Minnesota modesty has its place -- but not in the intense competition for expanding or relocating companies and the badly needed jobs they create.
"The region has done a very poor job of marketing itself," said Bob Ady, president of Chicago-based Ady International, one of eight site selection firms that met in late June with prominent Twin Cities politicians and business leaders.
"We haven't been telling our story," agreed Todd Klingel, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Once told, it's a compelling, competitive story, according to Jonathan Sangster, senior managing director of commercial real-estate services firm CBRE in Atlanta. Sangster is impressed at "how competitive the region can be in doing projects, particularly in factors like competitive cost of business, cost of living and quality of life."
As the site selectors learned about our region, those tasked with attracting businesses here got an education on what companies around the country are looking for. Contrary to much business-climate rhetoric, taxes aren't the sole defining dynamic. Indeed, some of the qualities commonly demonized as job-killers are actually attractive to site selectors.
"Everybody thinks it's taxes, taxes, taxes," said Ady. "But it's really about labor, labor, labor. And in the three facets of labor -- costs, productivity and quality -- you hang in there very well."
On regionalism, the oft-derided Met Council is perceived as positive, if not as a cost of entry into the competition. "I'm a big fan of a regional organization working together for a common cause," said Sangster. "A regional approach is almost essential these days."
More broadly, collaboration across the community draws praise. "I was impressed with the public sector, private sector and academia working together," said Ady. "That kind of concerted effort is unusual. Usually they're in their own spheres and only talk because of a crisis."
