We promise:

To Make Small Business Easy
In-person and online, CCPA offers a variety of resources, events, contacts, benefits and discounts – all at a great value. Our team of board members, volunteers and staff are eager to help make doing business in Center City more fun, affordable and easier than ever.

A Community for Growth
CCPA offers exceptional opportunities for professional and personal growth through educational workshops and seminars; online resources and contacts; access to business, cultural, political and industry leaders.

A Place to Know People, not Just Meet People
CCPA provides the connections, events and setting (venue) to get you involved. We are an approachable way (network/community) to make the personal contacts you need and want, through a variety of intimate networking opportunities such as Lunch with the City Leaders, committees, task forces, braintrusts and an ambassador program.

Snapshot of Respondents ( Total = 154)
(Note: these results reflect only the respondent sample, not total CCPA membership.)

64% are business or professional services.

• Retail and restaurants only 5%.

They are small businesses:

• 78% have less than 20 employees.
• 44% are sole proprietors.
• 55% have annual revenues of < $500,000.

Most are well established:  71% have been in business more than 10 years.

41% are women-owned; 17% are minority-owned.

Only half are located in Center City proper (east or west of Broad Street).

• 42% come from outside our area (e.g., suburbs and NJ)
• Our new areas of Old City, University City and South St./Queen Village were barely represented ( 1 or 2 respondents each)

Their customer base, however, is in Center City or Greater Philadelphia (62%).

Respondents belong to a wide range of other business and professional organizations.

• Out of 76 write-in responses, 19 (25%) mentioned GPCC.

CCPA Membership & Events
Most respondents heard of CCPA through another member or networking (60%).

• 10% learned of CCPA from its website.
• Less than 2% heard about CCPA through social networking.
  (Note: 85% of respondents use Linked-In; 70% use Facebook.)

“Networking” and “business development” are the most common reasons for joining, followed closely by “information about the city”.

However, over half of the respondents have not attended an event in the past 6 months.

• 25% attended 1 -2 events; another 21% attended 3 – 6 events.
• The single most common reason for not attending more events is schedule conflicts (53%), not inconvenient times or locations.

After work and midday are the most preferred times for events.

Of the suggested general event topics, marketing and sales tips were ranked highest, along with regional economic information

Write-in suggestions for topics included (in no particular order):

• Retirement plan benefits for small business
• Business incentive proposals
• Regional events/developments/politics
• Trends on different industries
• Revenue Management and Price Optimization
• Import/export, in-depth soc net series for biz, national economic forecast, national best practices, authors
• Contracting opportunities for small business and independent contractors in media / creative services
• Practical and affordable methods of energy conservation that increase productivity
• Collaborative presentations with regional groups; things pertaining to sustainability; regional networking opportunities
• Increasing Philadelphia as a business friendly city, Partnerships to increase city commerce
• City government
• Green business development, triple bottom line and sustainable business modeling
• Tax conditions and outlook
• Public relations
• Business taxes, support of business related issues
• Small Business working capital sources…sources when banks won’t provide business loan

Regarding event formats, speakers and panel discussions were rated highly, along with networking events with other organizations.

• Interestingly, the “Lunch with the City Leaders” series received top mentions for favorite event (write-ins); several mentioned “Speed Biz” and the Breakfast Club.

Other Services, Comments

• Only 18% of respondents receive health benefits through CCPA.
• About one-third were aware of the Blog.
• 41% were aware of the Ambassador program.
• 27% were aware of the recent membership contest, but lack of time (and perhaps of interest) was the cause of non-participation.
• 61% feel that CCPA has helped their business.

Selected write-ins about how CCPA has benefited them include (in no particular order):

• Networking and information about new activities in the Philadelphia market.
• Growing personal and business relationships
• Opportunity to meet many other business owners and colleagues; increase my resources.
• Given me strategic alliance and personal relationships.
• I know what the economic environment is like in the city.
• Save Money and time plus get my name out to people
• Invaluable opportunity to meet City Leaders, dine on great food, and meet energetic, vital peers in the business community. It has been terrific!
• Providing insurance benefits.
• I just feel that it is a good group of people and they have a good, honest network. While I have not gotten any new business, I have met some good people and attended some useful events.
• Helped me meet very interesting people, helped me find my voice in the city, helped me find new clients!
• The first three years were lonely because it was only me on staff.  Meeting other business owners then was important so I didn’t feel so alone.
• I can’t say that I have received additional business but I it has helped me with just keeping in touch with the city leaders and networking opportunities.
• I think it can help me get more “plugged in” to Phila, if I could attend more events.
• CCPA has brought greater awareness to my business in the Center City Community as well as the many City Leaders it has hosted at its “Lunch with City Leaders” events.
• It is great to meet other business owners in a neutral setting.
• Professional development, networking, speaking opportunities, visibility for me and my company
• Helped me grow my contacts and relationships with business and government
• As a social service business, helped me to be aware of issues and benefits affecting all small businesses.

But only 35% stated that they actually have received business from another CCPA member.

Nevertheless, 62% respondents are very likely to recommend CCPA to someone else.

Other selected comment / suggestions included (in no particular order):

• Partner more with other organizations.
• Keep the focus on being current.
• More focus on programs of interest to professional service providers (rather than retailers or restaurateurs).
• More issues-oriented panels (e.g., how to reduce cost of doing business in CC).

Last Tuesday, a few CCPA representatives: staff, board, committee and members gathered together in the office of vice-president David Carter to brainstorm on the association’s brand promise.

As everyone is working together to make CCPA a better resource to all its members, it seemed that the association definition got more and more diluted. Who is CCPA? What makes it different from other business association? What’s our “30-sec elevator speech”?

CCPA’s mission is clearly defined: “To foster communications, cooperation, education and services among the small businesses of Center City Philadelphia; and to maintain, promote and improve the commercial vitality of Center City Philadelphia.” But…

What is our Brand Promise?

Immediately, the consensus was that CCPA meets a need for smaller businesses that other business association don’t, because CCPA is about:

• Small business
• Making the right connections (accessible, approachable)
• Variety (members, functions, series…)
• Community (Greater Center City Philadelphia)
• Culture
• Networking to make your company grow
• Value (small investment)
• Involvement
• Intimacy

In summary: we promise small business owners and representative a community for growth; a place to know people instead of meet people; a place where small business is made easy.

If you want to make a cool keywords cloud like ours above, check out Wordle in CCPA’s toolbox!