"Commercializing" local foods (Part 2): Supporting businesses + media outlets simultaneously

[Debbie Hillman]

Create your own job?  Along the lines of trying to support local food businesses NOW while also trying to support local food media outlets NOW, I have attached a 2-page concept paper for a potential self-made job.   

Please understand that I am not offering a job to anyone.  I am simply offering the concept of a Sales Entrepreneur who might be able to make money by both 

(1) marketing local food businesses (paid for by the individual business or project), 

(2) selling ads for those same businesses in local media outlets (commissions paid by media outlets).  

I think there's money to be made by the right salesperson who can also protect the integrity of "local" foods.   If anyone wants to work on this angle, I've attached my concept paper.  Feel free to use it to create your own job.

People who already know the local foods landscape -- the real businesses, the real people -- would seem to be the people who could most easily start selling ads for the media outlets.   

CREATE A SALES TEAM?  Or perhaps there are people out there who could help create a sales team.   Sandra Streed, a member of the Illinois Local Food, Farms, and Jobs Council certainly knows the landscape of small- and medium- food and farm businesses in Illinois (and probably beyond). Perhaps the Council could facilitate the creation of a sales team --  get marketing people together.   A possible partnership could be with one of the media or business (marketing) schools in Illinois -- Columbia College (School of Media Arts), Northwestern Univ. (Kellogg School of Business) -- or Western Illinois University's Institute for Rural Affairs (Value-Added group).

Other people who "pound the pavement" are Jim Javenkoski (Institute of Food Technologists), Ann Dougherty (Learn Great Foods), Tim Magner (Truck Farm) as well as Lance Avery.   It takes a certain kind of personality to travel around, to make all of these connections, to demonstrate the value of marketing while also understanding the budget constraints of local food businesses and projects.   There are other go-getters out there, too, such as the people running food incubators (Kitchen Chicago, Logan Square Kitchen, Now We're Cookin).  It's their business to be aware of what's going on in the local food world.  I'm sure there's others throughout Illinois and the Midwest who I do not know.

New to Local foods? -- LEARN LOCAL FOOD LANDSCAPE FAST.  Maybe pounding the pavement trying to sell ads is a good way for the right person to learn the local foods landscape really fast -- jump in with both feet and see if this model works.

I hope this is a useful niche for someone.   Apologies for my general ignorance about marketing and sales.  I'm just looking for leverage points to build the local food system.   In 2012, "leverage" point might be equivalent to "survival" point.

-- Debbie

Debbie Hillman

847/328-7175

DLHi...@sbcglobal.net

http://about.me/debbiehillman

Evanston Food Council   (co-founder and chairperson)

Illinois Local Food and Farms Coalition   (co-founder)

Illinois Local Food, Farms, and Jobs Council   (co-founder)

Cook County Food Systems Steering Committee (member)