Global Direct Investment Solutions

Corporate Development for a Networked World

OnTheShortList.com     SurgeUSA.org

ShortListNews.com

Summary of Services for Area Representatives

Bruce Donnelly   bruce@gdi-solutions.com    (Biography)

•  Highlight your area for 6 months for only $2000 through a GUIDE Area Profile
  • Standard fee : $1000 initially plus $500/month = a $1500 savings
•  Publish a Survey summarizing your area and who to contact for $750 per year
  • See the recent example for Location:Switzerland
•  Refer also to The Professional Site Selection Tour and Meeting Point at www.ontheshortlist.com as new services for 2006

We are not a publisher using statistics to boost advertising sales or prices.  The statistics just demonstrate usage patterns which may be of interest to some supporters of our work.

There are 12 service offers at this time, as summarized below.  Refer to the Order Form as a one-page summary of the various services and their current pricing, which ranges from a few hundred or few thousand dollars to larger fees for annual working relationships to proactively find and refer relevant projects.  Contact us for specific proposals according to your marketing plans for investment promotion.

Special pricing offers for 2004 expired December 31, 2003.  Our 2004 marketing program launched as planned at the end of 2003.  The potential benefits of this new business were demonstrated in 2004 through numerous project referrals to professionals.  That takes time in this niche because the executives we reach may not develop and publicly announce their investment project plans quickly.  Contact us for specific pricing proposals.

Based on prior experience of more than a decade in this profession (see Bio), and our preparatory work during 2003, we expect to contact top executives at hundreds of companies per month about their specific investment interests, and provide very well-qualified referrals to the participants who can potentially help them with their plans.  This direct relationship development work will be complemented by other marketing work.

If you would like to participate in any of our various services, but can't move quickly because of budget constraints, approval processes, or other reasons, please talk to us and we can probably find a suitable way forward together within such constraints.

We will work out the details of such plans with participants as we prepare for a concentration of such activities in the fall of 2004 as the economy recovers and the flow of investment project planning activity increases again.

Contact us directly for details.  We sponsored and presented the 2003 Economic Development Leadership and Accomplishment Award at the CoreNet Global Summit in Atlanta in October 2003, and the 2004 awards at the Chicago summit.

Please reply to the free GUIDE Network Survey about your area, whether or not you are interested in our other services at this time.  It is fast and easy.  There is no charge to participate in the Survey, since it helps us to support investors with better knowledge about your area such as very basic facts and suggested contacts.

If you publish standardized data about your area somewhere, whether on your own website or through publishers such as those highlighted through our Data Pointers, please let us know so that we can find such information quickly whenever we need it.

We are also offering to publish edited GUIDE Network Survey responses and provide links to such data for a small fee to cover the additional work involved, when this is of interest.  See the simple illustrative Survey example for Monterey, CA or Alice, TX.  Actual listings would usually be a little more detailed, but not comparable to the Area Profile work, which reflects a larger working relationship. 

This can be a low cost alternative to the GUIDE Area Profile work because it does not require that larger working relationship for contact throughout the year, or the same depth of knowledge about the area, but it can still help to highlight your area with a brief and timely summary beyond the free website link we provide already.

Contact us for details or ask about this option when you send us your Survey reply.

Normally Network Survey replies are used for internal reference only to support our referral work among executives.  We will selectively publish responses upon request for a fee as indicated on the Order Form.  The price reflects the work involved to edit, publish, and maintain such listings for reference by any users of our website.

This differs from other services which may require users to register or pay a fee to access such information about an area, or may only make it available selectively or for a limited time, such as for recent advertisers.  We want to provide a globally consistent and economical way to help executives learn about your area quickly and easily.

9. Advertising Recall - make it easy to find your ads, no matter when and where they were published, including online ads as described below.

There is also a similar "event recall" service to highlight sponsorships

11. "Familiarization" events - we can economically highlight these and other targeted promotional activities, including hospitality functions aimed at professional service providers and the executives they serve. 

This can not only complement your own promotion of such events, but also help executives and their advisors to plan ahead or take advantage of gaps in their schedules, while also helping to minimize scheduling conflicts.

12. Promotional events - we can economically highlight upcoming or recent promotional activities such as event sponsorships, trade show exhibits, or speaking commitments so that more executives and their advisors become aware of your substantial investment in such activities and can contact you directly if interested in an invitation, or plan when to meet you at open events.

For example, this can highlight your exhibit plans at future trade shows and also highlight your past exhibits so people can still find you after the event.

We are in the process of launching this business rapidly among many executives in 2004 after two years of development work and considerable investment to prepare this website, the knowledge base behind it, and the marketing program and relationship development work to support a growing flow of major project enquiries.

Our 2004 business plan anticipates direct contact with several thousand executives about their investment plans, and we have many active project leads already from our 2003 work.  We will already be working with several of the leading professional services providers in this specialty, such as location consultants and other professionals, to identify relevant opportunities for their services as we support executives.

We would like to be working with at least 20 - 30 leading area representatives in popular investment locations, despite any current budget constraints or skepticism about the potential value of this service.  We fully realize that many services related to the investment promotion field have not delivered good value to areas.  We see that as an opportunity to quickly create the best project referral service in this niche.

We want to prove the potential value of our services in cooperation with an initial group of leading area representatives.  We will be available at the CoreNet Global Summit in Chicago (May 2004) to answer questions about the progress of launching the business

As the economy recovers, we want to already offer the most comprehensive source of useful knowledge and valuable referrals for direct investment project plans anywhere in the world.  We therefore want to move quickly to develop better local market knowledge and relationships in many locations because of the expected increase in projects which we will be supporting through our SICR relationship development and referral work.

The process for selectively listing major properties in an area is described separately, along with instructions for adding a listing.

The standard price will be $500 per year for a listing, with up to three appropriate listings for free in areas which participate in the GUIDE Area Profile service (see Area Profile offer).  If a separate page is required, the cost is $1500 (such as when no link to another website for property details is available, so that we have to do the extra work to set up and maintain the information, including appropriate graphics, as a new page on this website instead).

We would like to have a good selection of listings for the major regions as soon as possible, and we therefore extend the special offer below.  Note that a listing can include a link to a more general property search feature on an area's website, but should highlight one major property. 

Please note that this discount offer may be withdrawn at any time, such as if we obtain many listings already from other sources, such as through relationships with leading corporate real estate networks.

Please note that these are intended to be selective listings, so we reserve the right to limit which properties are listed, and to edit the descriptions according to our judgment to make this service more interesting and useful to senior executives.  It is not an advertisement.  We want to know enough about the property and area to highlight the location benefits which should interest users of this service, and to be in a good position to make relevant referrals at any time.

GUIDE Project Profiles provide a standardized presentation of major project announcements so that it will be easier for executives and their advisors to become aware of projects which might influence their own analysis of an area, and have the linkages readily available to further research the area and reach relevant contacts.  Unlike traditional PR, which pushes out announcements which executives and their advisors may never see or find again when they are working on a relevant project, the Project Profile serves as a standard "point of sale" presentation about major success stories in an area.

These Profiles are reached through the regional tables of contacts as well as company lists and the GUIDE Area Profiles, where they may be highlighted.  They are also found through the "Projects" button at left, and can be linked from other pages or websites as well.  They can also be linked to related articles and press releases as appropriate, and can be maintained for easy reference for years.

If you have a major success story to highlight, this can be a good way to do it!  The Template illustrates the typical scope of a Project Profile.

This new service is very analogous to the Project Profiles, except that it addresses the need to share insights from established investors in an area, rather than details about recent projects.  The focus is on highlighting a few major issues which are deemed by such executives to be important to potential investors in the area.  The Testimonials should highlight what differentiates the area as a place to do business from the perspective of executives with considerable experience.

These are linked from many places in this website, and can be linked from other websites, in the same manner as the Project Profiles.

The Template illustrates the typical scope of a Testimonial.  The topics which are highlighted will obviously vary between areas, but the basic structure of the Testimonials should remain consistent as a convenient reference tool for executives and their advisors.  Ideally, it should be easy for executives or their advisors to reach a suitable contact to confirm and elaborate upon the summary Testimonial, whether this contact information is openly published or available upon request.

Early participants in the larger GUIDE Area Profile service (see below) may choose to have Project Profiles as part of that service.  We want to demonstrate how these services fit together.

These are intended to describe major projects announced within the last 3 years, and we reserve the right to edit and be selective about publishing Project Profiles.  This price assumes that most of the necessary details will be provided to us, without research work on our part.  We will usually need to speak to a responsible executive at the company to confirm authorization to publish the Project Profile.  Company logos can only be added with written authorization from the company.

Early participants in the larger GUIDE Area Profile service (see below) may choose to have Testimonials as part of that service.  We want to demonstrate soon how these services fit together.

We reserve the right to edit and be selective about publishing Testimonials, and we will usually need to speak to the source of the Testimonial to confirm the content and the authorization to publish such information, including any instructions about how to handle enquiries (to publish contact information, or to specify the conditions under which such contact details may be disclosed to an executive or advisor).  Company logos can only be added with written authorization from the company.

As we promote this business initially to thousands of executives, and quickly focus on developing relationships with a far more selective group, we would obviously like to be able to highlight better information about many areas through the GUIDE Area Profile and other services.  We would like to have several good Area Profiles soon for most major geographic regions of potential interest to investors.

Although we think this website and our project support capabilities already demonstrate unique value to investors, that value will be even greater if we can share more detailed and timely local knowledge than is possible without the closer working relationship of the GUIDE Area Profile or SICR services.  We therefore want to use the next few months to rapidly improve our knowledge of many leading areas which are proactively seeking and winning major investments.

The price for the GUIDE Area Profile service, as explained separately in the application process, and pricing examples, is $7500 per year.  This reflects the average amount of work which we expect to be required, which should be fairly consistent regardless of the size of an area.

Please keep in mind that the GUIDE Area Profile is not just a summary page on this website.  It involves periodic contact to develop and maintain more knowledge about an area than is published on the website, so that we are better able to persuasively suggest introductions when working with executives about their project plans.

For examples of GUIDE Area Profiles, refer to :

• Invest Korea
• Tri-Cities, WA (in the US West Coast regional table)
• County Durham, England (in the European regional table)
• Tampa, Florida (CoreNet Global award winner)
• Cincinnati, OH tri-state region (CoreNet Global award winner)
• Prince William County, VA (CoreNet Global award winner)
• Le Sueur, MN (in the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant !)

Refer also to the explanation of typical content, recognizing that we will continue to refine the content in response to feedback from executives about their interests.

See also : how areas can participate in the SICR service

As explained separately, GUIDE consists of various services to organize timely knowledge about areas.  SICR is the service to proactively take that knowledge to market by investing in marketing activities and the professional work necessary to develop and maintain relationships with many top executives who are responsible for major investment project decisions.  (Download an article explaining the value of participation in SICR, or the standard SICR proposal describing the service, for which current pricing is summarized in the Order Form, but proposed individually).

Discounting such work is generally counterproductive because it limits the shared resources available to find and refer more projects.  We can already leverage that investment in our work by referring executives to professional service providers with the necessary capabilities to support their projects, because they will gladly pay a success fee for actual sales achieved.  This can easily add up to more than any area would ever pay, and therefore grow the available marketing resources.

The standard pricing of the SICR work, as a shared service, is designed to be significantly less than the total costs of one in-house professional who would do investment promotion work exclusive on behalf of an area, especially if the full costs of a position are considered (salary plus benefits and taxes, travel, technology, events, administrative and marketing support, etc.).

Although we cannot assure the results which a particular area may achieve through SICR referrals, the same is true when an area hires an in-house professional to promote that area on an exclusive basis.  As an independent service which can help investors in far more areas, we believe we can soon prove our ability to make good referrals, but we cannot assure who will benefit from this flow of projects at any time.  That depends on the executives we reach, and the projects they turn out to be planning at the time.

Our first year of operations (2003) focused on preparatory work because of the weak investment environment in general and the challenge of getting this completely new type of business launched among service providers, area representatives, and executives.  Initial research turned up longer-term projects rather than active ones for 2003.  We have now completed the first year launch work, so that we are in a strong position for the expected improvement in investment activity levels throughout 2004, including the follow-up work on leads which were already identified in 2003.

Note that any SICR participants are also GUIDE participants, since this service is already included in the price of SICR.

Payments would be quarterly in advance, or else a higher price would apply.  We do not wish to spend our time on the administrative work of special billing arrangements.  We want focus on developing better knowledge of participating areas and reaching more potential investors, rather than chasing after our payments.  It would be unfair to other participants for our time to be diverted needlessly to such administrative matters.

The usual terms of the GUIDE Area Profile service otherwise apply.  Travel to an area for familiarization purposes would be optional at additional cost if requested, since this should not be necessary or a good use of limited resources for most areas.

We are not looking to fill our calendar with familiarization tours, because they would take limited time away from the work we need to do each day to develop relationships among executives.  We would generally defer such tours until we are dealing with a project enquiry for which such a tour is relevant, or until we are in the area for other purposes.

SICR pricing reflects the economic size and complexity or business diversity of areas on the theory that larger areas with a strong base of existing investors will typically attract more interest and projects among major potential investors.

That is obviously an imperfect simplification, but there is no good way to predict which area will benefit the most from the SICR work in any given period of time, so this approach should be a reasonable approximation of the long-term "success" rate.  Over time, we will adjust SICR pricing according to the patterns of actual project referrals.

Note that SICR already includes the cost of the GUIDE Area Profile work because we need better knowledge about an area before "going to market".  That will consume more time during the first year of a working relationship than in future years.

Favorable terms for renewal in 2005 would be specified in 2004 proposals.  Those who are prepared to make multi-year commitments would receive special consideration.

These price levels should, with adequate participation, enable us to grow the SICR relationship development program rapidly during 2004 and future years as the value of this approach becomes more demonstrable to potential participants through referrals.

A new section has been added to make it easy for executives and their advisors to find promotional materials quickly and easily whenever they need them - as opposed to sending costly promotional materials to the trash when they are not needed by people who receive them.

In other words, areas often invest a lot of money to research, prepare, and publish useful reference materials to reinforce the presentation of their areas to potential investors.  Instead of simple brochures full of hype and vague assertions about the benefits of the area, such promotional materials provide useful insights into the area which can be substantiated through the indicated follow-up contacts in the area.

The purpose of this section is to highlight promotional materials which are of higher value. It may also be possible to cross-link directly to such materials on your website, perhaps to reinforce response to an ad campaign (recall, brand recognition, direct response, etc.).  A thumbnail image of the promotional materials or logo may be used for this purpose.  Follow the above link to see an example.

Over time, a key purpose of this feature is to make the substantial investment in quality promotional materials pay off better by reaching more real investors at the right time in their project planning work.  It is, in effect, "point of sale" merchandising to call attention to high quality information about an area or service at a time when executives or their advisors are starting their information gathering work to explore alternatives.  This can help to cut through the "clutter" of vague, conflicting, or unsubstantiated claims and help to encourage (justified by results) the improvement of such promotional materials.

There is a charge for these listings because of the work involved to prepare and maintain them on the website, but most graphic content remains on your own website, which enables you to monitor the direct responses.  We may also maintain a very small supply of the promotional materials (following a "just - in -time" replenishment process) to respond quickly to indirect requests, as in the case of project confidentiality concerns, even though we encourage direct contact.

We will also cross-link the listings, such as to highlight them in Area Profiles and regional tables of contacts, so that it is easy for executives or their advisors to know when such materials are available.

A new section is being added to highlight timely local knowledge about typical labor market issues of interest to executives and their advisors, such as :

•  Human resources availability and performance
  • recognized skills base, industry clusters
  • recent anecdotal recruitment experience
  • recent turnover experience
  • links to relevant Testimonials
  • unemployment trends
  • recent closures or major layoffs
  • forecast new projects or expansions
  • underemployment patterns
  • multilingual skills
  • migration in or out of the area
•  General HR environment
  • typical benefits and social "on-costs"
  • salaries and trends for various positions
  • mix of leading industries in the area
  • size of leading employers
  • cost of living relative to income levels
  • academic support and graduation rates
  • special training programs
  • special recruitment assistance
  • recent labor union activity, trends
  • information sources for HR issues
  • local professional services for HR issues

This service can also usefully cross-link to other content such as GUIDE Testimonials, in which existing investors can share their own perspectives on labor market issues.  It also links to the GUIDE Area Profiles to elaborate on the very brief HR highlights mentioned in that presentation, and provides points of contact for follow-up interests.

The presentations will be an executive summary with links out to relevant details, which may include professional labor market studies if publicly available for such links.  The HR Market Profiles are not intended to be a gathering of statistical data, although it should be readily possible to substantiate the key points.  The focus is to share timely local market knowledge which is directly relevant to the interests of investors, rather than some old raw statistics which were compiled for other purposes.

The price for this service is higher than some others because of the average expected work involved, including graphics which sometimes present time-consuming challenges.

We reserve the right to be selective about the materials which we list, and how we organize and highlight individual listings, but in general we want to make it easy to find good promotional materials. 

For example, we will reorganize the initial page (see example) into multiple pages as the service grows.

Any type of promotional materials can apply - brochures, videos, CD-ROM's, or even links to special presentations which may already be available on-line, as in the case of special reports, PDF versions of brochures or presentations, or videos.

This feature can also be used to highlight local professional services or other organizations of interest (training programs, academic or research resources, utilities, developers or construction firms, etc.) as another way to highlight useful regional contacts who are "on the team".  The key is that we want to highlight promotional materials which executives and their advisors will be glad to find because they convey useful knowledge or messages which differentiate the services, rather than general or unsubstantiated claims about the area as a business location.

The standard price for this service reflects the estimated work on average to review the available information and reorganize, summarize, edit, and maintain it in a consistent Profile presentation format relative to other areas, including setting up a variety of related links.

We expect participants to be able to provide good market information and sources to which the Profile can be linked for further details.  The Profile is a high level summary of the key points, through which an executive or advisor can easily "drill down" to the supporting details, whether published on your own website or elsewhere.  Areas which have timely, independent professional labor market studies are of special interest, as the HR Profile can highlight these.

This provides more detail about HR issues than a published GUIDE Network Survey or GUIDE Area Profile, and can reflect far more timely and reliable local market knowledge than traditional statistical sources of labor market data.  We will highlight this unique service in our work because we think it will be of strong interest to many executives.

We can also introduce consultants who can perform labor market studies in a consistent manner, which can be a useful way to support the Profile presentation through very credible independent professional market research.  We do not perform such labor market studies directly.

Refer to the examples of recent ads by GDI Solutions, or follow the above links for an explanation of this service.  It makes it fast and easy to identify and contact any participating advertisers regardless of where and when their ads appeared.  This can leverage the much larger investment in such ad campaigns to expand the ad recall and response rates and reach executives and advisors at the "point of sale" in a manner analogous to in-store merchandising and product packaging.

The "Point of View" service enables executives and advisors to quickly and easily find presentations, supported by verifiable facts, about topics which differentiate your area for investment promotion or retention purposes.  Despite the obviously biased "point of view", this can guide investors to useful information sources and highlight facts which they might otherwise not have recognized through their own analysis or the work of their advisors.  It puts your best factual presentation where they can readily find and use it.

The presentation typically stays on your website, where you can update it as often as necessary, while we provide the framework and summary through which investors can easily find it whenever it is relevant to their interests, even if they might not have gone to your website otherwise and discovered the existence of such a presentation.  This enables investors to find such details quickly and easily at the very "front end" or "long list" stages of their project planning, before the scope of the search is narrowed down.  That differs from traditional approaches which only present detailed local knowledge at the "back end" of the process, once the search is down to a few alternatives.

The pricing reflects a thumbnail link and ad listing for a year based upon print ads or online ads (banners, buttons, etc.), which may be discounted with reciprocal links to our website.  That can include links to an Area Profile if available to make it easier to find any content on this website related to your area.

This unique feature organizes presentations of professional analysis of key issues with supporting data which can be validated as necessary, rather than aggregating local data into a central database for analysis by others.