always been done is getting us no where. We need to be doing some things differently. We need to be thinking outside of that darn box! 

As a mother myself, I had a few words of wisdom that I shared with my own little girls and despite the fact that I never thought they listened to me, I once stumbled upon a survey that one of my daughters had filled out.  One of the questions was "What is your favorite quote?".  Much to my surprise (and genuine pleasure) the quote was something I had said.

I told my children, "If you want to be better than average, you have to be different than average."  I never wanted my daughters to try to be like anyone else. I encouraged them to be the best that they could be as the unique individuals that they are.

That's what I want for Tarboro, too. It is my home, and I want it to be the best that it can be.  

Whose job IS it?

Where is Tarboro going to be in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years? 

Does anyone in an official capacity have a clear vision of what we want Tarboro to be?

We know what Tarboro WAS.  Tarboro used to be a thriving town. People tell me all of the time about what "used to be" in Tarboro.  They tell me about the busy downtown on Saturdays when all of the families came to shop.  They tell me "we used to have" this and "we used to have" that.  Tarboro used to have a lot of things that it doesn't have now and that will not be in our future if we don't plan for it and make it happen.

I recently talked to Troy Lewis, Tarboro town planner and asked him "Whose job is it to develop a vision plan for our downtown?" A vision plan to help it to grow in a predetermined direction, to create a finished product that is healthy and successful in attracting people to Tarboro, a vision plan that will guide landlords and property owners to work together with a unified goal in mind for the revitalization of our downtown.

Troy said that it wasn't the Planning Department's job and he thought that perhaps it was the job of the Chamber of Commerce.  Hmmm... I don't think so.  If you look over the Chamber's to-do list, I don't think creating a unified vision for a downtown is on the list. 

So whose job IS it?  If Tarboro were a ship, I'd wonder who is at the helm?  We've got a great crew that keeps us "ship-shape" and "sea-worthy", but who has got the charts? Who knows where we're going? What is our destination?

I realize that the downtown is not the entire town. A revitalized downtown will not solve all of our problems. Even with new shops and restaurants, it will not provide enough jobs for all of our residents who need and want employment. It will not directly improve the quality of our schools.  It will not specifically reduce our taxes or our utility rates.  BUT, the downtown is the heart of the town.  It is what visitors come to see and how they define the health of a town.   People don't visit our town to see WalMart or Lowe's or Sara Lee or Keihin. 

I'm full of analogies today... here's another one.  Imagine Tarboro as our home, our house, our residence.  Stores like WalMart, Food Lion, MaX-Way ... that's our pantry.  Lowe's, Ace Hardware, Henderson Lumber ... that's our tool shed or workshop out back.  SaraLee, Keihin, and the other big employers... that's our office, our place to work.  The restaurants in town... you guessed it, that is our kitchen and in a very few instances, our dining room.  The downtown is our living room.  It is the most important room in the house.  It is not only where the family can spend time together, it is where we entertain our guests.  How we "furnish" our living room represents our personal tastes, it gives a glimpse at who we are, what is important to us and how we live our lives. Our living room must be clean and attractive, it must be comfortable and safe, and it must have things to keep our family and guests entertained.  The visit to our living room must be pleasant and satisfying if we want our guests to return, and when it comes to attracting new permanent residents to Tarboro, our goal should be to have such a nice "living room" that they want it to be THEIR living room, too.

So, back to my original question.  Whose job is it to create the vision for our town?  Who is at the helm? Who is in charge of the living room project?

Sam Noble, if you're reading this, I honestly don't know the answer. Perhaps you know.  I know it's not your job. You are in charge of the "ship-shape" and "sea-worthy" stuff.  Is it the mayor's job to have a VISION for the town?  Is it something that the town council should get together and develop?  Should there be a Downtown Revitalization Commitee? .. and if so, who should determine the committee members?

I just keep flashing back to Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and wondering why those habits are not being utilized in the management of our Town. 

We need a clear VISION statement to "start with the end in mind".  In other words,  we need to have a clear understanding of what we want the finished product to be so that we take the correct steps toward completion.

Whose job is it to determine where we want to go so that we can work together to get there? 

You tell me. I'm asking.

Videos of Tarboro

At Monday night's town council meeting, Latham Jenkins gave the preview of the new town website and showed us all the videos he had created to catch the viewers attention and help to promote our town.

He showed how he had posted the videos on youtube.com and stated that he hoped that others with Tarboro websites would embed the videos into their webpages to allow for more viewings.

So I did.

I have created a page for the videos. 

There is a link from GoTarboro.com's homepage or select Tarboro Videos from the list on the right.