| As this
business grows, other professionals will be recruited to perform this work and
thereby expand the number of capital investment projects, services providers,
and business locations supported each month. This will also expand
our market knowledge and network of business relationships to offer an even faster and better
referral
service. By the end of 2003, several hundred potential
projects had already been identified for follow-up action during 2004, and
that was just to get the referral process started. There are only a few
thousand major capital investment projects in the world each year, and many
of those are expansions at existing sites. We focus mainly on business
location choices, although we can also help executives and their advisors in
other ways. Many valuable referrals were made in
2004 and 2005 while growing that initial base of business working
relationships, project leads, and well-qualified investment prospects.
The basic premise of our business model is that a few really good sales
professionals with the time and resources to develop and maintain strong
market knowledge and networks of relationships among top executives in key
business locations and industries could have a great impact through very
well-qualified referral work in this niche. Since
corporate investment plans are generally confidential, however, we will not
openly report the
firms with which we are working at any given time. Instead, we offer
specific referrals with their knowledge and approval, guided by our
knowledge of their interests and the relevant experience and service
capabilities of the many professionals we know. As a simple
strategy, our
focus is generally to reach senior executives at companies with more than 500 employees, unless a smaller
company shows rapid growth potential or finds us and asks for our assistance, because our focus is on the support
of major projects (defined loosely as involving 50 or more new jobs within 3
years) through which many millions of dollars of investment and future cash
flows may be at stake. As we grow our capabilities to serve large projects
well, we can also support the smaller ones. Major investment projects
such as these can
drive community development by attracting other projects of all sizes among suppliers,
customers, and unrelated firms with similar business needs. By
supporting major projects well, we will develop the knowledge resources and
contact networks necessary to support small projects effectively too.
This also enables us to earn the financial resources necessary to sustain
and grow our work, including the size of our professional team and our
market reach and impact. |
While small
companies create many jobs when added together, and we will try to be
helpful to them, the large or fast-growing companies have the resources
necessary to create many jobs at one time. The needs
of smaller companies may be more local in nature, and easily addressed
through their own specialized networks of contacts, including customers,
suppliers, or professional service providers in a specific area of interest.
Both may also be drawn to relevant business clusters, but
larger companies may serve more as the anchors and drivers of cluster
development in a region, attracting innovative and specialized niche
businesses around them in a way which is somewhat analogous to the role of
anchor tenants in a shopping mall, surrounded by many boutique shops.
It
is as companies grow into new or unfamiliar locations away from the obvious
clusters of related firms that executives most often
need help with their plans, or as they go through rapid organizational changes (restructuring, M&A
deals, leadership changes, shifts in market strategy, etc.) or external
changes (competitive pressures, new market opportunities, unforeseen risks,
etc.). Whatever the motivation for a specific
project may be, major projects come mostly from mid-sized and large firms with the
resources to make such investment commitments, not small ones, so our proactive
marketing efforts will focus initially on reaching the larger and fast-changing
mid-sized firms,
even though we will try to be responsive to enquiries about smaller
projects by companies of all sizes. In other words, we will try to
help any who request our assistance, but will seek out those who we expect
to need it most.
The focus of 2005 and future relationship development work is therefore
on those firms which may be planning large investments (>50 new jobs within 3
years), and in particular
those executives who may welcome independent professional support as they
develop their project plans. We will proactively reach out to executives
at larger firms (>500 employees), and network among growing mid-sized ones too
(100 - 500 employees), but also quickly help small ones (<100 employees) as best
we can on request.
Please contact me if I may be of assistance at any time.
Bruce Donnelly TEL 847-304-4655
bruce@gdi-solutions.com |
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