The other day, I was sitting at a bar in the Atlanta airport, waiting for my flight to begin boarding. Along with a couple fellow road warriors, we chatted about the life of a business traveler and thanked our lucky stars for our support teams. Although I had internet connection and my tablet, I was acutely aware of the vast amount of work taking place in my absence.
Our Team Makes Us Better
For anyone not aware of what it takes to manage a constant flow of economic development branding and marketing projects, our team includes brand strategists, writers, designers, public relations experts, videographers, web programmers, and a top flight project management team. When some of us are traveling to client meetings, conferences, speaking engagements, and an occasional vacation, the work still has to get done. It’s a beautifully-orchestrated thing, pushing projects through the pipeline, on time and on budget. With a workload that includes the development of community logos, slogans, websites, videos, brochures, e-mail campaigns, social media marketing, and countless other tactics, we couldn’t make it all happen without this group of professional marketers.
Our Advisors
We also understand that we don’t have all the answers. Our clients throw us new challenges almost every day, and when something comes up that’s a bit puzzling, we have an Advisory Board made up of industry leaders who almost always have an answer. This august group is made up of specialists in regionalism, workforce, business retention and expansion, site selection, and young professionals (YPs). Having such a great group of friends and advisors on our team helps us to better serve our clients and the economic development industry. Sometimes, we even bring these people directly into a client project, adding them to the paid professional team.
Our Allies
I learned a long time ago that there is no way that Brand Acceleration can, or should, try to be all things to all people. Because my philosophy is to do one thing, economic development marketing, and be the best in that category, we still seek avenues to serve client needs through allied relationships. Being the perfectionists that we are, we won’t send clients to just anyone. The last thing we want is to hear that we referred a client to a company that provided inferior service. Getting on our referral list is no easy task. We know these people very well before we ever refer them.
So, when our clients and friends have needs for such services as competitive analysis, workforce and skills assessment, strategic planning, site location advisement, lead generation, fund raising, incentives evaluation, GIS services, and several others, we can steer them to trustworthy leaders.
When my flight finally boarded, I left with confidence that over our eight years in business, we have put together a team that allows me to recline my seat, close my eyes, and know that all is well in my world.