Episode 12 | LIVE from the #AmericanSouth Site Selection Summit | An interview with Colleen Walton, and a Day One Recap with SEDC President Matt Tackett

Welcome to the SEDC Meet the Consultants 2023 coming to you from Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, I'm Ray Methvin and I have happily hijacked the SEDC podcast for the next couple of days. We're going to spend a few minutes talking to the different people that make the SEDC such a wonderful organization. Stay tuned, folks. ♪♪♪ And I'm here with Colleen Walton of Brand Acceleration. Hi, Colleen. How are you? I'm doing very well. How are you? I'm doing well. It's good to see you at the end of day one at SEDC. Tell us a little bit about Brand Acceleration. Teach me. Brand Acceleration is a full service marketing firm that works exclusively with economic developers. Mostly small and midsize communities, they'll bring us in to be part of their marketing team. So we do everything, the big stuff that you would think of, like websites, e-mailers, brochures. But if you're going to a trade show and you need a booth designed or you're going to hand out swag and you want your pens with your logo on it, we do all of that as well. Social media marketing strategy, pretty much everything that you're going to need from a marketing firm, we do, but only with economic developers. Okay. And you've been a long time SEDC member supporters. Talk about your association with SEDC. Yeah, so I've been a member of SEDC probably ten years. I've been in this role about twelve years. So basically, I've been an SEDC member the whole time. Up until about a year and a half ago, my territory was the SEDC region. It's now expanded to include the Midwest as well, but I am very familiar with the region. Very familiar with SEDC. I'm a member of some of their state associations as well. And best education that I come for, and I also really love the networking opportunities here. It's just a great group of people. I'm just kind of seeing familiar faces and building those relationships is what makes so much of this so successful. Right. Now, you're on a panel tomorrow, right? Yes. What do you want to talk about? So I'm on a panel that's kind of best practices for the entirety of a site selection process. So I'm talking about the marketing piece of it. So kind of pre-project, you're just marketing the community, you're trying to get in front of site selectors, kind of pitch your place. Then the session's going to move into kind of the deal negotiation process, and then finally kind of wrapping up at the end. So the part that I really want to get across is that marketing is about being involved in every step of the process. It's really obvious at the beginning, because I'm selling my community, I'm getting out in front of people, but then it kind of stops once the project starts. So what I'm talking about a lot is how do you sell a project to your community? How do you get in front of your constituents and show them this is what it's going to do for the community? Here's what we're getting out of it. Here's other things that will come because this business is coming. And then kind of also getting everybody on board with it. So when somebody comes in and does a site visit and they're talking to your electric company and they're talking to your schools, everybody's saying the same thing. And they've all got the same talking points that they're going from, everybody's stats are correct. So kind of treating it the entire process of something that needs marketing help and not just that beginning piece. Cool, cool. Well, thank you for sitting down for a second and talking to us. Now I have three very important questions for you. Dogs are cats. I am a cat person. I am currently, I have two cats on my own, one walks on a leash like a dog. And I also have a feral colony that I help take care of on my street and there's about 12 cats in that. Really? Yes. I love dogs. I'm just too lazy for dogs. I don't like getting up in the morning. I live in a place where it rains a lot and I don't want to be standing out there in the rain with them. So no, I'm a cat person. Okay, cool. I love cats. Question two. Okay. Bourbon or Scotch? Neither. Neither. I know that's a very controversial thing to say, but neither. We are at an SEDC time. I know. So yeah, just never been really a brown liquor person anyway. Okay. Yeah. More of a beer girl. Okay. So let's go beer IPA or Lager. IPA for sure. Cool. Love it. Easy IPA. I knew I liked you for the start. Yes. Good deal. Good deal. Okay. Final question. Two final questions. Your favorite southern airport? I'm going to say Atlanta. I'm a delta girl, so I fly through Atlanta all the time. I was actually telling some people earlier. There's only my second time to Atlanta, the city. But I've flown through the airport over a hundred times. I landed yesterday, got off my plane. I'm kind of standing there and I'm like, I don't know how to leave the airport because I've just never done it. So I just kind of wandered around for a little bit to figure it out. You know, people give Atlanta a lot of crap because it's big and it's busy, but the layout makes a lot of sense. It's easy to get in and out of. You just get on the train. You go. So yeah. Atlanta. Okay. Let's flip it. Okay. What is your most dreaded US airport? I've had a heck of a time getting in and out of Newark, New Jersey. You're the second vote for Newark as Big New York. Yeah, I'm not shocked. I'm not shocked. Yeah. A few years ago, had a lot of trouble getting in there, a lot of trouble getting out. And when they canceled my flight to get in there, they had me fly into LaGuardia because I think that they think that if you're going to any of those three airports, you're going to Manhattan, like the rest of New York doesn't exist. I'm like, no, no, I'm actually in New Jersey. That's why I want to go to the New Jersey airport. So Plains, James, Nautimobiles trying to get home. So yeah, new work for sure. I get it. Well, Colleen Walton with Brand Acceleration. Thanks for spending a few minutes with us and thanks for being here at Meet the Consult. Yeah. Thank you for having me. All right. All right. We're back with Matt Tackett, SCDC President Matt. Give us a day one round up. Well, I'll tell you. So I've got plenty of rounding up to do, but the highlight of my day by far is to be with Ray Methvin. Here I am at the SCDC Podcast Table. I have heard we should actually, we should have spoke about this off air because I have a bone to pick with you here. I have heard that the podcast is so much better when you're the host and you're just better at this than me. So, oh, Matt, go on. No, seriously, go on, please. Thank you so much for doing this. You know, aside from the conference and the opportunity for all of us as a people, as an SCDC to just convene, it has been a lot of fun today too. We've been here on the podcast table. KJ, our communications chair, has been doing interviews and quick hit videos and there's been a photographer. It's just felt so energetic. I'm sure you've already said this, but we're in the exhibit hall at Meet the Consultants recording this podcast and we have never had an exhibit hall for one, for two. We have definitely never had a podcast. So aside from just all that these conferences are supposed to be, honestly, the highlight, one of the highlights, one of two is just how much fun it's been. You've been a big part of this. Well, thank you. Let's talk about the fact that this breaks records for attendance. Yeah, no doubt. So that's the other highlight. So within this event, we have 325, 330 economy builders. And I say economy builders for a reason. Last year in 2022, our SCDC states and our members generated about $200 billion worth of new corporate investment in the American South. That will create 250,000 new jobs. The people that are in these halls are responsible for the South's ascension as the world's third largest and the best prepared economy. We're $10 trillion of the US GDP. Repeat that, please. That's amazing. Trillion with the T. We are a very sophisticated, very powerful, impactful, transformative group. So when you put these people together, really my thing as an SCDC is just to get out of the way. Get out of the way. You all be together, discuss trans perspectives, opportunities, talk momentum, just talk amongst each other and innovate. So we're bringing together the site selection consultants, the ones that are representing and locating business deals all over the world and in the American South, connecting them with stakeholders, with experts like Ray. Ray was, you had a great panel today. It was so good. And just connecting them with all of the powers, all of the players that be specific to economic development, put them in the room together, what's going to happen next. We can't wait. So really just what a powerful opportunity this is. Highlight number one, highlight number two. I don't know that we've ever had a funner one for two. It feels so energetic. So 325 people for one is about triple what we had last year. Or probably not. People know how I am by now. But it's not exactly tripled. It's almost tripled. But it is more than the last couple of meet the consultants combined, maybe more than the last three. The energy is more than tripled though. Yeah. And you're such a big part of this. How's the day been for you out here on the podcast? The day has been great. I've had a great time doing the podcast. And I'll say what I said early on. Highjacking this podcast has really give me the opportunity to talk to folks that I might not have talked to otherwise. We've had some really good conversations. It's letting me get in front of a couple of site selectors and ask them questions that I want to hear the answers for rather than what they're maybe just spilling out because there's a different audience. So it's been really exciting. So much fun. And really, Highjack is the right word now. Probably weekly when Matthew and I do this thing, we're the ones Highjacking because it is the SEDC podcast presented by Insightful. And we're so thankful for you providing this opportunity for us because I've seen the table over here. I've seen the people you've been interviewing. I mean, just what a great opportunity for all of us to connect as an organization, association in a different type of media, which happens to be the way people really like to consume things right now. That's exactly right. What a great opportunity. So now the challenge for us is, okay, how are we going to cut all this up? How are we going to disseminate it? What do we do? Is it one long podcast? Is it a bunch of snippets? We're not totally sure, but we know you've got such gold on this machine here. I don't even know how to work. Great. Well, let's talk about tomorrow. Play the hits for tomorrow. What's going to happen? Okay. Let's play the hits for tomorrow. Well, why don't we walk through day one too? Good. So we started out. So today was the full day. Leading site consultants, leading industry experts, we started the day off with global site selection trends and perspectives. Darren Bulo isn't one of the key panelists on that. I know you were interviewing him. We followed that up with the product development session. You know, key for us is speed to market. Quick risk-free site selection experiences and quick operationalizations. So important for us. We had a great session there. Followed that up with the general site selection panel. Great all-star site selectors coming on really having fun with each other too. It was so fun just to watch them talk about economic development, talk about where we're going, where we need to be, but just to have fun. Then we come into the luncheon. As an SEDC, we're not really a luncheon speaker, luncheon content type of organization until today. We had the EDA chief, assistant secretary of commerce for economic development. She's the head of EDA, Alejandro Castillo, who absolutely gave a beautiful keynote speech in our luncheon. What a well-spoken person. Well-spoken, confident. She encouraged interactions with our people. We all had the chance as a family to ask questions and it was just a really cool forum that we're so appreciative of. But she's definitely dynamic. Definitely dynamic. We're going to continue to grow relationships and opportunities with her. So you're not done seeing her as part of SEDC. So we think her for joining, but we really enjoyed that luncheon. Great food too. We had catfish there. I know, it was good. That's what I ate on the way out. We come back from lunch, we do a supply chain and logistics forum with leading transportation logistics experts. I really like that one. That was a different kind of thing for us, but we really, really enjoy it. Then here comes the gold session. Who are these folks? Yeah, yeah. So here was the best, the gold session for all of you that missed it. We haven't recorded. This was Ray's session. Leveraging technology to accelerate economic development. What an interesting panel that was. I'd love your take on it too because you think about, there were six speakers on stage. Six leaders, six experts really respected people, but you had, say, you on one perspective of economic development technology, then you had data, then you had site selectors. I mean, it was a really kind of dynamic kind of panel. Because you all were so focused on different verticals within technology, I was not concerned it's not the right word, but I was wondering, how is this going to come together and what's the final product going to look like? I knew it would be great, but I just didn't know how you all put it together, but I thought that one was a home run. Good, I'm glad you liked it. I really liked it. I learned, I learned from the other folks talking on stage. It was so fun and your all's interactions with each other was cool to see too. So I loved that panel. I'm not just telling you that. That was one of the more enjoyable ones for me. Plus, such, you know, that's one that happens to be a lot of our great friends. We're on that panel as well that we know better than some of the others. So we loved that one. Then, you know, a recurring theme throughout any economic development conference you're going to come to. Workforce, workforce, workforce. So then we had a session about people power. How do you prepare a winning workforce and how do you leverage that opportunity to accelerate your local economic development? And that was led by three leading site selectors. And we had the Secretary of Economic Development from the state of Louisiana who is, and you know this, just world renowned, one of the best friends of all of us, one of the highest regarded economic developers in the world, honestly, in the world. Great friend to us, Secretary Pearson. So we were so honored to have him as part of the session. He's an honorary life member of SEDC. So you'll continue to see him through the years to come as well. Then we followed it up with something totally different for us. The audience really for our final session was the site consultants because we happen to have so many of them. By the way, who are all hanging out throughout the life of the event. Yeah, we love that. Ray and I are recording this right now when there's a VIP reception happening where they all are. So I'm sure we'll go there after this. But we had a bunch of walliers come in and just give a breakdown, a comparative look at different state and local and senate tools that the American South deploys so successfully. So really for as informative as that was, and I think other states and communities can learn. That was really to communicate with the consultants. So that was great. That's a great first day. Jam-packed, jam-packed day. We went through a couple of breaks there, which typically I'm not a break kind of guy. I like to just keep it going. But I know we need our breaks. You know, I've heard that too, SEDC by the way. We will have more breaks as we go forward. Okay. Give us a sneak peek at tomorrow. What's going to happen? Sneak peek. Okay. Day and a half tomorrow. Quick in, quick out. So we're going to have a great breakfast. I have not ate the food here yet, but I'm told that the conference food is really good. So 8 AM breakfast, we'll all be there, have a good time. Then we go into finally decoding it, our FDI session. So we're really excited about that. We have leading FDI experts. We have leading energy experts, community representatives, just to talk about, look, how are you being successful? How can you be successful? What's FDI in the American South? Look like what are the trends? What are some characteristics that are informing the future of FDI and economic development? And how do we really, as a southern family here, come together and just leverage and continue to run? We bring in as a 17 state collaborative, about 50% of the US FDI. I bet you we can excel it. I bet that can grow. I know that can grow and I know it will. So we'll have a great conversation about that as our morning session. Then here come the construction crews. We'll follow that up with the design and build session with the American South's leading design build firms. And I've watched their practice session really fascinating. It's really fascinating, especially if at least for me, I'm totally ignorant to that side of what we do. And it's just really neat to hear their perspective about here's how it works from our side. So informative. So I think that will be really cool for our members and the consultants as well. There's so many key data points and considerations that they will lay out. Then what will be the second to last session? This one's really cool. We played around with a lot of different titles, but it was always something like, here's the secret sauce to how to win. So I think I'm looking at our program, differentiating your community to win the deal. So I guess somebody said secret sauce is too informal or something. But this is the time for local economic developers to come in and talk about, here's how we do what we do, and here's why we've been successful. Here's our secrets and really it's just about here are some best practices to land projects. So a really, really neat panel. So we have Jana Dyke, who's on our executive committee. She is in Albany, Georgia. So for those of you that know that community, not a huge community, not a small community, but she's very successful there. Then you have Rick Games, who's a great friend of mine in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. You may know that community because they landed the Ford project, $5 billion Ford projects in 2021. Then you have Jeff Ruble of Richland County Economic Development, Scout Motors, just did that deal. Two transformative, transformative deals. How do they do that? How do they do that? How long did it take? How are, talk about how intentional you are to prepare yourself for that type of announcement? So just talk to us about that. So I can't wait to hear from those two. You know, by the way, we have a marketing expert there as well, who can really lend some good best practices from that perspective, just the same as you have this whole week. So we also have a site consultant. It's not in the program, Brooklyn Salimi from Newmark, who's been on the local side too, who will absolutely just come in and put in gold nuggets worth from a site consultant as well. So can't wait for that one. Then the final one, we're bringing all a bunch of consultants back together. Looks like there are five of them for American Sal site selection part two, which will really be a continuation started by another group of consultants the day before, just to talk about here's where we are in general and here's where we know we can go once we all implement collaborative strategies together. So that's a jam-packed day, nine to 12, within a small chunk of time. So it's really one of those can't miss days. So we didn't tell people this before. We didn't want them to know, but we have every bit of this recorded. So on video, so we'll make sure that it's available for our members after the conference for those that couldn't make it. Nice. Matt Tackett, you've done a wonderful job. This has been a blast today. Thank you for letting us all be part of this. And let's have an exciting tomorrow. Oh, I've got, can I put you on the hot seat here? I'm putting you on the hot seat. No, you put me on the hot seat first, then I'm putting you on the hot seat. Okay. Who's the best interview today and who's the worst interview today? You can't answer that. I'm not going to ask that either way. I have, there have been because it's been such a great cross section, site selectors, local economic developers, consultants, exhibitors, providers. It's been really interesting to hear all the different perspectives. So it's all a win. There are no least favorite out of it. It's been fun watching you and I'll come through with my little phone and just kind of feel creepy and snap pictures. So just because I think this is so cool. And honestly, this is just how serious I am. I keep turning and watching like are people seeing us right now? Like I feel kind of like a little bit of a rock star here. Thanks for doing this. Okay. Now, easy question hot seat for you. Four questions. Oh geez. Easy breezy. Catcher dogs. Dogs. Bourbon or Scotch? Bourbon for sure. Absolutely bourbon. That's the only answer. That's Brandon bourbon. Mmm. Kentucky bourbon. What brand of... Okay. I can't. Okay. So I used to lead the Kentucky Association for Economic Development. I'll get in trouble. I'll get in trouble. Okay. Here's my work around cop out answer. When we used to go on marketing trips when I was the lead at KAD, I would only buy bottles of Woodford Reserve because I thought they were pretty interesting looking bottles. You could also engrave them. They were really neat show pieces. Cool. So I bought a ton of Woodford Reserve back in my day. Here's a question you've asked me in the past and I'm going to ask it to you. Number one, your favorite southern airport. Okay. Okay. Well, so I won't say Lexington, Kentucky. I love Lexington because quick in and out you can park a football field away. You're on your plane in five minutes. So if I can't say that, I really enjoy Atlanta. A lot of people don't like Atlanta, but I do. Every gate has great food. Every gate has a Delta terminal. But that's a big airport. We'll go little. I really like the Birmingham airport. Okay. Because it's fairly big, but it's not crowded. There's great food there. They lean into Alabama football, which is really cool. But I was recently in the Savannah airport. And I really liked it. I really liked that one. Leaning into PGA, great food, quiet, but it still had everything you might need. It had spars going on, had its food. It was also easy and easy out. So after all that said, I don't want to answer. I'll say Atlanta, just because I don't want to offend any of the great smaller airports that I may really be thinking. Yeah. I get it completely. Now let's flip it. Okay. Absolutely most dreaded airport in the US. Oh gosh. See you would think maybe some people would say some of the larger ones too. The most dreaded. You know, I actually, I don't know if I have an answer because most of the time I'm connecting. And people that know me know that I fly a lot and I'm a nervous flyer. I don't like to fly. Makes me scared. That's why I like my Delta lounges and you know, can get my drinks and this and that. So typically I don't like flying, but I love being in airports. It's just time to be quiet and listen to my headphones or whatever it is. But I'll tell you my most dreaded airport in the world. So not the US. Okay. Paris by far. Paris, it's so difficult. I've always had trouble there. You know, the terminals are difficult I think. Not good food, but I just came through Europe again a couple of weeks ago and it's like, okay, you're in Paris, you know, get ready to spend the night unexpectedly. You know, so I just, that's my least favorite. I think it's like the third or fourth busiest airport in the world. They've got a lot going on. They try. God bless them. But that's probably my most dreaded. Good answers and you successfully danced around the answers on a couple of them. So good work. Matt Tackett. Wonderful first day. Thank you for rounding this up. We'll talk again tomorrow. Have a good evening. Great fine. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. the next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.