Chad Chancellor: I want to thank Research Consultants International for sponsoring today's podcast. They are a globally renowned lead generation firm that helps economic development organizations create real prospects. They've helped over five hundred economic development organizations. Let me tell you exactly what they do.
They facilitate one-on-one meetings for economic developers with corporate executives who have projects soon. They can facilitate these meetings to where you travel to the corporate executive’s office and meet them there or you meet them at a trade show or even have a conference call, so you don't have to pay for travel.
They recently launched a service called FDI365 which provides you a lead a day of fast-growing companies that will be expanding soon. Their research has helped over $5 billion in projects get sighted since inception. I encourage you to go to www.researchfdi.com to learn more about Research Consultants.
As far as I'm concerned, they are absolutely the best lead generation firm in the business for economic development organizations. Call them now. They can help you create real prospects.
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Chad Chancellor: Welcome to this week's episode of the Next Move Group We Are Jobs podcast. This is Chad Chancellor, co-founder of Next Move Group.
Alex Metzger: And this is Alex Metzger, the other co-founder of Next Move Group.
Chad Chancellor: And today, we're going to tell you about something we're very excited about. Next week, we're launching a new initiative called The Movement and The Movement is going to gear around three different things. One of them is reshoring jobs from China back to the United States. You all know how passionate we are about that.
One of them is on helping economic development organizations be more successful particularly with the budget cuts a lot of economic development organizations are about to have in this recession and none of us know how long that will last. So, economic development organizations are going to have to be lean and mean in order to accomplish everything they want to do.
And the last is going to be to help economic developers improve their quality of lives and you may say I never heard that before. Well, it's the economic developer's job to improve everybody in town's quality of life. Whose job is it to improve the economic developer's quality of life? Well, we're going to take that charge on for ourselves via The Movement that we are launching next week. So, Alex, thank you for being with us and why don't you talk a little bit about what excites you most about The Movement.
Alex Metzger: Yes. Well, Chad, always great to be on the show and really excited to talk about this. This is something that you and I have been discussing for over a year now. Any time that we have a client, we're helping one organization at a time, one person at a time, one company at a time. How can we really scale and help multiple people at the same time in an easy way?
And so this is something that we've been thinking about for a while, but with all this quarantine and COVID, it really gave us the time to sit down and map it out and also gave us some new angles to approach this by, not only with the reshoring from China which is a huge issue going forward but also the budget cuts.
You say in the future the budget strains, we're already seeing budget strains. I was doing an executive search two weeks ago and they've already had to cut their budget 10%-15%. So, this stuff is happening now and so it really is timely that we sit down and have these videos and it's something that I can't wait to launch next week.
Chad Chancellor: Well, Alex has been challenging us to do this for about a year and we really didn't have the time. We were so busy if you all followed our growth last year. We exploded in growth, so we didn't have time to sit and do this. This COVID situation if you all join The Movement next week, you're going to see what we've been doing during our coronavirus time. We've been building up this Movement. I think now is a perfect time to launch it.
If you think about our business, we do site selection work. So, one of the things that we really want to do is help communities figure out how to reshore manufacturing out of China back to the United States. We're going to use our site selection expertise in terms of supply chain and marketing to help communities do that and we don't care if the company that puts production in the United States is American currently or not. We don't have to recruit them out of China. We want the production here. We rather they be American companies. So, you're going to see that in our-- we've built a whole reshoring course that you're going to see within The Movement.
We also do executive searches in Next Move Group and we get asked the same questions over and over by many good economic developers. So, we sat down and we have written out every question that we get asked commonly just by multiple people and we have built out really a whole infrastructure to help answer those questions that you all are going to see next week. Alex, why don't you talk about some of those common questions that we're always getting in our executive searches?
Alex Metzger: It seems like they are very repetitive over and over. We get them once a month and so these questions we don't mind answering them, but we want to do is really in a scalable way let people all around the nation take this advice and achieve their career goals. This is really going to help them not only land their dream job, but make a lot more money in the economic development field. So, there is everything on there from what's the best way to do a video interview or what should I have on my resume and different things.
One of the things we talk about a lot on the resumes is how the resumes are probably the least important part about actually getting a job. People only look at it for 30 seconds to a minute. So, we really have some tips in there how to hit the high points, best practices during interviews, common mistakes that we've seen during our practice as well as other executive search firms. So, if anybody is in the market for another job, a lot of these videos and courses and workbooks are really going to help them, not only identify what they want out of their career but go out and get it and make more money.
Chad Chancellor: And when we say improve the quality of lives of economic developers, we mean it. I want economic developers to make just as much money as they possibly can. So, we're going to have areas within The Movement that can teach you how to negotiate your salary whether you're in an existing position or a new one.
Sometimes we're doing an executive search and I’m totally sick and tired of it, to be honest with you. Some towns will want us to find-- we'll have towns tell us you need to find us a superman industrial recruiter. We need somebody with immense political skill because our city and county don’t get along and they think the economic developer will be able to do that. We need someone with expertise in workforce. They know how to get all these folks out here that don't want to work; to get them out and go work. We need somebody that is a real estate expert. They know how to develop property and we want all of that for $70,000. Just seeing it over and over, I’m sick and tired of it.
What we want to do is promote the profession and really have areas within The Movement that can help you improve your quality of life because I think having been an economic developer in the past, economic developers are about to be under tremendous pressure from this COVID situation. I lived through '08 and '09 as an economic developer. I remember the recession. I remember the pressure. This is going to be even worse.
There are going to be economic developers lose their jobs for no reason of their own. They are going to lose half their budget, maybe have to take pay cuts for no reason of their own. So, we're going to be there with you, not just at the launch next week, but every step of the way. Every step of the way to ensure that your quality of life stays high.
If you think about the other service that Next Move Group offers, it's economic development products. So, we're really good at marketing and helping economic development organizations market. So, that's going to tie together what we're doing with China and helping economic development organizations. So, if you join our movement, we're going to be able to really tell those small to mid-sized towns how to get exposure.
I find there are a lot of projects that want to go to small to mid-sized towns. A lot of these reshoring is going to want to go to small to mid-sized towns, but many rural towns they just don't know how to get themselves on the map. Nobody has heard of them. If they've heard of them, they don’t like them. One of the things we're going to do is really try to help you through technology get your community on the map without spending a whole lot of money.
Alex Metzger: Exactly. It really is kind of an entire course on economic development marketing, not really marketing as a whole but really how economic developers in any size area can really market and do it in a cost-effective way to reach out to the company. So, if you're a smaller town with not that big of a budget or if your budget is cut, this is really going to show you technological advances and software out there that can really help you market your community in a cost-effective manner.
Another thing that we're going to have on there is a forum where people can bounce ideas off each other. So, one thing that has always been valuable in my career is mentors. So, if you have any kind of issue going on or if your budget is cut or whatever, there will be a place on there where you can ask other people that are members of this program what they would do in this situation. So, we really want to create kind of a community of people that want to grow the profession as a whole.
Chad Chancellor: And you all I’m sick and tired of China controlling our economy. I’m sick and tired of it. If you've heard my story, you know my dad lost his job when I was in the second grade. Sunbeam moved their plant to China. Then my mother lost her job at the glove factory-- I mean my grandmother lost her job at the glove factory. It moved to China and I’m sick and tired of it.
And so the more we can help the small to mid-sized communities improve their marketing, improve what they are doing without breaking the bank because many of them are not going to have the budgets they did then the more of these jobs we can land back in the small to mid-sized towns in America. So, we're very excited on that.
Also, one of the questions we get asked all the time from state and utility folks-- who are some of our closest friends-- they say guys, can you all help us figure out how to help our rural towns? We want to help them, but how can we just go out there and help them? And so we have put real thought into that. So, you’re going to see if you join The Movement our thoughts on how states and utilities can best help their rural towns.
Having been an economic developer, most of the time the state and utility told me we needed to go out and spend much money preparing industrial property, getting the diligence done and all and they are not wrong in that, but you can't just prepare. You have got to get your community on a map and so we're going to talk about a lot of times, it's a whole lot cheaper to market and get your community on a map than it is to prepare.
Alex Metzger: Exactly.
Chad Chancellor: So, if folks are going to be having budget cuts, they are going to have to spend more of their efforts marketing and getting their community on a market because that's cheaper. That's cheaper than going out and buying a whole lot of new land. So, some of the benefits that you will receive from joining The Movement, Alex really hit it first. If you want to land your dream job, if you're not currently in your dream job, The Movement is going to be there to really show you everything from your resume to tips on interviews to how to handle the contract negotiation. You're going to have it all for you right there when you need it to really help you land that dream job.
One of the things that we do early on show you how to see what economic developers are making and you may be surprised to find some of them are making $500,000, $600,000, $700,000. So, you may think you're in your dream job now and you may watch that material and figure out that you're not in your dream job because you're not making what you thought you can make.
Obviously, one of the benefits is going to be reshoring jobs from China and making more money. If you are expected to be superman or superwoman and you're only making $70,000 in your community, then it's my great hope that by joining The Movement, you can find tips to raise that pay. That would be very beneficial.
One of the benefits you'll get from this is really learning how to close the deal and I’m passionate about this because in small to mid-sized towns, you don't get as many opportunities as the metro areas. So, you can't mess up closing the deal, but this also extends over to our executive search practice. Alex, wouldn't you say the thing that most communities are most looking for is somebody that knows how to close the deal and a lot of economic developers they can't convey that they have that skill even if they have it.
Alex Metzger: You're exactly right, Chad, and many economic developers can close the deal. However, in just the 45 or 60 minute interview, they don't do a good job of letting the search committee know they can close the deal. One of the biggest headaches from being an executive search firm-- that side of our business-- is probably half the time, communities don't hire who we think they should probably hire who may be best for the job.
Maybe it's not half of the time, but we'll sit down, there are multiple candidates that would do a great job there and the search committee falls in love with the one that is the best interviewer, not really the one that has won the most projects or would be the best for their job. So, we really want to take from a marketing aspect how you can market yourself in a short amount of time in an interview process and show the search committee that you're the person that can close these deals and you're the one that can do development, not management.
Chad Chancellor: We're going to take a quick break for a message for our listeners and will be back with a lot more previewing The Movement right after this.
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Chad Chancellor: I want to thank LocationOne-- some folks know it as LOIS-- for sponsoring today's podcast. LocationOne has, in my opinion, the best buildings and sites database in the economic development industry. Now, that coronavirus is here and everything has been disrupted, I’ve been thinking a lot about it. If I were an economic developer still, what would I do during this time and I know without question I would transition to LOIS and get my buildings and sites as updated as I possibly could so that when we come out of this economic downturn, we're ready to go.
Let me tell you why I like LOIS. It is the most responsive mobile friendly buildings and sites database I have found. It’s easy to use. It's just as easy to use on an iPad or iPhone as it is a computer. I was browsing around last week on a state economic development building and site database and the thing it just wouldn't work. It wouldn't work properly. You had to be an engineer to figure it out. It was too much. It had this circle you could draw to look at buildings. The circle wouldn’t work when I backed out if I got what square footage I was looking for.
None of that happens with LOIS. This is the best buildings and sites database I have found. I’ve looked far and wide. It is the most easy to use from a site selection standpoint on any platform. I’m told it's just as easy to use for economic developers. It really walks you through inserting your information and putting it in so the prospects can use it. So, I really encourage you take a look at locationone.com. Use this time while we're down to update your buildings and sites. Transition them to LocationOne. You'll be really happy you did.
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Chad Chancellor: Some of the best economic developers I know don't interview that well because an economic developer that's effective, they have to have I don't know if a main streak is the right word, but they have to have something in them to get the deal over the line and not to do with a whole bunch of BS. There are all kinds of crazy projects out there. People will get you in thinking it is your job and good economic developers sometimes have to be tough and know where to stand their ground. That doesn't always interview well. If you're one of those type of people, you probably know who you are, then I really believe joining The Movement is going to help you overcome those in the interviews so you can interview better and get the job.
Alex Metzger: Exactly and not only do we have content that is going to address all these topics, every month we're going to come up with new content. Members can submit content they want us to come out. We want to have guest content, but there's also stuff in there about managing staff whether it's younger millennial staff members, different technology you can use to make management of staff easier. There's going to be many things that are going to make your job your staff run better, your budget run better, and make you win more projects.
Chad Chancellor: Well, and one thing I’m awfully excited about for the rural communities is we really lay out in The Movement how you can build a systemic approach to recruit manufacturing companies to your town; an approach that runs like a machine. It's going to be running for you if you follow this step for step while you are asleep at night, while you're on vacation, while you're playing golf, or doing whatever. It's going to be running for you.
I find that most rural town strategy is to hope that the State brings them something, hope that the power company brings them something. They all go to these consultant events a lot of the time and hope they stumble into a project and I find that will get you a project or two. That will get you some looks, so you need to do it. Don't misunderstand me, but that's not a systemic approach that's going to work for you. It’s just not. I ran two different rural economic development shops and in every one, 90% of the projects we won we generated ourselves whether it was a new company coming to town, whether it was an existing industry.
And so what we really want to teach in The Movement is to teach those small to mid-sized towns how to build a program that runs just like a machine for you. And where we got this idea was from Goldman Sachs. They chose us-- which is funny that a big company like that has given us this idea to help small to mid-sized towns, but they chose us two, three years ago to do something called the Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 small businesses. It’s like an accelerator for fast-growing companies.
As we did it-- it was like a four-month-long ordeal-- but as we did it, they really taught us you've got to build processes that deliver results for you. You can't make it all about you or you can't make it all about luck. You’re just stumbling into something. You've got to build processes that are working for you.
So, we've done this for our own company and I don't mind telling you before we did Goldman Sachs the company was too much about Alex and myself. We had no staff. We got staff now. We got folks that can run this company. If something happens to us, they can run this company. That was not the case before we did that.
So, what we have done with The Movement has taken all the expertise and experience we have in the site selection and economic development products and executive search and done just exactly what Goldman Sachs did for us; packaged this in a way that you can really use it at your own pace, learn it, train it, and you can build yourself a program. You need a systemic program that you know is going to deliver manufacturing for your small towns.
I don't mind telling you somebody asked me the other day if we were rural development experts. I don't think we are. What we're experts in is helping rural communities land manufacturing plants. That's what we're experts at. I don't want to call us rural experts because if you want to land a hotel or build a convention center or something, we don't really know how to do that. What we know how to do 100% probably better than anybody in this country is land manufacturing plants in rural towns.
So, one of the benefits of joining The Movement is you are going to get a systemic approach to doing that. So, now we've probably battled on and off, Alex, about really all the benefits and whatnot, why don't we tell the folks how we're going to be delivering this to the members of our Movement?
Alex Metzger: Right. Well, we have several different content that we're going to release monthly and a lot of content that we will release next week when you first sign up. So, we're doing it by videos, we're going to have multiple podcasts a month and this is not like our normal podcast channel. This is going to be really how-to podcasts.
Chad Chancellor: That's right. So, we're going to have on-demand videos that you can watch whenever you get good and well ready. It's not going to be live webinars where you have to watch it at 9 a.m. one morning. You can watch it whenever you get good and well ready and these videos are going to have all kind of training topics from showing you how to see what the economic developer in the next town makes so you can use that for leverage to how to do a farm tour to how to do a spec building, what utility infrastructure you need.
And in addition to our on-demand videos, we're going to have workbooks for you that you can print off or work on your computer even give it to your staff and say hey, you all go and do this and it should be able to walk people through all the steps in our process so you build this systemic approach that we're talking about.
So, some of our videos are only 15 minutes long. Some of them are for two hours. So, for the two hour one, you probably going to want to download a workbook. So, we're going to have 15 of these available when we launch. We're going to have three on reshoring jobs from China.
One is going to be showing you have to figure out what's coming to your town right now from China, so really doing your own supply chain analysis. You're not going to have to go pay a consultant $100,000 to do it. One of them is going to be then coming up with companies who should be reshored and should consider your area and then one of them is going to be to go market to them. So, it’s not just a study. It's going to be actually how to go market to them.
Then we're going to have six videos on improving economic developers' quality of life. A lot of those are career-oriented, but some are negotiation and whatnot and we're going to have six videos of how economic development organizations can have more success, so the how-to stuff. I know the one Alex likes he told me he liked is I did one on how to do your own labor study. So, instead of having to go spend $150,000 doing a labor study, if you watch this video, you ought to be able to do. Why do you like that one so much?
Alex Metzger: It was a very valuable video. Other consulting firms may be mad at us for coming up with this because it’s definitely going to save some money. So, yes, we have videos and content and workbooks, but the thing that we really want to stress here is this is going to be a community of economic developers. They are going to be able to interact with each other. We're going to have meet-ups two or three times a year in a different cities or with IEDC where we all get together and partake and socialize and bounce ideas off each other.
If you all have any questions, once or twice a month, we're going to do a live Q&A with Chad and I and maybe somebody else on our team that you can ask about these videos. Hey, in this part, I didn't understand this. Can you explain? Or in this workbook, what did you mean? Or could you all next month do a video about this? So, we definitely want to make it interactive, give access to ourselves as much as possible and this is really going to be-- the podcast itself-- this is going to be stuff that's a lot more valuable than our free content that we're producing all the time.
Chad Chancellor: Well, and in the on-demand videos, we're going to additionally-- so, we're going to have all those at launch. Then we're going to release two new videos every month from here to kingdom come until we decide to go bankrupt or whatever. We're going to be putting out two a month. We're always going to put one out on helping an economic development organizations and we're going to out one on helping your career.
So, I know the first month's video we're putting out after the launch, so next week the launch you'll have a whole bunch of them. Then throughout June, we're going to drip up a video on how to do your resume; resume writing tips and we're going to do one on utility infrastructure you need to recruit certain type companies. So, Tim Weston is going to be our guest expert with us on that one.
There are many times we're going to have guest experts on our podcast, on our videos because we don't always have all the answers. Tim is very good at knowing if you want to recruit a food processing company, you need this much water, you need this much sewer. If you want to recruit a metal stamping company, you need this much power, you need this much gas and so forth. So, he's going to come up.
But every month, we're going to release a new how to help your economic development organizations be more successful and how to improve your quality of life every single month and we're going to release two new podcasts a month. One of those will always be with an economic developer that makes more than $150,000 a year. We want to interview economic developers who make more than $150,000 a year because they have reached that level of success through somehow and so we want to learn their story. They are sort of going to be bio interviews. We're going to go into it, learn their story, how did you make it and just see what their tips are that might inspire others.
Then one of the podcast every month is also going to be how to help your organization be better. So, our first one on that one is we've got Jeff Taylor, who's the Commissioner of Economic Development Kentucky, is going to tell small to mid-sized towns what they can do to best let the State help them. Small to mid-sized towns always say well, the State needs to help us. Well, you've got to do certain things so the State can help you.
So, that just gives you an idea of the type of podcasts that we’re going to release, but basically for members, you're going to get something new every week; either a new on-demand video or a new podcast every single week.
Alex Metzger: Every week at the end of the week, all our members are going to get a weekly digest of different ongoings in the economic development and other industries around the world. So, news articles that are pertinent, rumors that are going on around our industry. There will be new content that will be coming out. You'll get a constant email address.
If you don't want to join The Movement, all of these videos-- if you say many of these videos do not apply for me, but that one on what I should do in my first 90 days on the new job-- if you just want that video, you don't have to join The Movement just to purchase one video. We're also going to sell these videos individually that will also have workbook and MP3 audio files with them if you just want to listen like a podcast.
Chad Chancellor: Now, I’m going to tell you that's one of the best ones we did right there. We got a plan for your first 90 days on your job that if you work it I’m just going to tell you you'll probably get a pay raise after year one. I’ll just tell you right now. I’ll be highly surprised if you don't.
In our community forum, I know Alex is highly excited about this. I’ve been so busy with thinking of the content that I hadn't gotten really excited about the community forum yet, but I know I’ll get there. Talk about one thing that excites me with it is that you can have a project that you don't know if this project is real or not and you could go on our forum and you could post anonymously and say hey, has anybody met these folks? I just got a weird feeling about them and somebody in there from the state over can answer you back yes, you should run or yes, it's a great project. Or you may be having trouble with your mayor or you may be having trouble with your project manager or maybe the state, whatever and you can post on this thing either anonymously or not and other economic developers can give you tips and help you with best practices to brainstorm that situation.
Alex Metzger: When we were doing economic development, we had a few of those projects. A lot of coal to gas and things that would come in. This would have been very valuable, but I’m a big believer in mentors and as many as you can call and utilize your mentors, they've helped me so much in my career. So, we just wanted to create a forum where people can come in, ask advice, ask tips, and get feedback from other people around the nation who are usually going through similar things that you're going through right now.
Chad Chancellor: So, the forum is going to be just like your sports forum. So, when I want to go complain about Mississippi State's baseball team--
Alex Metzger: You get to do a lot of complaining, don't you?
Chad Chancellor: That's right. I go in there; we got the wrong coach or whatever. People are going to be able to do that in this situation and ask other economic developers what their opinions are. So, we're going to need as many of you all comment on that as possible to make it very valuable.
And then we're going to have live Q&A sessions probably by Zoom or YouTube Live or something once a month to answer your questions about our workbooks or maybe you say hey, I’ve got a job interview next week. I’m doing your workbook. I don't understand point 11. Can you all help me figure this out? So that this way, all at once we can all learn together. So, then you may learn from somebody that has a question clear across the country just based on the questions that they are asking. So, we're going to always be doing that.
Alex Metzger: And the one thing I want to stress as we're wrapping up is this not only helps you individually make more money and get a better job, it not only helps the nation with us become more independent in our economy like we used to be from China and other foreign countries, but this is really going to help your organization, your EDO. It’s going to help you spend less money in marketing budget.
Chad Chancellor: You're exactly right, Alex, and one of the things I’m most worried about are economic development organizations’ budgets are about to be hit and so boards are going to be looking really hard at economic developers and saying that we need to spend as much money as we've been spending to get prepared without site consultants. So, what economic developers have been doing historically is paying consultants to do labor studies and certifications and strategic plans and some have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on that and that money very well may dry up because of the COVID recession.
So, an economic developer can join The Movement and be a member of The Movement for 48 years based on what I calculated and receive four pieces of new content every month plus all the other on-demand videos for what a lot of them have been spending on having a consultant do a study that ends up sitting on a shelf and now, a lot of economic developers are going to be forced to cut money because of the COVID recession. So, by joining The Movement, this is going to help the organization by being able to do many of the things they've been having to outsource in the past and is going to help the economic developer because he or she is going to learn a skill that they'll have when COVID is over that is going to help their economic development organization continue to be successful.
So, we got basically three options you'll see. One is you just download one video with its workbook and so forth on an on-demand basis. Some of them are going to be as cheap as $7. Some of them are going to be up in the hundreds of dollars based on what the particular course is, but you'll have a workbook with it and you'll have the video.
Another option is to join our membership-- the full-fledged membership program. That will be a monthly fee and if you join it, you get access to everything; all the videos, all the podcasts. You get access to the weekly digest, everything, the forum, and everything. So, that will be an option. Of course, you can cancel any time you want or we'll give you two months free if you get an annual subscription. So, you pay one time for the whole year and you get an annual subscription so you can save a little money that way. Well, Alex, thank you for being on this episode. You make this guest cameo appearance about once every four, five months.
Alex Metzger: Usually when we have something very important to talk about at least with our industry or with our company, for sure.
Chad Chancellor: Maybe we'll have football, so then you can be on the football preview show. Let's hope and pray that we have football come the fall. You can be on there. I would imagine we're going to have something football-related in our forum within The Movement just knowing us. I would imagine we would.
So, anyway, we're awfully excited about it. You can probably hear it in our voice. We want to scale up helping economic development organizations be successful. Let's improve the quality of lives of economic developers and let’s reshore some of these jobs. We cannot depend on China forever be it for our medicine and gowns and masks and all our machinery and production. We just can't do it. So, let’s do all these three things together. You're going to see us launch this next week with The Movement. We're awfully excited about it and so look out. It’s coming soon.
Alex Metzger: Thanks, Chad.
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