Rick Weddle: Welcome to “Site Selection Matters,” where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, Robyn Domber, vice president of research for Development Counsellors International or DCI. They’re one of the leading place marketing firms in the nation. Today, Robyn Domber will talk with us about research and economic development and site location. More specifically, we will talk with Robyn about some of the research initiatives, DCI has undertaken on behalf of the Site Selectors Guild. Join me as we welcome Robyn Domber to “Site Selection Matters.” Robyn, the guild has undertaken a number of research initiatives over the last few months, including a Survey of Corporate Executives and their understanding of the site selection profession overall. Why is it important for the guild to conduct this type of research?

Robyn Domber: Sure. Well, first of all, thanks so much, Rick, for having me on the call today. You know, over the past few years, as a result of some pretty high-profile location decisions such as Amazon and Foxconn and others, you know, we’ve really seen the topic of site selection move from one that’s essentially only been discussed among corporate executives and consultants to something that’s really moved into the national and international headlines. So, we know what was out there in the media and you know, the stories around these location decisions, these high-profile location decisions that were being covered in the media, but the guild didn’t necessarily have a strong baseline metric and benchmark on how familiar corporate executives actually are with the site selection industry and professionals within that industry. So, it was really important, you know, for us to conduct a National Survey of Corporate Executives to really find out what is that actual level of familiarity beyond, you know, what they’re reading in the headlines. And we really wanted to take a deeper dive into the industry as a whole find out, you know, what their level of knowledge and interest in the industry was as well as their overall perceptions of that industry. And what we did is we ended up with 143 executives that weighed in, and I think the results were actually a little bit different than what we expected, which was important also. You know, we sort of had anecdotal evidence and sort of ideas of what the research would say, but actually having those hard and fast numbers, so it’s really important in setting that baseline, familiarity, and perception benchmark.

Rick: You know, Robyn, I learned a long time ago that the plural of anecdote is not data. So, a lot of times we find a lot of things we think people say or believe, we find out when we get to the data, it’s maybe a little bit different than that. Let’s unpack those findings if we can just a bit, what exactly did you find the study to reveal regarding maybe let’s just say the primary benefits of utilizing a site selection consultant over other professionals?

Robyn: Sure. Sure. So, it’s interesting because I think, you know, one of the more surprising findings was that we actually fo