Business Walk Step 2: Collaborate
When assembling your Business Walk team consider assigning different roles.
Lead Partners
Lead partners consist of teams of elected officials, city staff and/or other key partners.
This team is responsible for:
- determining "walker" participants
- assembling multiple volunteer teams of no more than 2-3 people to walk from business to business
- outlining the areas for walk coverage
- preparing survey questions for volunteer walkers
- identifying targeted businesses
- developing pre & post event communications plan
- preparing a post walk report, including a short summary of the findings
- coordinating follow up visits to businesses
Volunteer Walkers
Volunteer walkers act as a conduit for communications from business owners to local government and business organizations. You may want to consider including a few well involved business owners who have insight into the local small business community.
Volunteer walkers should attend a pre-walk 1/2 hour orientation on the day of the event to assist in understanding their role and what tasks they need to undertake.
Additionally, this team should also:
- participate in the walk and converse with the businesses visited
- if designated as scribe to take notes, record responses on the survey sheets created by the lead partner
- take additional notes during the walk to identify those businesses that might benefit from a post walk one on one follow up
- compile completed survey sheets and provide back to lead partner following the walk
Municipalities that have hosted a Business Walk have suggested that it took one full time staff person approximately a month to plan and coordinate a walk. Each volunteer team can interview on average 10-15 businesses during a walk.
