Listen to this video of Ivan Brumbaugh, owner of Main Street Cheese and Wine Cellar in downtown Lafayette, Indiana.  (To get to Ivan, you first have to listen to an advertisement).  Ivan attended our March 2009 Destination Business BootCamp.  He called me several weeks ago and told me: “Jon, if I hadn’t attended your BootCamp, I’d be down 30% to 40%.”  Now you can see why he’s ahead in sales for the year.  It’s about attitude and action: instituting new programs, significantly changing your business, and then getting the word out to your most profitable customers!

His attendance at our Destination BootCamp came about because of a grant from the City of Lafayette’s Redevelopment Department, spearheaded by Dennis Carson.  Dennis was the first director in the country who saw the value of sending independent business owners to our Destination BootCamp, first sending a group in March, 2003, more owners in May, 2006, and yet another group in March, 2008.  Downtown Lafayette is now organizing and sending another group to our September 15-17 Destination BootCamp.  When this next group attends and graduates from our BootCamp, the City of Lafayette will have helped send 24 attendees to our program, totaling nearly 500 hours of training!  This program is the proof that if you want to make a marketplace a Destination, it’s always easier to teach the business owners in that marketplace how to be their own Destinations first, and then, have them teach their neighbor.

Listen to Ivan as he talks about his experience changing his business and how he’s using his new information to better the entire downtown area.  It’s inspirational, it works, and it’s what reinvention is all about!