entreQuest believes in a number of fundamental principles when it comes to building a better a business but the two that particularly resonate with our people and our partners are: 1) deliver a remarkable experience to clients and 2) make a difference in the community.
A couple of weekends ago, my family was treated to a remarkable experience by the community of Chesapeake City, Maryland. The town's official website - http://www.chesapeakecity.com/ - summarizes its offering as:
"A perfect destination for a quiet weekend of leisure away from the bustle of everyday life."
Metaphorically, Chesapeake City's stature in the tourism industry is comparable to a small business. It offers a more personable touch to its visitors. Conversely, its surrounding cities of Wilmington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC operate as the bigger conglomerates with the advantage of offering much more options for vacation-goers.
Obviously, there are pros and cons to both types of destinations. Of note, however, when a small business under-delivers, it's harder to make up for mistakes. A bigger business can often compensate easier for errors because it has more human resources and larger monetary funds. Plus a large scale scope of work often allows unattended minor details go unnoticed. This is not to say that a big business should ever let up on its effort to deliver the best but generally the consequences for its failures differ from those encountered by its smaller counterparts.
For Chesapeake City - a place with no hotels, only five bed and breakfasts, and a mere handful of restaurants and shops along the few blocks that make up its "downtown" - one poor client experience with any of its businesses could conceivably be blamed on the whole town. If the top rated antique store on the main street closes before 4:00 pm, the entire town could be labeled "dead." If customer service at the one hot spot restaurant wasn't friendly, the entire town could be labeled "rude." If its bed and breakfast runs out of fresh towels, the entire town could be labeled "unclean."
Now entreQuest spends a lot of time with companies that truly want to make a difference in their community and our team helps them find the right opportunities to do so. The results are always amazing - various groups of people in need are benefitted in uniquely compassionate ways and corporate employees feel more fulfilled in their jobs. Subsequently, both of these remarkable experiences naturally lead to increases in revenue simply because the company's people are driven to provide more remarkable experiences for their clients AND the company's community is driven to desire more of these remarkable experiences.
For Chesapeake City, making a difference for its community is not just an additional aspiration, it's a necessity for survival. All of the town's businesses must work together to deliver a remarkable experience on the whole in order to keep their tourists returning and referring.
Two weekends ago, the town succeeded in doing that and this blog serves as evidence for their achievement. The shops up and down Bohemia Avenue were alive and delightful to peruse. The Chesapeake Inn Restaurant & Marina was most welcoming and between the menu and marina setting, our multiple meals there were highly enjoyable. And The Blue Max Inn Bed & Breakfast where my family stayed was impeccable with its cozily comfortable feel and its extremely warm and attentive inn keepers.
Alive, not dead. Welcoming, not rude. Impeccable, not unclean. All in all, Chesapeake City delivered exactly the experience it promised: "a perfect destination for a quiet weekend of leisure away from the bustle of everyday life."
And there's nothing small about that doing that kind of business.
Carrie Root is a project manager at entreQuest who works closely with companies to coordinate their course of achievement towards corporate growth and implement strategic training programs throughout the ranks of their organization.
