Perhaps more so than in other cities similar in size, Salt Lake City’s gay community is widely visible and extensively involved in plenty of high-profile projects. Well heeled financially, it supports two community newspapers (QSaltLake and the Pillar), a community center, and the highly-respected Utah AIDS Foundation. A recent Equality Utah fund-raising dinner – with an estimated 1,200 guests paying $100 a plate – brought forward every serious contender for this year’s mayoral election. Crowds typically exceed 30,000 for the city’s Pride celebration, held each June on the grounds of the City and County Building and Library Square in downtown. There also are more than 200 community groups involved in everything from the performing arts and sports to politics and academic queer studies, much to the chagrin of obviously bigoted state legislators.

Add to the mix a bit of controversy over the presence of two community directories – The Q Salt Lake Pages, published and edited by Michael Aaron, and The Gay Pages, published by Sean Wright, a community newcomer. One would think that, given the local gay community’s growing economic and political clout, two directories should be warmly welcomed as a good exercise in free-market competition.

Hardly so. In fact, it has become a battle of integrity over who’s best suited to represent the community’s interests. Fortunately, the battle is already settled in the minds of many community businesses, organizations, and professionals. This battle’s outcome was clear in the early going, despite the relatively favorable reports in the local media about the arrival of The Gay Pages in which the owner was permitted to make unsubstantiated claims of representation that, regrettably, should have been more scrupulously checked for accuracy or validity by local reporters.

And, then there’s the quality of the publications. The Gay Pages emerged as an amateurishly produced telephone directory with plenty of evidence suggesting careless editing, a lack of graphic design sophistication, and an unrealized goal of a critical mass of supporters and advertisers. The book hardly did justice to the size and impact of the city’s gay community. Meanwhile, the Q Pages is conveniently sized to fit into in a glove compartment or by a desk. Its production quality and the impressively diverse range of commercial and public service interests provide a sophisticated, professional fit for the community.

Aaron, wisely avoiding the temptation to get into a public pissing match with his seriously under qualified competitor, preferred to let his long-standing record in the community and the results of a survey speak for the credibility and the legitimacy of the Q Pages.

And, recent national surveys certainly bolster Aaron’s approach. The San Francisco-based Community Marketing, Inc.,found nine out of ten gays and lesbians reported that the way a company treats its gay and lesbian employees has an impact upon their decision to do business with that company and that their purchasing decisions are favorably influenced by corporate sponsorship of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) events and participation in LGBT charities.

Other results suggest the basis for Wright’s failure as well. “Marketers and advertisers haven’t had the tools to understand that there is no single LGBT community in terms of consumer statistics. It is a diverse melting pot of people who cannot be reached with one type of campaign or communications channel for any targeted communications efforts from advertising to sponsorships,” said [Jerry] McHugh, senior research director for the survey project.

This advice applies regardless of the entrepreneur’s sexual orientation. As for any “outsiders” – gay or straight – who believe that opportunistic greed alone is a sufficient pretext for doing business in the community – take note. The lesson – already known and successfully practiced by Aaron and thousands of others in Salt Lake City – comprises three essential steps to good community market intelligence, as advanced by the San Francisco group: (1) Collect and analyze as much data as you can about your prospective markets, and learn about the sensitivities, preferences, motivations, beliefs, and attitudes; (2) Merely showing up in the community or at events or meetings hardly matters anymore. Do a positioning framework to determine how and where your product or service fits into an intensely competitive market and use those findings to craft your message about the value you bring to the community, and (3) Draft plans based on the intelligence gathered in the first two steps. Launching a business without the foresight of surveys or focus groups will be disastrous.

This, folks, is why the Salt Lake City LGBT community already is on the right track.