In early May, members of GLI’s economic development team traveled to South Carolina to meet with site consultants in Greenville and Charleston. The trip was planned to help meet consultants where they are and promote the assets and advantages of locating projects in Greater Louisville.
Over the course of three days, the team met with six site selection firms (McGuireWoods Consulting, Land Strategies, Site Selection Group, Global Location Strategies, Strategic Development Group, and Quest Site Solutions) and 14 consultants. In addition to one-on-one conversations about Greater Louisville’s assets, the group also brought back feedback from consultants about industry trends, insights from their business clients, and predictions for the rest of the year.
Consultants reinforced the importance of approaching economic development from a regional perspective. “It’s expensive and time-consuming to carry out lead generation for a finite geography. If you can offer a larger territory with more sites, workforce resources, and infrastructure assets, you broaden your value proposition and potential solutions for prospects,” said Beth Land, Founder and CEO of Land Strategies.
The trip resulted in many new and strengthened relationships and added at least one new lead to GLI’s project pipeline.
“Greenville and Charleston are hubs for many site selection firms in the U.S. so it was an obvious choice to maximize our impact and build relationships with some of the country’s most influential consultants,” said Clark Welch, GLI Vice President and Economic Development. “The feedback and promotional opportunities the trip provided are invaluable and we look forward to doing more site selector market visits in the future.”