Dynamic Decisions Podcast

• Why institutional knowledge, from discount limits to call cadences, quietly sinks new hires
• The buddy system and "hierarchy of questions" that let two managers support 100 SDRs
• How to get adoption by treating a playbook rollout like a sale, with champions first
• A 90-day test for whether your enablement is actually working
• Why enablement is getting agents, not just training decks

A French company had four sites to choose from for a $450 million North American plant. It picked a Manitoba city of 15,000, and the owner explained why. Dr. Jean-Marc Nadeau, former Portage la Prairie city manager and now CEO of SUMA, tells the story, including a rebrand that went badly wrong.

• Why the owner of Roquette credited councils that weren't in conflict, and not just the incentives
• How a wastewater plant sized for 60,000 people was funded through a P3 and future tax revenue
• Questioning every internal process to rebuild reserves with no service cuts
• A two-year province-wide consultation that won 82% approval for a new governance model

Communication fails firstNadeau shows how to fix it before the investor walks in.

Jamie Nichols covers North Central Oklahoma for the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, and her job starts with asking who in a town is already selling outside it. One county believed it had maybe half a dozen micro businesses. Then someone pulled the data and found 500 registered. 

Even if only 25 of those are real and unseen, thats 25 businesses a community can help grow, and that is economic development. The makers are findable. You start with the mayor and the city clerk, then check the town Facebook page and the vendor fairs at street festivals.

Once you find them, you have to keep them, and keeping them takes more than goodwill. Jamie and Teasha Cable get into what holds a rural economy together:

• Retention beats recruitment every time. Each retention attempt teaches a town which resource it is missing, so the next maker is less likely to leave.

• When 150 jobs threaten community character, dont choose yes or no. Negotiate community benefits and ask what the town should get in return.

• Know what you own. The buildings you have, and the electric, gas, water, and internet each one carries, decide whether a growing business expands in your town or the next county over.

• Turn data into a story. A city council that is lost in a spreadsheet stops listening, and a council that hears the story acts on it

Jessica Olives has spent more than fifteen years inside nonprofit and public sector governance, including the Port of Seattle, King County Housing Authority, and the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority. Now she runs Mission Match, a nationwide platform where nonprofits search for board members by expertise, location, and cause instead of waiting for someone to answer a posting.

• What to do when the perfect skills match doesn't care about your mission: dig deeper first
• Why her first move on a dysfunctional board is the bylaws, not new recruits
• What nonprofits can borrow from public sector boards on record management
• How Strategic Doing's "what can we do now" questions work as a middle ground between a long-range plan and no plan

If your board runs on who you already know, start here.

Learn more:

CModel Data, Inc.

Mission Match

• Why treating Dutch Bros as a unicorn guarantees you never see another one, and what to ask instead
• A new Oregon tax credit for traded sector jobs: up to $1,000 per job, up to 10 jobs, for the 2026 tax year
• How reframing a grant application is following the rules, and the one case where Marta steps away
• Why new business starts and patent filings are the early signals she watches, and what a patent drop revealed
• Why you should never restructure your business just to qualify for a certification

• Why treating Dutch Bros as a unicorn guarantees you never see another one, and what to ask instead
• A new Oregon tax credit for traded sector jobs: up to $1,000 per job, up to 10 jobs, for the 2026 tax year
• How reframing a grant application is following the rules, and the one case where Marta steps away
• Why new business starts and patent filings are the early signals she watches, and what a patent drop revealed
• Why you should never restructure your business just to qualify for a certification
• Marta's scores on the four decision-making personas, and the one she pushed back on

Gloria Salinas runs growth strategy for one of the fastest growing cities in America, and she still says no to projects that don't fit the plan. As Chief Growth Officer for the Frisco Economic Development Corporation, she's helped turn a former farm town into a magnet for Fortune 500 headquarters, 16 corporate R&D centers, and a talent pool with double the national average of tech workers.

• How Frisco decides between infrastructure incentives and jobs based incentives on a case by case basis

• Why "soft incentives" like chamber membership and workforce task forces outlast the incentive dollar

• The difference between running economic development at the city, county, and regional chamber level

• Why Frisco leans into its startup ecosystem even though startups create jobs slower than headquarters relocations

If you work in economic development, site selection, or city growth strategy, this is the episode that shows you the math behind the headlines.

Kathleen Rose has spent 30+ years on both sides of the table: advising municipalities on real estate and economic development, and writing the checks as managing partner on South Main Square in downtown Davidson, North Carolina. She knows which plans lead to action and which ones collect dust. And she'll tell you, even when you'd rather not hear it.

• Why about 25% of every community plan repeats the same data, and how the Prosperity Builder Scorecard fixes it

• The two requirements in Amazon's HQ2 RFP that sent communities scrambling: quality of life and cultural fit

• Why talent attraction has replaced job attraction, and why housing now belongs in economic development strategy

• The unintended consequences of success: parking, traffic, and affordability

• How a small business incubator from her South Main Square "lab" became part of Davidson College's Hurt Hub

• Her decision persona results: 30% Feeler, 30% Planner, 25% Counter, 15% Data Driver

If your community has ever paid for a plan that went nowhere, start here.

Cornell Wesley left banking for an 88,000-person town in Arkansas, turned a $2 million fund into $30 million of economic activity in 11 months, and got a call from Washington asking how he did it. You'll love his response.

• Why tax abatements, infrastructure, and community benefits agreements all belong in the capital stack

• How the Coca-Cola bottling deal in Birmingham came together on a brownfield site

• Why he doesn't count construction jobs, and why clawbacks have to be written in up front

• The case that gentrification is a policy choice, and what cities owe the neighborhoods they disinvested in

• How Prosper Portland's community leadership committees changed who sets the agenda

If you work in economic development, this one will change how you read your next development agreement.

Peter Bishop spent years in commercial real estate before crossing over to run economic development for High Point, North Carolina, and it shows. In this conversation he explains how a vacant hosiery mill becomes market-rate apartments, why three rival cities agreed to stop competing against each other on incentives, and how one blended-wing aircraft startup is about to bring 14,500 jobs to a former textile town.

• How historic tax credits and a "local landmark" designation can cut a property's tax bill in half to make a stalled redevelopment pencil out
• Inside the Guilford County Economic Development Alliance, why Greensboro, High Point, and Winston-Salem agreed to never compete against each other on incentives
• The $30M downtown stadium bet that has already pulled in $400M of private investment and 1,500 new jobs
• What Jet Zero's blended-wing aircraft project means for the region, and the K-12-to-community-college pipeline built to staff it
• Why High Point's identity as the "home furnishings capital of the world" survived by shifting from manufacturing furniture to designing it
• The four-question decision-making persona test Peter takes live on air, and where he lands

If you've ever wondered what it actually takes to turn a legacy asset into tomorrow's economy, this one is required listening.