EDCUtah’s Colby Cooley and Mike Flynn were joined by GOED’s Tom Wadsworth and Ginger Chinn for a marathon Global Strategy & Outreach (GS&O) trip to New York City and surrounding metros last week.
The team conducted 53 meetings in five days with site selectors and companies interested in looking at Utah for possible expansion projects. This is roughly twice the number of meetings that prior GS&O campaigns have generated.
The GS&O initiative is one of EDCUtah’s best tools for lead generation. Initial findings have as many as five projects arising from the trip. “Companies in the New York area have challenges, not the least of which is the overall cost of doing business there,” said Cooley.
Flynn added: “We launched the GS&O program in 2014. I think in that entire year, with multiple campaigns, we did less than 53 meetings. The program has come a long way.”
Cooley had his Apple Watch on, and logged 29 miles of walking for the five days (111 percent of the New York Marathon’s distance and more than twice the length of the island of Manhattan). That doesn’t include related Subway rides and rideshare trips. “New York is a unique market for GS&O in that you can reach a high number of companies in a very small geographic area. I’m not sure 53 meetings can be topped in other markets where the prospects are more dispersed,” Cooley said.
Both Flynn and Cooley thanked Stephanie Pack, business development analyst, for helping to coordinate meetings leading up to and during the trip.
