Doing business Kansas or Missouri? (Kansas City, Independence: real estate, rent, lawyers)

[racer56]

We service and rent office equipment(mainly hp printers), offer a full blown same/next day copy/print center and own a small advertising company. We currently operate in SW MO and want to move to a bigger area. We used to live (10 plus years ago) in Olathe and loved it, but worked in MO a lot of love that area as well. We are small enough that the costs of work comp and such doesn't make a big enough difference to worry about.
I read these forums and see a lot of the same friction between the two states. Does that carry over to doing business with a MO company if your business is in Kansas or the other way around? Most of our current customers here are independent Dr. offices, lawyers and real estate offices. Over 50% being Dr. offices that is is where we would start marketing. Where is the largest amount of these professions? My thoughts are if based in Kansas we would live in OP or Olathe and work mostly in that area and if based in MO we would live in BS or LS and work Independence, BS and LS to cut down on driving more than anything.
When it comes down to needing a service provider does anyone even consider what side of the line you are from I guess is what I'm trying to ask. I automatically am pulled in the MO direction due to the nice lakes but don't want that to hurt our business.

[kcmo]

I don't think you will find much "friction". But most people tend to call people closest to them. People in Lee's Summit or Blue Springs will probably not even dial a 913 number unless they run out of options. Same with people in Kansas. A lot of times, a KS side company only serves the KS side or visa versa.

One thing a lot of metro wide companies do is have a 913 and a 816 number, even if they go to the same place.

I would think the biggest thing to figure out is where your potential customers are. Johnson County has far more office buildings than suburban Missouri, but they probably also have far more businesses doing the same thing you are doing. The MO side overall has more offices, but they will be more spread out across the entire MO side from Lee's Summit to the office parks north of the river and of course the big office districts in the city (downtown, crown center, midtown, plaza etc).

It's a pretty big city, but I think people don't care much about where side of the state line your biz is on when needing service or sales. At that point, they just want what's best for them. This is especially true for the Downtown/Plaza corridor since they are so close to Kansas, they probably don't care if you are a 913 or an 816 biz.

[famusdarlin]

I don't think you'll have that issue in business. I was a contract negotiator and before that a buyer for a very large company here in the metro and never ran into personal issues with it. I also worked with the KC Chamber and local MSC chapter quite a bit and from what I saw local businesses really support each other. I beleive Kansas City is one of those places where people really do try to support local businesses.

[OneKC]

There really isn't that much friction between the states. This forum is dominated by two personalities that each have a chip on their shoulder about the state line, but for 90% of the people that live in the metro area, its not really an issue.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by OneKC

There really isn't that much friction between the states.

[Samantha S]

[racer56]

What side has the highest concentration of businesses that either are the corp hub or are small independents? One big problem for us here now is any of the bigger companies are controlled by a decision maker elsewhere that we can never get in front of. A lot of the big corps can afford a copy center of sorts in house(at least they think that it is cheaper, wrong) I guess that is why we normally work with the small companies(1-25 employees). Most of smaller companies can't afford to digitize all the paper docs they have in house, or have the time.
How about a 800 number would that be acceptable or does that give the impression that we would not be local? Any names of companies anyone know of that offer next day print/copy services delivered in the KC area? We won't have any problem being competitive on service or price, we are roughly 1/4 the price with faster service than the competition here.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by Samantha S

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by racer56

What side has the highest concentration of businesses that either are the corp hub or are small independents? One big problem for us here now is any of the bigger companies are controlled by a decision maker elsewhere that we can never get in front of. A lot of the big corps can afford a copy center of sorts in house(at least they think that it is cheaper, wrong) I guess that is why we normally work with the small companies(1-25 employees). Most of smaller companies can't afford to digitize all the paper docs they have in house, or have the time.
How about a 800 number would that be acceptable or does that give the impression that we would not be local? Any names of companies anyone know of that offer next day print/copy services delivered in the KC area? We won't have any problem being competitive on service or price, we are roughly 1/4 the price with faster service than the competition here.

It's probably pretty even across the metro (big vs small companies). I would just try to serve the entire metro area and see what happens. If you seem to be pretty successful in certain parts of town, then you can adjust accordingly. Will you be going to their offices or will you have an actual office they have to come to? It will obviously be difficult to serve the entire metro from one location, but if you go to them, it really shouldn't matter.

I don't know about the 800 number, that always sounds too out of town to me. I was just saying that a company in Lenexa or Olathe will probably try all the 913 numbers first, just like a company in Tiffany Springs or Lee's Summit will probably try a 816 number first. Just make it known in your marketing that you serve the MO and KS area and you will probably be fine so long as there is not 30 competitors next to you with more local appeal to specific clients.

[Samantha S]

When it comes down to needing a service provider does anyone even consider what side of the line you are from I guess is what I'm trying to ask. I automatically am pulled in the MO direction due to the nice lakes but don't want that to hurt our business.

Hard to say, really. Some people call the closest first. Personally, I despise paying a "JoCo surcharge" for stuff, so I usually look for MO numbers first because their prices are often more reasonable (and I'm cheap! er, make that frugal! ).

But not everyone does that ... I say, do what works best for you. With good marketing, you can pull in a share from the KS side.