-->

Business expo to bring in thousands

Organizers of the upcoming Get Linked Expo hope the event helps not only grow area businesses but helps the business community become more regionalized.

“We are building relationships to make commerce happen,” said Kyle Morey, president of the Madison County Chamber, the event’s main organizer. “We are going above and beyond the local markets to bring businesses together.”

The expo – which involves business and economic development leaders from Madison, Delaware, Hamilton, Henry, Hancock and Marion counties – should bring in more than 1,500 business people from throughout the region. There are about 90 vendors already signed up for the expo from a variety of industries.

Morey said he hopes the event helps with their goal of “economic gardening” by planting seeds for economic development in the area through the expo and networking done during the event.

To make the large-scale event possible, Morey said, the chamber had to depend on business partnerships with organizations like Flagship Enterprise Center, their title sponsor Comcast and a number of other area businesses.

Flagship isn’t just the icing on the cake for the event, Morey said, it is one of the main ingredients as it will bring new technology to the forefront of central Indiana.

Flagship Director DeWayne Landwehr said the key word for the event is regionalism.

“We are thinking about cooperation among different economic development entities that exist here,”  he said. “If we cooperate, one plus one really does equal three because we have the synergy of the extra cooperation. Hopefully, coming together more and more in events like this will give our business community a lot more energy.”

Morey said even before the event the community has seen an economic boom with the chamber creating two more jobs to handle the event an influx of money into area businesses to make the event possible. He said $200,000 of commerce and investment had already happened in the way of in-kind donations and actual revenue spent on things like marketing, advertising, and supplies.

And the potential for the impact the event will have for the businesses involved is huge, Morey said. If on average each of the exhibitors gets $5,000 in new potential business, the region is looking at $400,000 to $500,000 potential new seeded capital, he said.

The Madison County Chamber is the managing partner of the event but Morey stressed the Expo belongs to the business communities in the six counties participating.

Tammy Rimer, CEO Of CN Design & Marketing, said she’s hopeful their involvement in the event will give their business a bigger footprint.

“Instead of having to go to all the different counties’ expos individually, we can draw everyone under one room,” she said. “These strategic partnerships, the marketing that we will get to do, will (create) some business opportunities.”

CN Design and Marketing has partnered with the chamber and the other organizers to help market the event. The company will also be the industry sponsor for the marketing and technology industry section of the expo.  

“I’m hoping this brings an awareness to Madison County that there are strong viable businesses in the area,” Rimer said. “There are innovative ideas and products being created here. People should stop looking past us.”

Rocky Walls, with 12 Stars Media in Fishers, said his company is excited to be involved in the regional expo. He said the event will be a great way for businesses that are so close – just a few counties away from each other – but don’t even know about their existence to get to know each other.

“I’m hoping people see that networking and connecting within our professions can and should be done on a much grander scale,” Walls said. “I’m hoping people see how easy it is to connect to people they normally don’t come in contact with. No business can succeed completely on its own.”

Morey said this expo stands out among others not only because of its scale but because of its purpose.

“We are idea focused,” he said. “We asked the companies to showcase potential ideas of what Central Indiana has to offer. We want to see what new technologies are coming out. That is our ‘link to the future’ part of the expo.”

Contact Abbey Doyle: abbey.doyle@heraldbulletin.com; 640-4805