North Carolina is a large state that behaves like a small one. Its business, legal, and political communities overlap heavily, and the same names recur across boards, associations, and civic institutions for years at a time.
For companies arriving from elsewhere, this is often the least expected feature of doing business here — and the most consequential.
Reputation travels faster than marketing
How a company treats a subcontractor, an inspector, or a neighborhood association is known long before its next transaction. That is not sentimentality; it is simply the arithmetic of a connected professional community.
Civic involvement is not a public-relations exercise
Chambers, economic development boards, nonprofit boards, and school and hospital foundations are where the working relationships of a region are actually formed. Participating in them seriously — with time, not just money — is how businesses become durable local institutions.
Relationships do not replace rigor
A caution: relationships open doors; they do not decide matters. A poorly prepared application does not become a good one because a company knows the right people. The value of a relationship is that your work will be read carefully and your candor believed.
The long view
The businesses that thrive in the Piedmont Triad and across the state tend to be the ones that behaved as though they would be here for thirty years — because, generally, they intended to be.
About the author
Charles K. Blackmon is an attorney and business adviser in Greensboro, North Carolina, whose practice spans business and regulatory counsel, land development, and government affairs. Read the full biography.