Economic Development and Site/Client Readiness Services

From Dirt to Client Destination, InSite’s Comprehensive Site/Park/Building Client-Readiness Assessment Program

InSite’s Product Assessment and Marketing Program Results in:  Client-Ready Product (Sites, Parks, Buildings) Designation; and Highest and Best Use Identification

Is Your Product Client-Ready Today?

Is your product competitive on a national level for site selection clients and project audit?  Clients and consultants are searching for and buying sites, not real estate. We can help you understand the difference and enhance the marketability of your product (sites, parks, buildings), community, region, and state.  InSite will take your product (sites, parks, buildings) to the highest-level of competitiveness with our Client-Ready Product Program.  We don’t’ stop there!  We then develop a product (site, park, building)-specific marketing package and plan to ensure your product gets found by companies looking for product-ready.

In this program you will learn the secrets in the elusive world of Site Selection of what makes your product (sites, parks, buildings) truly competitive at the national level for new jobs and investment.  InSite will help you understand your product’s (sites, parks, buildings) current assets and where investments (i.e., infrastructure) into your product (sites, parks, buildings) should be made to achieve the highest-level of return-on-investment and competitiveness in the country.   We will assist your organization in developing a justifiable and quantifiable “Ask” package for funding opportunities to increase the competitiveness of your site.  See our Site Funding Readiness Program description.

We will take your product through the RFI process, train your local response team, conduct a site visit, enhance your virtual and actual site presentations, and provide marketing recommendations and steps necessary to earn a Client’s Ready-Product designation.  This comprehensive program will truly take your product (site, park, building) from dirt to destination location for manufacturing. 

Providing a robust implementation plan, InSite first deploys an interactive gap analysis that guides the process through three layers of evaluation: understanding what job creators are looking for in a community, recognizing the assets each community has to offer as a location, and identifying which existing gaps need a strategy to overcome challenges. InSite will then execute a high-level cost-benefit analysis to quantify if there is a return on gap mitigation investment, and if so, develop a customized implementation plan for the communities to mitigate their location-specific gaps. If there is not an adequate return on investment, InSite will advise on another highest and best use of the assets and communities being assessed.

InSite Consulting’s best-in-class program by the client’s expectations has set ambitious standards for readiness.  We urge you to compare other “readiness” programs. Our clients have viewed “client-ready” sites/parks with natural gas service 25 miles away.  They have visited certified sites/parks with no excess water capacity.  Prospects have seen certified sites/parks that are 100% in a floodplain.  Sadly, we could go on about these “not ready sites and communities!”  The “true gap” is the need for an “upgraded/revolutionary” approach to getting product and communities client-ready.  InSite has mitigated this gap for our clients and communities with our readiness program detailed in the information pro-vided.

What is the Highest and Best Use of your product? 

What type of client is your product ready for?  Do you have a marketing plan per product (site, park, building) per use?  Our revolutionary site and community readiness and training program for economic development-focused entities are built from our global experience with “boots-on-the-ground” evaluations of product (sites, parks, buildings) and communities for our clients! Our company and its owners have also been in the trenches of economic development as practitioners, which makes us relatable and serves to further differentiate us from our competitors.

InSite’s product (site, park, building) evaluation will determine the highest and best use of your site based upon our comprehensive site analysis.  Our highest and best use analysis will help you understand your property’s current assets and what industry targets are appropriate for your site.  Our process also allows you to focus efforts efficiently and manage expectations of the site.

The product (site, park, building) will “tell” us what it can recruit based on its existing capacities– its Highest and Best Use.  Once we know the product’s capabilities and level of “readiness”, we can coach your team, leadership, board, etc., on next steps for the expectations and life of the product.  We will take your product through the RFI process, train your local response team, conduct a site visit, enhance your virtual and actual site presentations, and provide site marketing recommendations and steps necessary to learn and market the highest and best us of your product (site, park, building).

InSite will help you understand your product’s (site’s, park’s, building’s) current assets and where investments (i.e., infrastructure) into your product (site, park, building) should be made to achieve the highest-level of return-on-investment and competitiveness in the country.   We will assist your organization in developing a justifiable and quantifiable “Ask” package for funding opportunities to increase the competitiveness of your product (site, park, building).  In order to accomplish construction of the “ask for funding” package, your site, park, and/or building must go through InSite’s Site, Park and Building (Product) Client Readiness Assessment Program.

As a community, how do you determine the location of your next industrial park?  Sounds simple, right?  Yet why are so many Business/Industrial Parks empty/lacking companies?  In most cases, because they are SITED in the wrong location!  Who better to choose the location and development of an industrial park than InSite, a professional, third-party Site Selection firm?  Our team will take out any local politics or bias of the decision and maximize the future marketability of your new park.  Contact us for more information on how InSite can guide your community through the Industrial Park development process.

Building and mobilizing your local client response team is critical to your community’s economic development success.  These folks are the most important players in a community’s ability to respond to requests for information (RFIs) and ultimately to recruit jobs and investment to the area.  These folks should be mobilized and utilized for all economic development efforts, from program planning to every Request for Information (RFI) to client/prospect community and site visits.  

InSite will coach local economic development teams on how to improve their collective ability to respond to client’s request for information.  If this team is not aligned and effective, there is no chance for economic development recruitment of jobs and investment to succeed.  These entities play the most important role in the economic development industry.  InSite’s coaching will define each provider’s role as a response team member, emphasizing the demands being placed on economic development organizations by the client, along with behind-the-scenes elements of the site selection process.

Everyone community wants to know the secrets to managing the RFI process.  InSite pulls back the curtain of the mysterious RFI and coaches your team on how to ace the Client’s RFI.  After going through our process, we guarantee your team will dramatically improve your RFI responses and have the opportunity for more prospect visits.  We will give you feedback that you never receive from a client or consultant regarding your RFI (Request for Information) submission.

It is imperative that the audience is captivated in the beginning of any presentation providing only information necessary to make a site location decision. One of the biggest mistake’s communities make with the first impression is diluting the content of the presentation and community visit with information the client does not need. What does the client need?  InSite will provide you with all that critical information.  Learn how to grab your prospect’s attention, keep it for the entire site presentation, and close the deal.  InSite will assist you with conducting a virtual site visit with your local project team and providing you with immediate real-time feedback about the site and presentation.

Our principals have worked for economic development organizations at the local level, and we absolutely love visiting new communities and meeting local economic developers.   We enjoy brining critical “ah-ha” moments to our presentations, while also blending humor, real-life examples, and critical information to create a fun, yet informative atmosphere. 

Our training sessions run the gamut from laser-focused topics to high-level information.  We are willing to ask questions of state and local resources (utilities, landowners, developers, planning/zoning etc.) that may be uncomfortable for state or local economic development officials to ask. Roadblocks to having your sites selected and progress through a search are eliminated by asking the right questions and addressing issues and concerns in the correct manner.

What are our topics?  You tell us what you need communicated, addressed and how.

Who are our audiences?  You tell us who needs to hear what!

Although there are a multitude of economic development courses offered, InSite is the first Site Selection firm to teach true tactical training at the local level.  InSite has several courses that economic development entities can take advantage of from Site Selection 101 to how to build the math equation that gets your site development costs funded.  This first-ever training brings the client’s lingo into the economic developer’s world where the only language understood and spoken is that of the client.  Terms such as mineral rights and attainment should be household, economic development terms, just like they are for the site selection client.  InSite’s Economic Development Courses brings the two worlds together and coaches them to be one.

InSite is commonly found in front of from small to large corporate clients to small to large economic development organizations at the local, regional, and state levels.  We have a very informal, interactive, frank, and forthright approach.  We are honest and ethical in how and what we deliver to all audiences.  We are intentionally real, logical, relatable, relevant, fun, and approachable.

Did you know that site selection clients are now vetting sites based on the governing business retention and expansion plan?  InSite sees through our site selection clients’ eyes how communities, regions and states are missing the boat on delivering effective business retention and expansion programs.  The traditional way of executing these programs is causing clients to eliminate locations.  InSite can build a powerful, customized, client-driven business retention and expansion program that will not only benefit your existing companies but will be a powerful recruiting tool for new companies evaluating your location.

The strongest foundation for economic development success lies within how the economic development organization is structured and operates.  InSite knows the blueprint for how to attain full financial, staffing, and programmatic strength to become the best-in-class sustainable, competitive, economic development organization in the United States.  This includes InSite’s evaluating, making recommendations, and coaching on the following, but not limited to: 

• Corporate structure
• Board composition
• Program funding
• Staffing
• Stakeholders
• Local response team
• Office location
• Programs of work
• Effective Business Retention and Expansion program
• Marketing, communications, and public relations
• Performance matrix

We have all the checklists you need to execute an internal audit of your program and product.  It will include lists to include glossary of must know site selection terms; make-or-break your site, park, building (product) guide; virtual and in-person community visit presentation guide; how-to-guide on setting up the best-in-class virtual and in-person community visit.  These are only a few examples of the DIY Checklists/Guides we have to offer!