Tennessee Economic Gardening Network

Sparking Innovation Across the Rural & Urban Landscapes

Work “on” your biz & grow exponentially! We believe when CEOs strategically work “on” not “in” their businesses they reach their goals much sooner and positively impact their local communities in many ways. Whether increasing sales and productivity, adding new services or products, retaining or expanding employees, innovating to keep disruption at bay, or if you simply don’t know the best growth moves to make right now, we find the data, resources, tools, and information to help make sound decisions to identify, plan, launch and drive their strategies. We also believe when communities create an environment to grow their own while nurturing CEOs and Entrepreneurs, those businesses and local economies grow and thrive.

It’s a Winning Synergy!

TNTxECD Economic Gardening Network sponsored in conjunction with Launch Tennessee and The National Center for Economic Gardening is a strategic research technical assistance program and strategic growth development initiative for second stage and near second stage company.

We offers the following services

Economic Gardening Strategic Research Engagement

This strategic research technical assistance program consist of putting big data tools and resources at the fingertips of CEOs for a 360-degree view of markets, tools, leadership, decision-making through strategic research engagements. Join the TNTxECD Economic Gardening Network and receive an Industry Profile Summary Report on an industry of your choice.

Application Form

Win a US Industry Research Report just for registering your interest profile for the Economic Gardening EngagementProgram that provides strategic insight to inform your decision-making as you navigate growth moves for your company.

Email *

Name *

First

Middle

Last

Company Name *

Physical Address *

Zipcode *

Mailing Address

Zip Code

Website Address *

Telephone Numbers *

Industry *

Are current customer / client from *

How long in business ? *

# of Employees *

Average annual revenue($) *

Business stage ?

Are you a/an *

Is your company privately owned? *

Is your company based in the U.S? *

Does your company have intent to grow? *

Click here to learn more about the Strategic Research Engagement Program Strategic Research Engagement.

About

WHAT IS IT?

Economic Gardening® is an entrepreneur-oriented approach to economic prosperity. It represents a new way of thinking about supporting growth companies and letting business owners know how important they are to their local economies. So instead of offering traditional incentives like tax credits or real estate discounts, we’re offering something that might be even more valuable to CEOs: information — strategic information — gathered with their guidance and customized for their company. In contrast to traditional business assistance focused on finances, business plans, and operational issues, Economic Gardening addresses strategic growth challenges such as developing new markets, refining business models and gaining access to competitive intelligence. To do this, teams of highly skilled research specialists mine sophisticated databases and leverage a number of high-end tools related to search engine optimization, social media marketing, and geographic information systems.

Learn more – Economic Gardening

WHY SECOND STAGE

Second-stage companies are defined as companies that have 6 to 99 employees and $750,000 to $50 million in annual revenue, although these are loose boundaries. What’s important is that second-stagers are powerhouses when it comes to job creation and revenue generation. For example, between 1995 and 2013, second-stage companies comprised only 13 percent of U.S. establishments but generated 35 percent of all jobs and about 35.4 percent of sales. Also, second-stagers often have national or global markets, which means they bring outside dollars into the community.

Stability is another hallmark of second stage. Research shows that 80 percent of startups die within five years of their inception. Second-Stage companies, which already have customers and products in place, are concentrating on growth rather than survival. They’re expanding into new markets and introducing innovations that impact their industries. With greater financial bandwidth, they’re typically able to offer more diverse, high-quality jobs and provide better benefits for employees. Large corporations may pull up stakes and move when wooed by relocation incentives, but in our experience, second-stage entrepreneurs are devoted corporate citizens with deep roots in their communities.

In contrast to startups and microbusinesses, second-stagers have different needs to continue growing. Our programs address their challenges, which range from expanding into new markets to creating an internal infrastructure to embracing new leadership roles.

Click on the tabs below to learn more.

Industry & Market Research

Identify new markets, industry trends, and competitive intelligence.
An industry exists to serve a market. CEOs must stay on top of industry trends and data to remain relevant to market demands. An Industry analysis attempts to interpret the overall relevance of a particular industry to the needs of its market.
A market consists of individual consumers categorized by their buying habits. The Market Analysis helps CEOs stay abreast of their core markets by examining market demands in relation to prices and product offerings, using consumer demographics and buying habits to identify trends.

GIS

Map geographic areas for qualified sales leads.

Geographic information system (GIS) technology can help CEOs and their executive teams understanding the relationships between customers, locations, markets, and resources. GIS used as a technical assistance tool in the economic gardening program can provide data for making informed, intelligent decisions. GIS provides standard data analysis and much more, such as geographic mapping for market analysis, customer analytics, site selection, business intelligence.

SEO

Raise visibility in search engine results and increase website traffic.
Leverage social media to better connect with customers. Search engine optimization (SEO) allows CEOs to better connect with their customers by increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. With SEO, you can get the right people clicking through to your site, creating more traffic, and yield a potential for greater sales volume.

CREATING A NETWORK CONNECTION

The TNTxECD Economic gardening network offers affordable rates to access our program to join the application.

APPLICATION PERIOD

We offer application period throughout the year.To become the member of the network please sign up as a network member and the application is free.This way you will get notification on application rounds and other programs and TNTxECD network news.

WHERE WE WORK

Our Footprint covers the 21 urban and rural communities in the mid south,including West Tennessee as well as communities along the Western Bank of the Tennessee River in South Central Tennessee. We work in the following county of Benton, Carroll, Chester, Crockett , Decatur, Dyer , Fayette ,Gibson ,Hardeman, Hardin, Haywood, Henderson ,Henry ,Hickman ,Houston, Lake, Lauderdale, Lewis, Madison , McNairy ,Obion ,Perry, Shelby ,Tipton , Wayne , Weakley and then their neighboring counties. As more funds are secured, we will expand the Economic Gardening Program to other parts of the region.