Put away the binoculars and close the blinds! Now there is an easier (and less creepy) way to snoop on your business neighbors. Elk Grove Village is thrilled to announce 'Strictly Business', a podcast that gets up close and personal with Elk Grove companies, and explores the latest trends, challenges, and industry best practices — coming mid-June 2016.

Elk Grove's Director of Business and Development, Josh Grodzin, will be hosting the all-new podcast, with two new episodes per month. He'll be visiting local makers, business owners, and entrepreneurs at their facilities to discuss hot industry topics, including workforce development, women in manufacturing, innovation and business leadership.

Josh spends his days helping businesses connect and build relationships in Elk Grove Village. Over the years, as he continues to connect with business owners, he realized that many of them have great stories to share. While Elk Grove has been sharing these stories here on Block Party and MakersWanted.org, Josh wanted to find a new and unique way to promote these stories in the village and beyond.

"With over 3,600 businesses right here in Elk Grove, the podcast seemed like the ideal solution to not only connect more businesses, but to also educate and inform the residents of Elk Grove and listeners across the nation of the diverse companies representing the largest industrial park in North America," stated Josh.

'Strictly Business' will be housed in the EGTV Channel 6 digital production facility. The EGTV team is partnering with the Village of Elk Grove to record and produce high-quality episodes in-house.

In the U.S. alone, over 21 millions hours of podcastare listened to every day. In fact, a neighbor you may know, Jim Carr of CARR Machine & Tool, co-hosts 'Making Chips' with friend Jason Zenger of ZENGERS, and has seen a great deal of success stemming from the podcast.

But what's so unique about 'Strictly Business', is it's the first time a municipality has launched a podcast as an effort to keep its business and residential community well connected. How's that for being beyond business friendly?

Have a great story to tell? Be on the show!

Put your business in the spotlight and be a guest on the show. We're looking for businesses in Elk Grove that have a great story to share, and people who want to help lead discussions on the issues that matter to our listeners.

Whether you're working on an exciting new project, your business is expanding, or you simply want to connect with others in the community, we want to hear from you!

For more information on being a guest on the show, email Josh Grodzin at strictlybizpodcast@gmail.com

What topics interest you?

To ensure 'Strictly Business' is a podcast you'll want to tune into each month, we want to hear what topics interest you! Click the link below to submit topic ideas.

As soon as the first episode is live, we'll be reaching out to let everyone know. Stay tuned and be sure to also follow on Facebook!