July 2002
MAINE MEDIA & MARKETING
The secrets of selling Maine
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
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Started in 1995, Maine & Company recently helped bring more than 100 jobs to South Portland with J.W. Seligman, an investment company based in New York City.
Eager to know how Maine & Company landed an employer paying wages that don't require one to have a night job and family money, I asked Mr. Wischerath for an overview of all that goes into bringing viable businesses to the state.
Kimberly McCall: How does Maine & Company attract potential Maine employers such as J.W. Seligman?
L. Joseph Wischerath: Maine & Company conducts marketing outreach programs throughout the country for two purposes: Promoting Maine as a good place to do business and generating business attraction leads. The marketing outreach programs are a function of the amount of marketing funds available in any given year. The marketing programs include: Attending trade shows for targeted industry sectors, attracting site location consultants (through the "Showcase Maine" program), company visits, and a quarterly newsletter sent to our database of national site locators and corporate contacts.
Showcase Maine has been particularly successful. It's a program that brings qualified national site location consultants into the state. Site location consultants are used by most companies that are either relocating or expanding their operations. Maine & Company founded Showcase Maine in 1996 and has brought more than 60 consultants into the state. This program has enabled Maine & Company to establish contacts all over the U.S. and, more importantly, to serve as a source of business attraction leads.
Maine & Company learned about Seligman Data Corp. through one of our Showcase Maine alumni. Over the period of three years we provided significant amounts of data, hosted approximately 10 visits, and basically did whatever was necessary to meet Seligman's needs. Originally there were 16 cities along the east coast under consideration, and after two years it was whittled down to South Portland and Raleigh, N.C. During the last year, Maine & Company, working in concert with Harnden and Associates, was able to provide all the information and support necessary for Seligman to ultimately select Maine over North Carolina.
McCall: How is Maine & Company funded?
Wischerath: Maine & Company is basically funded by private companies. Since the private sector funds are not adequate to cover the necessary marketing programs, the state of Maine has provided marketing funds during fiscal years 1999, 2000, and 2001.
McCall: What are the state's biggest business draws?
Wischerath: Maine's biggest draws are a function of whether or not the client is a small or a large company. Small companies generally involve the relocation of one or more of the principals and therefore a relatively high emphasis is placed on quality-of-life issues.
Larger companies tend to do a much wider geographic search than smaller companies. Although the location variables are weighted differently from company to company, they all generally include the following factors: Workforce (quality/skill levels, cost, availability), cost of doing business (electric, telecommunications, taxes, real estate), real estate availability, infrastructure availability (telecommunications, airports, highways, rail) and to some degree, quality of life, particularly if someone will be moving with the company.
For larger companies, the biggest draws include the workforce (once we demonstrate skilled workers exist, then the work ethic sells well) and telecommunications infrastructure. In some cases, the cost of doing business [in Maine] is competitive only after incentives are factored in. Without a doubt, incentives are a factor in determining where companies locate.
McCall: What are the state's biggest business drawbacks?
Wischerath: Some of the drawbacks include the fact that Maine is perceived as strictly "vacationland" and, therefore, not technically sophisticated. Other drawbacks include a shortage of skilled labor in many areas of the state, a shortage of high quality commercial real estate, a lack of direct flights from most of Maine's airports, and in some cases, a lack of confidence in Maine's business climate.
McCall: How can a small-business person be part of drawing new businesses to the state?
Wischerath: Any small-business person who has knowledge of companies considering relocating or growing could contact Maine & Company. We would be happy to work with anyone in the state to try to move more businesses here. The most challenging aspect of business attraction is learning about prospective companies before they have made a decision to locate somewhere else. Unfortunately, Maine is not initially considered by most companies, and as such, the sooner we learn about a prospective company, the better our chance of success will be.
McCall: We all talk about quality of life being a factor for working and living in Maine. It's like some kind of mantra we repeat. But is our quality of life really an attraction for prospective new businesses, or is this just what we tell ourselves to make it through ice storms and such?
Wischerath: Quality of life plays a role, particularly with small companies. But, it should be cautioned that, although many of us live here for quality-of-life reasons, not everyone views Maine's quality of life as exceptional. It's different from person to person. Quality of life also plays a role for larger companies, but to a lesser extent. Larger companies are much more objective in their decision making process and only after key business criteria are met does quality of life generally come into play. Quality of life will not make the deal if the other factors are not present.
McCall: What's the single largest thing our state government can do to warm up the Maine business climate?
Wischerath: Although there are a host of good ideas that should be entertained to improve Maine's business climate, the single largest one would be to stabilize the programs we already have in statute. Unfortunately, many business climate related programs are constantly under siege in every legislative session (BETR and workers' compensation, for example).
This causes companies to seriously consider whether or not Maine is truly committed to improving, or even maintaining, its business climate. Companies prefer a stable legislative environment and, given a choice, will seek out locations that demonstrate a long-term history of supporting business. The economy is very competitive and companies will naturally locate where the opportunities are the greatest.
It has been Maine & Company's experience that Maine can successfully compete for new businesses, as recently demonstrated by the success with the Wal-Mart distribution center in Lewiston and the Seligman Data Corp. operations center. However, Maine must market itself better, and more consistently, if we hope to show up on the radar screens of site location consultants and corporate decision makers. The State must commit to a long term support of business attraction marketing.
Kimberly McCall is a writer and the president of McCall Media & Marketing, Inc., a business communications company in Freeport, Maine. The monthly "Sales Force" columnist and frequent contributor for Entrepreneur magazine, McCall also contributes to inc.com and The Wall Street Journal’s StartupJournal.com. Sign up for her free marketing bulletin at www.MarketingAngel.com or contact McCall at 207-865-0055.