How to be #1

You may have heard the news that Virginia has once again earned the #1 spot in?CNBC’s 2021 ranking of America’s best states for business. What you may not know is that Virginia is the?only?state to receive this accolade 2 years in a row. If you were thinking that FranNet of Virginia’s work of?helping aspiring business owners find businesses that give them the best chance of success?was the key factor, you would be mistaken (although I like to think that helping almost 100 businesses in the DC and Richmond metro areas open their doors over the past 12 years was at least a contributing factor!) But also, this was no accident.

In 2013, the Virginia Chamber of Commerce published the first?Blueprint Virginia, A Business Plan for The Commonwealth?and presented it to former (and perhaps future) Governor Terry McAuliffe.?The plan was the culmination of meetings – some of which I attended – and surveys conducted among business and community college leaders throughout the Commonwealth. The Blueprint listed the most urgent needs of businesses in the following areas: education, workforce development, business (including small business) climate and economic development, transportation, health care, technology/innovation/startups, energy, manufacturing, environment (including sustainability), and military & veterans affairs.?When it was updated?in 2017,?if focused on many of the same areas for improvement plus some new ones: workforce and education, business climate, transportation, healthcare, energy, environment and sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation, manufacturing, and military and veterans affairs.??

Now Blueprint Virginia is in the process of being updated again -?the Blueprint Virginia 2030 strategic plan?is almost complete and will be presented to our next governor in December. During yesterdays’ Blueprint Virginia Region 7 meeting, one of the speakers noted that Virginia may be the first State to have something like this that creates a clear, direct line of communication between a large swath of its business owners and its governor. If you are still wondering why this is important, consider that many of the important issues and priorities that Blueprint Virginia has focused on since 2013 are the same criteria upon which CNBC’s ranking is based: infrastructure, workforce, access to capital, cost of doing business, and life/health/inclusion. “Business friendliness” was another of CNBC’s criteria, and Virginia ranked 11th?in that category, in part perhaps because of the ongoing communication between the Virginia Chamber and the office of the governor.

Virginia most likely got to where it is today - #1 in the country for business - because the Virginia Chamber identified the issues that were important to Virginia business owners through surveys, discussions and brainstorming meetings, developed a list of recommended action items, and sent those recommendations to its top elected official. Makes sense, right? Yet apparently, very few States do this.

As my former boss used to say, “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there…but you might not like where you end up.” Kudos to the Virginia Chamber of Commerce leadership for getting Virginia on the right track and keeping us moving in the right direction.