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By DARLA L. PICKETT
Staff Writer

The business owners said they developed a working relationship with each other that, by itself, was worth the price of admission — the ideas they brought back were a bonus.

“Even though we were business people downtown together, the majority did not know each other. Now we have bonded and are meeting every Thursday,” said Becky Richardson, owner of Blueberry Cupboard and one of the participants in the MainStreet Skowhegan initiative.

Jon Schallert’s Destination Business BootCamp is a two-day business improvement workshop that focuses on strategies, tactics, and brand-marketing techniques for business owners who want to reinvent their businesses into consumer destinations, according to Audrey Lovering, director of MainSteet Skowhegan, who also attended.

"It's was worth every penny we spent,” said Lovering, who obtained two grants totaling $10,500 to help pay for registration fees and lodging. Merchants paid for their own air fare and meals.

Participants expressed excitement about the business concepts they studied.

Richardson said she learned to involve her employees: “I now have weekly meetings with my staff. It’s really important to focus as a team.”

Heather Joyce from Deck Copy said she learned a lot about making the Internet work for her business: “He taught us how to build (an improved) Web site.”

Susan Lord from Peace Tree said she learned how to delegate responsibilities. “My youngest daughter did the front display window,” Lord said.

Developer Steven C. Govoni, who owns property on Water Street, said he is learning to find the wisest use of his assets and time.

“(Schallert) had me focusing my attentions on what it is that I really want to do,” Govoni said. “The boot camp was unbelievable. I’ve spent the last three nights doing my homework — enthusiastically. I didn’t even do that in college.”

Jeremy Martinez, Skowhegan Press owner, is redesigning his lobby to upgrade its appearance and introduce the history of previous owners.

“Overall, the camp was all about teaching you how to make your business unique, to make it a destination business so people will want to come a long way to (buy) here,” Martinez said.

Martinez said he even took his own marketing idea — “Zilch, The Official Box of Nothing” — with him to the boot camp to have it critiqued.

Christie Fitzmaurice from Bloomfield’s tavern said she learned the basic steps of making a business a destination, which she will share with the owners.

“What I found most informational was (the) ways to make our business stand out from others like us in our town, where there are numerous bars,” Fitzmaurice said.

Richardson said the entire group came back ready to go to work together and then share what they learned with any other business owners who want to learn.

“This has taught us to refocus, to take things in little pieces. I’m getting reorganized, figuring out exactly what I want to be, where I’m going to be and how I’m going to get there,” said Richardson, who moved her gift store into the downtown in 1993 and moved across the street in 1998.

Richardson said she plans to get back into country merchandise and look at possible private labeling. She wants nothing less than success for the rest of the town too, she said.

“We want to try to build not just my store, but the whole downtown,” she said. “We’ve worked a long, long time to try to make the downtown a better place. The last three years have wiped it right out of us. We need to bring it back. Once we start seeing successes, more people will wanted to be involved with what we’re doing.”

Richardson was referring to filming of the HBO movie “Empire Falls” in 2003, when downtown streets were closed to traffic for weeks, construction upheaval when new sewer lines were installed last year, and again this year, when streets were torn up to install new sidewalks, streetlights and laying water pipes.

“We all want to grow, but we want to make this (town) so unique that people will go out of their way to get here,” Martinez said.

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