Chad Newell of Hattiesburg spent three days in sub-freezing Cincinnati, Ohio, last week making important connections with people who locate industries.
Newell, president of the Area Development Partnership – Greater Hattiesburg’s regional Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development organization – knew he couldn’t sit at a warm desk in the Hub City and expect businesses to find him.
“You just have to be pro-active in economic development,” he said. “You just can’t sit around on your laurels. You can’t wait for someone to knock at your door.”
Newell was the only official from this area who attended the annual meeting of the Site Selectors Guild in Cincinnati with other state development officials.
“It’s a banding of some of the top site selection consultants in the country,” he said. “They represent companies from around the world and there are probably 42 consultants in the guild. This was their annual conference; they move it around every year and this year it happened to be in Cincinnati, Ohio.”
Newell said the time spent talking with industry site selection consultants is valuable.
“We go up there and interact with the consultants from a couple of standpoints,” he said. “No. 1, we have educational sessions where the consultants present on different topics on things that are impacting their clients. They talk about things that are trending in real estate or workforce or permitting. They will cover any number of topics, which we call site selection factors.”
Being face to face in making contacts with the site selectors also helps to pay dividends, Newell said.
“We’ll also interact with them in business settings and in social settings,” he said. “The whole intent is to build relationships and learn more about how companies are thinking and what’s important to them in making investment decisions so that we can get a little bit better prepared. The relationship side is huge because if a consultant knows you and knows your community and your region, then you are more likely to be on their radar screen.”
Newell said having a Site Selectors Guild member whose client wants to look in the Southeast and they want to make a visit to your community, then you already know them.
“It makes the process so much easier,” he said. “Obviously, we have social media outreach and we send texts, emails, whatnot and telephone calls. But at the end of the day, there is no substitution for sitting across the table with someone or breaking bread with someone and just having a dialogue.”
Newell said having the state represented in partnership with the companies sent the right message.
“We’re a gem in Mississippi here,” he said. “We’ve got miles to go, but we’ve got a lot of positive things going on.”
