With the completion of the latest Global Strategy & Outreach (GS&O) campaign to Southern California last week, EDCUtah has added three new projects to its pipeline and generated four solid leads that look like promising future projects.
That’s after a three-day marathon of meetings with 12 California companies and several site selectors, says Business Development Manager Becca Haynie, who led the trip for EDCUtah. “Three solid projects after 12 meetings is a really nice ROI,” she adds. “This was a highly productive trip and paved new ground for the GS&O team.”
The new ground she refers to is the trip’s focus on manufacturing firms, primarily. Previous GS&O campaigns have largely focused on IT companies. The meetings were set up after in-depth research by EDCUtah’s marketing team, which has developed a highly effective method of identifying businesses that are looking to expand and likely receptive to EDCUtah’s message.
“Each of the companies we met with was already having discussions about relocating,” Haynie continues. “Some of them have been having these discussions weekly, so the reception we received was fantastic. Kudos to Nick Dall, manager of Global Strategy & Outreach, and Annet Unda, our Global Strategy & Outreach analyst.”
Costs are always a factor in relocation discussions and the companies were extremely interested in the data contained in EDCUtah’s new Manufacturing and Distribution Profile, which provides cost comparisons of Utah and other states in key budget areas, such as salaries, cost of real estate, utilities and more.
“Our Manufacturing and Distribution Profile really piqued the interest of the businesses we met with,” she adds. “Utah has such a compelling business environment. Many of the businesses are paying $1 or more per square foot for pretty run down space. Doug Larsen, Weber County’s economic development manager, made the trip with us and extolled the fact that the California companies could have brand new space in Weber County for about .25 cents per square foot.”
Haynie says the businesses loved Larsen’s sincerity. He added a local perspective that was meaningful to the businesses while also demonstrating the strength of the collaboration and partnerships that work so well in Utah. Chief of Staff Michael Flynn notes that the GS&O team has a goal to take one public investor on each recruiting campaign and EDCUtah is grateful that Larsen could participate in this most recent trip.
“Doug was very effective in saying, ‘Relocating your business is possible and we’ll help you make it happen,'” Haynie adds. “Weber County has developed a strong manufacturing hub and his message was received very well.”
While EDCUtah’s business developers support the information requests and other needs of the three new businesses in the pipeline, they’ll also continue to follow up with the other leads generated from this recruiting campaign. Meanwhile, the GS&O team will gear up for a heavy calendar of recruiting trips scheduled in 2017.
