St Louis has long had the reputation of being an insular town. When I moved back in 2001 when my company closed down after the 9/11 attacks, it was difficult for me to adjust to the pace of business.
Some things I noticed about staffing, in particular, and business in general, in St Louis.
1) We're family friendly: lots of people work 7:00, or 7:30 to 4:00 or 4:30 in St Louis. Part of this might be working with the East Coast, but it's probably because this is when people drop their kids off and pick them up from daycare and school. Consequently, you have to relearn your cold-calling schedules, and find people when they are in the office and ready to take calls. No more 4:30 calls (a staple of my time in Los Angeles)
2) Contracts last longer: It's an anomaly, but in St Louis, contract workers are on assignment, on average, for at least a year. That's unheard of in most other cities. My average in LA was 4 months, and so the pace of hiring is much slower here, as hiring a contractor means holding on to them for long periods of time.
3) Getting people to networking events is difficult to do: This was a major frustration when I first got here, but it's really started to improve in the last two years. Part of the reason is the influx of people from other cities who move here and crave networking, but couldn't find it among the natives. Most business networking events I attend have significant percentages of non-native St Louisans, and as that number grows, so does the quality of the event.
This last piece is really the most important. Our business, Durbin Media, focuses on social media marketing, a discipline that is just a few years old. Consequently - most of our business has been outside of St Louis, both because the types of companies using social media are on the coasts, and the rates we charge are usually considered too high for the region.
Or at least that's what we've been telling ourselves. I've had the privilege of meeting some very smart and successful people in St Louis. Without fail, these people work on contracts outside the region, namely for reasons of price. They don't believe St Louis pays well enough. This is a problem with developers, marketers, and executives, and it's a primary reason so many people leave St Louis when they are young.
It's much easier to become a VP and make six figures outside of St Louis, and then move back (and lots of us move back in our 30's).
This was a convenient excuse for many years, but I've reached a point where I'm beginning to believe it's self-limiting to assume that St Louis really is several years behind the coasts. I'm beginning to believe, that this is a myth, and one that has finally run its course.
So in my private conversations, I've started correcting friends of mine who complain about St Louis business. The truth is that if our services can be sold outside St Louis, they can be sold inside St Louis, and for the same rate. Any strategy or technology that works outside the region is going to work inside it. And if there are truly less people who can do the work here, then we should be able to command the same kind of rates we get on the coast.
The problem, in St Louis, is not one of technology or money. The problem, is one of networking. Our talented knowledge workers spend so much time outside the city, we don't get a chance to network inside the city, and to a large extent, this prevents us from finding the business that keeps us off the road and home with our families.
I've gone on to long, so let me finish with this. If you're interested in building a network of business contacts in St Louis - the best way to do so is to stay in St Louis. It may take some work, but I promise you - there's more going on here than you realize.
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