Why Visiting Businesses Helps the NLEA Help Northern Michigan Businesses
By Dave Kronberg, Director of Business Growth, Northern Lakes Economic Alliance
Economic development isn’t something that happens from behind a desk.
To understand the opportunities and challenges facing Northern Michigan businesses, you have to spend time where business happens—on factory floors, in offices, at retail storefronts, and in workshops across the region.
That’s why business retention and expansion visits are a core part of the Northern Lakes Economic Alliance’s work.
As part of the NLEA’s 2025–2027 Strategic Plan, we are focused on growing diverse, year-round economic opportunities through targeted business retention, growth, and attraction efforts. One of the most effective ways we advance that goal is by visiting more than 100 businesses annually throughout our four-county service area.
These visits allow us to hear directly from employers about what’s working, what’s challenging, and what support they need to continue growing in Northern Michigan.
Listening First
Northern Michigan is home to a diverse business community. In a single year, the NLEA may visit manufacturers producing components used around the world, family-owned businesses that have served their communities for generations, innovative startups, agricultural operations, and some of Michigan’s most recognized tourism and hospitality destinations.
While each business is unique, many share common challenges and opportunities.
During these visits, we ask questions about workforce needs, business growth plans, facility improvements, infrastructure concerns, and industry trends. We learn about the barriers that may be preventing a business from expanding and the opportunities that could help them succeed.
Most importantly, we listen.
The insights gathered during these conversations help us better understand the realities businesses face every day and ensure our work reflects the needs of the employers who drive our regional economy.
Turning Conversations Into Action
Business visits are more than relationship-building opportunities—they help shape the NLEA’s priorities and programs.
For example, when employers consistently identify workforce housing as a challenge, it reinforces the need for regional housing solutions. When business owners struggle to find childcare for employees, it highlights the importance of increasing childcare capacity. When manufacturers identify workforce shortages or training needs, it helps inform workforce development efforts and partnerships.
Patterns that emerge from business visits often become the foundation for larger regional conversations, projects, and initiatives.
These conversations also help the NLEA identify emerging economic trends before they become larger challenges, allowing communities and businesses to be proactive rather than reactive.
Connecting Businesses to Resources
Business visits aren’t only about gathering information. They’re also an opportunity for the NLEA to connect businesses with resources that can support their success.
Many business owners are focused on running their operations and may not have time to track every grant program, financing opportunity, workforce initiative, training resource, or networking event available to them.
Through these conversations, the NLEA can connect businesses to funding opportunities, technical assistance programs, workforce resources, industry partners, and educational events that may help them achieve their goals.
Sometimes the most valuable outcome is simply introducing a business owner to the right person or organization at the right time.
Strong Businesses Create Strong Communities
When local businesses succeed, the benefits extend far beyond the business itself.
Growing businesses create jobs, invest in facilities, support local suppliers, contribute to community organizations, and help build vibrant communities where people want to live and work.
By meeting businesses where they are, listening to their needs, and helping connect them with resources, the NLEA can better support the employers that are driving economic opportunity across Northern Michigan.
The conversations we have today help shape the initiatives, partnerships, and investments that strengthen our regional economy tomorrow.
That’s why we visit more than 100 businesses every year—and why those conversations matter to every community in Northern Michigan.
Reach out to Dave to schedule a visit to your business or to learn more about funding opportunities.
