High populations increase word of mouth for entrepreneurs

When it comes right down to it, the only down side for a business participating in the Grant County Fair appears to be long hours.

"Long hours and lots of heat," said Nakkii White, owner of White's All-American Concessions, Inc., with a grin.

"Yeah, long hours," Larry Hagen, owner of Smokin' Hagen, concurred.

But other than that, working the fair is all good for business-minded citizens from the area and beyond.

"One of the reasons that you participate in the fair is because it brings in a lot of tourist dollars and a lot of income that the local businesses wouldn't get, as well as gives your local businesses a chance to showcase merchandise to a larger base," White said.

White's business is one that travels around from fair to fair. It was the first time he has been to the Grant County Fair, he said, but he has participated in Spring Fest before.

Working the fair can bring exposure through word-of-mouth, White said.

"I have a lot of customers that come to the fair to eat with me because I was at the Spring Festival and told them," he said. "For your local businesses, the effects can be that, through the fair programs, the 4-H programs and so on, it will give them a chance to give back and participate in the community."

This year marks the first time Smokin' Hagen, another traveling business, has been at both the spring festival and at the fair.

"After being at Spring Fest, we had a lot of repeat customers," Hagen said.

He said that he just enjoys being out at the fair.

"We come to make money, bottom line," Hagen said. "The fairs we really enjoy. We only do it about 15 weekends out of a year, it's only on weekends, and we kind of enjoy traveling around."

But businesses already based in the area also find benefits to working on the fairgrounds.

"This is one of the biggest events in Grant County, and I want them to know what my business is and what I do," said Pedro Ayala, owner of Latin Connections. Being a new business, he wants people to know his location and what services he offers.

When asked what kind of exposure participating in the fair can bring a business, Ayala responded that it is a lot.

"People are asking really good questions about Cingular," he said, adding that he is sure he will see benefits throughout the rest of the year from his business' time on the fairgrounds. "People are going to start knowing about our services."

Unlike Hagen and White, Ayala said he hasn't really been able to see a down side to working the fair. But he did have to hire three more employees in order to keep his business in business while operating a booth at the fair.

"We just can't handle it," he said. "We have the store open right now and then there is three of us here, so we've had to make a lot of changes."

Some reshuffling of schedules had to be done at the House of Music too, manager Joe Grover said.

"As far as just how we're running the store, it takes a lot of man-hours to be here," he said. "I have a small store with only four employees, so it's a lot of shuffling and stuff. But it's worth it, we're getting to meet a lot of the local people and be involved with them, and that's the good part."

Grover said this is the first year that the House of Music has participated in the fair, and said that it would "definitely" see some benefits from its involvement.

"(We're here) because we wanted to get more involved with the community as a store," he said. "Just that people get to recognize that the store's there, what exactly we do and what we offer."

Jonah Dillard, manager of the Moses Lake and Wenatchee area's Culligan Water Conditioning, said that this was the first time in four or five years that his company has had a booth at the fair.

"It's been so busy for us, there's no reason to do it," he said. "But this year we've kind of gotten a little bit of a lull right now, so …"

Dillard said the company will probably pick up 20 new customers for bottled water and sell a couple water softeners from its time out at the fair.