TO MARKET, TO MARKET…
EDITORS’S OPINION
Cuts and more cuts. The fire service continues to shrink throughout most of the United States. Manning levels are reduced—do more with less, we’re told. Volunteer departments are extrahard-pressed to find recruits let alone retain their membership roles. Fire stations are closed and those remaining are relocated in an attempt to do the impossible.
But why in most of the United States and not all of it?
We have pockets of success in a few areas of our country. Phoenix, Arizona is well-known and its members are influencing many areas in our fire service world. Fairfax, Virginia is opening additional firehouses and hiring more and more firefighters. In Michigan, the Farmington Hills Volunteer Fire Department has a list of 80 to 100 persons waiting to join its rolls and more than 5,000 citizens turn out for its fire prevention week programs.
Major commitment of local government officials, affluence and expansion, great tax base, you say? Partially correct, I say. What, then, is the more common denominator that seems to set these and other departments above those troubles that plague all others?
Marketing!—a tremendous commitment by the city fathers; the personality, management, experience, and communicative skills of the department leaders; and the expertise and positive focus of its membership. Couple that with imagination and understanding and you have success that’s based on marketing: how we present ourselves and what we do to others.
To some this is a lofty and vague ideal; let’s bring it back to basics. A short time ago I visited with a department outside of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I marched in there with my 150 pounds of broken locks to share some forcible entry tactics and techniques. We had a great time.
“Glass and metal doors? We just break the glass,” said one shift. “Aw, we never get them around here,” said another. Not dismayed, I continued with my motivational presentation on pulling cylinders on these doors for efficiency, safety, public relations, and professional appearance. Marketing.
That first night the brothers encountered a store fire in the center of a seven-store, row commercial structure, a taxpayer. (The fire is never in the last store!) In the morning I was whisked to the scene It was a great stop: All six exposures were saved. My heart jumped when I saw that six of the seven lock cylinders were pulled and the glass remained intact. The store owners were open for business as usual.
“So what do you think?” I was asked. “Get it in the report,” I answered. Whatever the cost of the training, this department saved at least $12,000 in the cost of the door assemblies alone! Add the business day dollars and throw in the tax base that was returned to the city. Add up the reduction in damage and pronounce a positive cash return, deduct the cost of training, and label it a profit for the department.
Marketing! Use your imagination! The police have been doing it for years.
