A motorcyclist from Paola is killed Sunday after colliding with a tractor, the Miami County Sheriff’s Office said.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/27417006/detail.html

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has appointed Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Kanatzar as a Circuit Judge on the 16th Judicial Circuit, which covers Jackson County.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/27385661/detail.html

The entertainment season has begun aboard a Branson showboat that was forced aground last December, but the owners of the vessel are still waiting for permission from the U.S. Coast Guard to resume dinner cruises on Table Rock Lake in southwest Missouri.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/27324775/detail.html

The crash of a children’s train in South Carolina that killed a 6-year-old boy and injured 27 others is raising questions about the safety of similar trains in the Kansas City area.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/27298928/detail.html

A brother and sister from southeast Missouri have been indicted in federal court for allegedly robbing a bank in December.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/27261905/detail.html

Once upon a time there were no consultants. If someone wanted to start a business or invade a country, or start a business in a country they’d just invaded, they simply had to go for it without having the slightest idea of whether it would work or not. While that made for a much more exciting business, it also made for a lot more failures. Today most businesses and lots of other people use consultants when starting a new venture or trying to change up an extant one. There are consultants everywhere and there is no requirement to use a local one, but there are many advantages to doing so.

The value of local consultants is especially evident in the area of marketing. Even companies with franchises around the globe present their products to different communities in wildly diverse ways. Things as seemingly small as the use of “soda” or “pop” can mark success or failure in the marketing world. Local consultants can help find the right words and much more.

It is equally important for environmental consultants to have local knowledge. Being able to meet the rules and regulations as they are set out on paper is not always enough for an organization to thrive if the area has a history of bad experiences with similar industry.

When a company that has success in one area finds failure in a new locale, it is very likely that they did not take advantage of the services of a local consulting firm before they made their plans. It is entirely possible similar products had tried and failed due to divergent tastes and that changing the product would have been helpful.

Corporations are not the only ones who use consultants. Individuals who want to invest in an area, whether for profit or altruism hire them as well. Using a local consultant may be the difference between throwing money away on a charitable venture that looks good on paper but doesn’t exist anywhere else.

Even local consultants can be wrong, but they with their perspective and community awareness, they are far better positioned to interpret the nuances of an area or community than an outsider who is simply looking at statistics. Statistics are certainly important, as are all the other tools of the profession, but knowing the area, market and above all the people improves the odds of success.

It’s easy to getlost on the Web searching for info about local marketing in kansas city, but we want to help you.

A security guard shot a man at a Kansas City convenience store early Saturday morning, police say.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/27248387/detail.html

Wyandotte County’s tag enforcement unit is paying off in the thousands.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/27230296/detail.html

Lawrence, Kan., police identify a man found dead over the weekend in a creek bed.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/27199007/detail.html

Leawood police say a missing 83-year-old man has been located.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/27180207/detail.html