Everyone wants to expand their business. If you're doing business in Detroit or Michigan, both of which have declining populations, high unemployment and a shrinking core industry, U. S. auto companies, you need to consider exapnding your sales into other urban areas.

We in Project BAIT are always giving a thought to how we can enter other urban markets with our media products, our television shows, For My People, Business In The Black and Thedamu presents...., and with our latest project, the Urban Theater Journal.

The problem is having a business contact on the ground, in the city we want to expand into, having someone we can trust, that is, someone we've known for years, having someone who is receptive to our proposals, having someone we can realize a benefit for their business even as they provide opportunity for us, and having someone who knows how to communicate via the telephone and the Internet. As you can see those are difficult criteria to satisfy,which probably explains why we have found it difficult to expand into other markets. If you use a similar set of expansion criteria, you've run into the same challenges we have.

Recently however, an old colleague of ours now in business in New Orleans got in touch with us to renew our acquaintance. In the course of discussion it turned out that she had recently gone into business, so I immediately knew there was a potential opportunity for mutual benefit and development.

I replied to her overture and began to communicate by email. First, I made suggestions and provided an Internet service to help her business go online. After on-going communications over the phone and the Internet, it became clear to me that we could help each other even though we were hundreds of miles apart. An on-going development process between our two businesses has been started.

At this stage we're exchanging information rather than products. At the next stage we'll need to exchange and market products and promotion. Stage 2 will be critical to our mutual development.

But to develop our process even further and to plan for the future, we need to outreach to other Detroit and New Orleans businesses who have products and promotion that we can present through our respective businesses in Detroit and in New Orleans. In other words, if you're not growing you're standing still, or going backwards. This will be Stage 3.

So I'm reaching out to the readers of this article and their contacts in business. If you have a business, particularly a product, that you think could be distributed or sold and promoted in New Orleans through Project BAIT and our contact in New Orleans, please contact us at 313-871-3333.

You will need an email address as well as a telephone so we can reach you; you will need to be conscious of the Internet even if you don't have a web-site. We can facilitate your presence online at projectbait.blakgold.net as part of the project.

And finally, you must be ready to make a deal. To expand into another market is a complicated, long-term process; it will take time, energy, marketing and a business plan. If you're interested, let's explore the possibilities.

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PS: We're also looking for free-lance writers for our publication, the Urban Theater Journal. You will need a resume' and some examples of your writing skills. Contact Project BAIT 313-871-3333 or projectbait.blakgold.net at your earliest convenience.