On The Short List

The Professional Site Selection Tool

Global Direct Investment Solutions

  fDi Atlas   fDi - Foreign Direct Investment magazine

ShortListNews.com

What is the Tour?

Fast-paced field research work and knowledge-sharing

- not just another hospitality, promotional, or networking event

The Tour isn't a party for site selection consultants and other influential business advisors at community expense for anyone who will accept an invitation to meet or visit their area.

It is real work by top consultants to quickly size up the sponsor area as they would for their own clients, typically as they narrow a "long list" and "short list" down to a few "finalist" locations.  It is intended to help recognize potential relevance of the area for future projects, and also reinforce the working relationship between the business advisors and community representatives so that they can work together faster and better on such projects.

It also provides feedback and insights which can help local community representatives to improve their potential to attract the types of investments they are seeking, or to perhaps recognize relevant market opportunities which they have overlooked or underestimated.

It is not in-depth market research work like a major consulting engagement or the "due diligence" work which is done during final site selection and negotiations for a company.

Selective visits - worth the time and effort on both sides

The idea behind the Tour is to organize efficient visit programs by one or more site selection professionals who will approach each visit with serious preparation and attention to details, as they would when doing professional field research work for a corporate client project.

They should have a good reason to be there - not just because somebody has organized a clever event, is paying all or some of their expenses, and they aren't very busy at the time.

After all, the busiest specialists are often the ones that communities really need to reach.

It is an opportunity for the visiting professionals to efficiently develop and maintain timely market knowledge in places of likely interest to their clients and learn more about business opportunities or recent changes in the area.  The Tour events can be designed to address their interests according to their client base and specialization.

This can be more advantageous to a community than simply inviting a large number of business advisors, and the knowledge shared through a Tour can be highlighted through OnTheShortList.com as well as our main GDI-Solutions.com website, and reinforce our own project referral work.

The Tour serves as a "dress rehearsal" for what these advisors could expect to encounter if they were to advise a client to "short list" and visit that community for a major project.

After all, when advisors choose to visit an area with a top client, they can't afford surprises.

The basic idea behind the Tour is to simulate the rapid field research and evaluation work which site selection consultants and their clients do when they visit a few areas quickly to validate which should be "on the short list" for more detailed research and analysis leading up to final negotiations as viable locations for major corporate investment projects.

Since clients typically want the consultants to work on a very fast pace for their projects, advance work can also help to identify those communities which can move at that pace, just as initiatives such as spec buildings and "certified sites" can reduce project lead times.

Informal functions may be part of the visit program.  These can be quite useful for networking and relationship development.  For example, informal introductions to local community and business leaders after a busy day of meetings and other research work can be very helpful.

Casual or "quality of life" functions, perhaps as part of a weekend schedule, are also relevant.  After all, the executives who choose a new business location may need to live there, so they aren't just looking at industrial and office buildings in isolation.  Fun is OK - but it's not the reason for the trip.  It is one aspect of sizing up a business community, and whether it seems to be a good fit with the types of employees which a company will need.

In this context, it is generally very beneficial for the consultants to meet informally with local business leaders to talk about their own experiences in the community.  The consultants also value such networking opportunities as a potential source of future client referrals.

The Tour is not free.  After all, if it was free, the consultants wouldn't reliably commit their time and effort.  Profitable client work would take priority, and cancellation could be very disruptive after considerable local efforts to prepare for their visit.

The basic premise of the Tour is to invite a few top professionals who are genuinely worth the fees they charge.  They may even prefer to visit separately, given competition among those with similar industry or regional specialization, and that can also be valuable for the community to learn more through a series of private visits rather than in a group situation.

The fee reflects that this is a working trip for the consultants - with the expectation that they will keep their commitment to prepare in advance, show up, pay attention, and provide informal feedback and suggestions at the end of the trip from their perspectives.  That differs from traditional "familiarization tours", for which last-minute cancellations or very low acceptance rates for invitations are fairly common because of other priorities.

The Tour is expected to be limited to what can be accomplished realistically during an intensive 1 to 3 day visit.  Typically, the Tour may go to a sponsor area for one day, but there may be visits to multiple sponsor areas in a state or region during the trip.  It can be hard to schedule more than 3 days in one week because of other client commitments.

As a general rule, we assume that each visit day will also require at least a half day of advance preparation and follow-up work by us with each consultant as we brief them in advance and later prepare a Report summarizing key conclusions.  That is separate from informal, off-the-record feedback to the sponsors.

A two day trip to an area may therefore typically involve three days of work by each visiting consultant with us, plus our own time to organize the Tour, prepare Area Profiles in advance for pre-tour briefings, and prepare Area Reports afterwards to share more insights into the community as a business location with the benefit of professional feedback from the Tour.

Traditional "familiarization tours" and hospitality events

There are many "fam tours" or special hospitality events to showcase business locations to influential business advisors such as site selection consultants, corporate real estate brokers, industrial and office property developers, and their corporate contacts.

Some economic development organizations have been doing this very effectively for many years.  Others are new at it.  We are invited to far more such events each year than we could possibly attend, especially at our own expense.  This isn't pro bono or charity work.

Unlike the usual promotional events, the Tour selectively invites a few leading site selection professionals whose recent project experience and client base is relevant to the investment attraction strategy of the host communities which they agree to visit.

We help to organize useful Tour visits for the benefit of the Sponsor communities and the consultants - and then share knowledge from the Tour as appropriate so that it can be found again quickly by executives and their advisors when relevant to their projects.

The Tour is also different from site selection project work

The Tour simulates site selection work but doesn't attempt to draw conclusions about where a specific company should invest.  It can validate the general case for investment in an area, and identify what types of projects might be most relevant, but an Area Report or favorable quotes by the consultants about the area are not an endorsement.  Each project is unique.

This is somewhat analogous to the role of a "spec building" investment, or investment in a "certified sites" program or other preparatory work to differentiate a community and reduce the lead time or costs associated with development of a business project in the area.

Our participation provides an independent channel to share observations and insights about the host communities (Area Profiles and Reports), and to efficiently organize useful Tour events.  Unlike consulting work performed privately for corporate clients, we are able to openly share much of the community knowledge we develop through the Tour through our website content (such as Area Reports and the Area Search feature), and may also provide feedback to the sponsors about perceptions of their area among the Tour participants or on the basis of our own experience and referral work among executives in their target markets.

Many economic development organizations already meet "site selectors" or other types of business advisors who assist companies with their investment project plans.  They also organize individual visits to their areas, group familiarization tours, hospitality events, and other initiatives to meet these potentially influential contacts.

Although it may take a little persistence because the best ones have busy schedules, it is not really that difficult to meet some relevant site selection consultants or other business advisors, particularly at their own offices or at events they already choose to attend.

It is obviously not necessary to invite consultants to visit an area on a "familiarization" trip or for clever (and frequently costly) hospitality events.  The best way to get their attention and interest is to have a genuinely compelling business case which demonstrates clear  advantages as a new location for their clients.  Clever events can help to make an area memorable and develop friendly working relationships, but consultants are paid by their clients to give objective advice - unbiased by any such efforts to influence them.

In this context, a visit to a sponsor area is no assurance that a project will follow, but that's why the invitations are selective on the basis of knowledge of their capabilities and typical client interests.  Rather than invest in large events in the hope that it will pay someday, which is somewhat comparable to the gambler's logic of buying many lottery tickets in the hope of getting rich someday, the Tour is intended to focus on building closer relationships with a few top professionals whose work is really relevant to the area.  Whether or not the consultants involved directly bring a client project to the area soon, the relevant knowledge they can share should help to improve investment attraction efforts.

Winning the confidence of consultants for project referrals

As business clusters evolve in growing communities, they also attract related suppliers and service providers such as transportation, financial services, retail operations, hotels, etc.  These all contribute to continuous changes in the local economy through capital investment, jobs, employee training programs and benefits, technology, and in many other ways, including the tax flows from companies and employees to support local government services and social infrastructure investments.

To win such projects, however, one has to get "on the short list" of the executives and professional advisors who are planning such investments.  After attracting their attention and interest, one needs to develop and maintain their confidence about the area.

Each area has to attract the attention of relevant decision-makers, arouse interest in what differentiates the area, and demonstrate value as a solution for specific project needs.

Unless the executives and advisors are sufficiently convinced of the relevance and value of a potential business location for their own purposes, they are unlikely to visit an area to research whether this is where they should do business.  After all, their time is valuable, and major projects may involve many millions of dollars in savings or risks according to the choices they make.  They are likely to focus on places where they feel more confident on the basis of some prior knowledge and feedback about the experiences of similar investors.  Visits to an area with a few respected peers can be helpful in this regard to get more than one independent perspective on the pros and cons of a business location.

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