Supporting Local Businesses

We all know that healthier businesses lead to healthier communities. On January 6th,  2010, twenty-six local businesses received a boost to their company’s immune system right here in Cottage Grove! They are attending a nine month, Strategies of Success (S.O.S.) class hosted by the Chamber of Commerce through the Lane Community College Business Development Center (LBDC).

This great partnership has brought much needed resources to the Cottage Grove business community. The current class is full but there is another in the works for this fall. Chris Nystrom, the LBDC instructor who is teaching the class, stressed that she is there to be a guide, helping to direct the business owner to finding the information and resources that they need, but most importantly to be a coach encouraging them towards greater success.

In addition to the once-per-month class each attendee gets a monthly private consultation here in Cottage Grove with Nystrom, where she supplements the topics covered in class with even greater detail, tailored to the needs of each business.

The class brainstormed opportunities, challenges and trends that they see as business owners here in Cottage Grove. Each participant then got to define for themselves who their target market is and then did an exercise sharing this as an elevator pitch to another classmate. The night was filled with positive energy and with great hopes of future growth for each business this year.

Local businesses can look forward to more opportunities like this class in the future. The Cottage Grove Area Chamber of Commerce is committed to supporting local businesses and is always looking at new ways of serving each business better.

To find out more about the services that the LBDC provides contact them at http://www.lanebdc.com/ or (541) 463-5255 or come down to the Visitor’s Center at 700 E. Gibbs to pick up a copy of their spring 2010 schedule.

For more information or to get on a waiting list for the next class this fall please contact Kristin at the Cottage Grove Chamber at (541) 942-2411.

This is a reprint, courtesy of the Cottage Grove Area Chamber, of an article,

which I wrote for their monthly Chamber Newsletter that gets printed in the Cottage Grove Sentinel. ~ Rose R. Miller