Fall Prospecting Trips – New Vision Poised to Hit the Road

We are packing our bags in the weeks ahead, poised and ready to raise our Valley’s image as a business location.  New Vision staff will be making three trips over the next couple months to meet with prospective businesses and corporate site selectors.  I will be departing for California in September and plan to meet with at least five expanding companies during the trip.  We are joining forces with associates from Grant County and Spokane on the California mission, as it allows us to share upfront prospecting costs more effectively.

In October, New Vision staffer Lisa Smith heads to a site selector conference in Tuscon, Arizona.  She will have sales appointments with six to eight of these real estate professionals who help large companies choose new facility locations.  Maintaining and building relationships with these professionals is important.  Site selectors typically are involved in 30+ percent of all corporate expansion projects in the United States (and we thank them for bringing Wal-Mart Distribution and Whirlpool to the Yakima Valley).

After Lisa returns I make another prospecting trip with our partners from Moses Lake and Spokane.  This time our team heads up to British Columbia.  Again we expect to meet with at least five companies on this trip – perhaps more.

These are the first marketing excursions we have taken in 2010.  We purposely delayed some of these trips until later in the year because of economic uncertainty.  It seems like business is faring better now than it was at the start of 2010 so it will be interesting to see what these prospecting missions yield.  We are targeting companies whose competitive needs dovetail with our region’s strengths so hopefully our travels will help us discover some new business development opportunities.