The Question Many North Country Business Owners Aren’t Asking

Last week, I picked up the phone and called several business owners across the North Country. Littleton, Woodsville, Lancaster, Woodstock, Lincoln. Different towns, different industries, different stages of business.

I did not call because I wanted to sell them something, or because I believed I already understood their situation. I called because I wanted to hear directly what felt most difficult right now, in their own words. I wanted to listen carefully enough to understand what was actually happening on the ground.

The people I spoke with were building very different kinds of businesses. Some were just getting started, still finding their footing. Some had been operating for more than a decade. A few had taken over businesses with long histories and deep roots in their communities. Each one had a different reason for doing what they do, and a different relationship to this place.

Despite all of that variation, every conversation eventually returned to the same concern.

They were not getting enough customers.

Sometimes that was stated plainly. Sometimes it surfaced as anxiety about the coming season, uncertainty about whether things would pick up, or a quiet acknowledgement that business no longer felt as steady as it once had. However it was expressed, the underlying issue was consistent.

What struck me most was not the concern itself, but how quickly conversations turned to visibility, and how rarely anyone, including myself, paused to examine what that word actually meant.

I want to be transparent here. Visibility is a word I use when I describe the work I do. I believe it matters. But listening closely to these conversations made it clear how easily visibility can become a stand in for hope rather than a clearly defined path to more customers.

Again and again, I hear about opportunities that sound positive on the surface. A feature in a publication. A mention in a newsletter. A sponsorship. A listing. These are rarely framed as marketing. They are framed as recognition, as evidence that the business was being seen and acknowledged.

That recognition matters. Being featured can feel affirming. It can feel like momentum. It can feel like confirmation that the work you are doing has value.

But beneath that affirmation sits a harder and more practical question that is rarely asked out loud: how will this actually bring more customers?

That question feels uncomfortable because it forces us to separate two things we often treat as the same, recognition and discovery.

Recognition affirms what already exists. Discovery is how new customers arrive.

When someone already knows about a business and searches for it by name, visibility helps confirm trust. Accurate information, current hours, and a sense that the business is active and legitimate all matter deeply in those moments.

But when someone is searching for a service or product they need, without knowing which business they are looking for yet, discovery is everything. That is where new customers come from.

Most decisions now happen quietly and online, long before someone ever reaches Main Street. People search, skim, compare, and rule places out without calling or asking questions. If a business does not appear clearly in those moments of active searching, it is not being considered, no matter how strong its reputation might be offline.

I see this distinction clearly through the work I do with clients every day. A large part of that work involves identifying the language their customers actually use when they search. The words and phrases people type into Google, and now increasingly into tools like ChatGPT. The questions they ask. The problems they are trying to solve.

The purpose of that work is not to chase trends, but to make it clear to search engines and AI systems why a business is relevant to what someone is actively looking for. When that connection is made, the business has a chance to appear in search results. When it is not, the business remains invisible, regardless of how strong its reputation might be offline.

An article published behind a paywall may be meaningful for the people who already subscribe, but it is far less likely to be found by someone who is actively searching. A radio interview without a recorded, accessible podcast link has no lasting presence. Even a beautifully written feature loses its ability to support discovery if it cannot be found, read, or understood by the systems people rely on to make decisions.

If the goal is to help a business show up when someone is actively searching for the service or product they provide, then the opportunity has to speak the language of search. It has to be accessible. It has to exist in a form that algorithms and AI systems can understand and connect to real intent.

When it does not, the opportunity may still feel meaningful, but it cannot do the work we are asking of it.

This is where I believe we need to slow down and think more carefully, especially at the organizational level. If the shared pain point across our region is that businesses are not getting enough customers, then opportunities for visibility need to be evaluated by whether they help businesses be discovered by people who are actively looking for a service.

Which leads to a question I believe business owners would benefit from asking more often of the organizations that support them:

If someone actively searching for a service cannot find the business you feature, what kind of visibility are you actually selling to the business that paid you for it?

That question is not an accusation. It is an invitation to think more clearly about service.

When visibility is designed around recognition alone, it feels good but often stops short of impact. When it is designed around discovery, it creates pathways that help businesses be found, trusted, and chosen by people who did not already know they existed.

That shift requires moving beyond what is easy or familiar, and toward what actually serves the businesses we say we are here to support. It asks us to measure success not by how visible an opportunity feels, but by whether it helps a real person take the next step toward becoming a customer.

The business owners I spoke with were not asking for applause or attention. They were asking how to get more people through the door.

That question deserves answers rooted in how people actually make decisions today, not how we wish they still did.

It also deserves honesty. Honesty about what kinds of visibility still work, what kinds no longer do, and where our collective energy is best spent if the goal is truly more customers rather than momentary recognition.

None of this requires abandoning the values that make this region what it is. It does not require businesses to become something they are not, or organizations to discard the work they have built over time. It asks only that we bring the same care and intention to visibility that business owners already bring to their craft.

When visibility is treated as a form of service, something shifts. The question is no longer whether an opportunity feels meaningful, but whether it helps a real person find what they are looking for at the moment they need it.

That is a quieter standard, but it is a more honest one.

And if we are willing to hold ourselves to it, as business owners, as organizations, and as a region that wants its local businesses to thrive, we open the door to a different kind of progress. One rooted not in being seen for a moment, but in being found when it matters most.

-Amanda