It seems like there is a huge void for the businesses of Bellevue - there is no business membership group (outside of Eastside Entrepreneurs which is open to all) which will help promote their businesses, offer affordable and fun networking opportunities as well as budget conscious ways for additional marketing.
The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce has for a long time held a lot of 'power' with many of the major corporations that call Bellevue home, as well as many stakeholders like real estate developers, brokers and the like. But the Bellevue Chamber, it's staff and its advisors have continually failed to recognize that ALL area businesses and business people are important and they deserve to be promoted - especially member businesses. They do exactly nothing to market themselves or their dues paying members. They also have stuck to the old strategy of pretty much everything they do being a revenue opportunity and have never been known to actually promote their members at all - in fact I was personally told "we don't promote our members, we give them an opportunity to promote themselves". That is an attitude that hurts EVERY business in Bellevue and frankly business owners should be pissed off about it.
The Bellevue Downtown Association is strictly about their member businesses in an area they call downtown. They have apparently had a lot of strife in their membership, as it was well publicized last year that Kemper Freeman took his ball and went home (quit the BDA) after Greg Johnson, President of rival developer Wright Runstad & Company was elected president - and Kemper apparently did not agree with the BDA's views on light rail either ... The BDA does have a less power-controlled organization than the chamber, with some great people and they do promote their members, but they are still very limited by the downtown geography, as well as their lack of willingness to partner with local media and other business organizations.
I would like to propose a new business organization for all the businesses in our great city of Bellevue, Washington. It would have reasonable membership dues and sponsorship opportunities. It would promote all of its members, through traditional and new, social media methods. It would have great events - including a FREE networking mixer each month. It would have a small staff of happy, energetic and empowered individuals who would be encouraged to do everything possible to help members, explore mutually beneficial partnerships and project the great entrepreneurial image that our fine City of Bellevue should have.
While I would love to be involved in getting such an organization started and running in the right direction, I would not be a good person to run it - but I do know some people who would be great! I've also got lots of other ideas around this and would love to meet with anyone who may be interested in exploring this further. It would definitely make sense to get the good people at Wright Runstad & Company involved - especially considering that they are going to be helping to greatly change the face of Bellevue and the Bel-Red corridor in the next 20 years and beyond.
What are YOUR thoughts on this?
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