Join the 2022 National BR|E Benchmarking Challenge!
Open to all Economic Development Organizations
In Partnership with:
Benchmarks = Context
No matter what BR|E interview guide you use,
without CONTEXT, results are just numbers!
“If you have a BR|E program, you need to be in this ground-breaking Challenge project!” Ken Poole, CEO, CREC
The 2022 National BR|E Benchmarking Challenge!
We heard you…. Summer is not the time for the BR|E Benchmarking. Many of you focus on a spring visit schedule. Therefore, the 2022 National BR|E Benchmarking Challenge will be held March 1st – May 15th, covering 60 business days. The goal of the Benchmarking Challenge is to set national and hopefully regional benchmarks for critical issues we discuss in business retention. Issues like workforce, employment recovery, business growth, plans to expand, growth barriers, and community issues.
These benchmarks are vital to our understanding of local issues. They provide context. CREC in association with C2ER, Business Retention and Expansion International (BREI), and the Synchronist User Community are continuing the national benchmarking project; with YOUR help. Our goal is to interview 2,000 primary (or ‘traded’) sector business executives to gauge the health of our most important community assets, primary sector businesses and the challenges they face.
Participant Benefits
- Inform/educate leadership with local results framed in a national context (priceless!)
- Get full access to the National Benchmark Report with analysis and historic benchmarks to provide context for your local interview results
- Obtain FREE access to Synchronist for this project to input your data and download the data for your internal customer relationship management system
- Enhance your public brand with sample pre and posts-survey press release for local use
Our Sponsors
Demonstrate your BR|E Prowess
Awards and Recognition*
- BEST INDIVIDUAL EFFORT
1st $250 Visa Gift Card and 2nd $150 Visa Gift Cards - BEST TEAM EFFORT
1st $400 Visa Gift Card and 2nd $200 Visa Gift Cards - BEST DATA QUALITY
1st $200 Visa Gift Card and 2nd $100 Visa Gift Cards - BEST STATE and BEST REGIONAL Effort
1st and 2nd place winners - BEST SPONSOR AWARD
1st and 2nd place winners
Benchmarks
The Benchmark Report and Analysis will be provided free to all qualified participants.
The benchmarks will be set using the aggregate information collected by you and your economic development peers across the US. All interviewers will use the standardized Synchronist interview tool that has been tested and proven effective. Aggregate data will be captured at the end of the project period to set a range of 25 to 30 national benchmarks on business as well as community performance. If the footprint of data supports it, regional benchmarks will also be set.
Requirements
The Challenge is open to any organization involved in economic development
- Complete 20 or more one-on-one executive interviews using the standard Synchronist interview in 60 business days, from
March 2st to May 15th. - Input responses online, participants will have free access to Synchronist for online data entry and reporting
Why Benchmark BR|E?
Everyone is saying employers have a workforce availability problem right now. But what does that really mean? And, how do we translate that into local action?
What statement is more likely to get action?
- The CEO of the EDC says we need a workforce recruitment program.
- It seems like all of our employers are telling us they are having trouble getting employees?
- Our business retention interview tell us that 30% or our employers are having serious problems recruiting employees here.
- When compared to our regional and national peers, we have a serious worker recruitment problem. When business executives rank workforce availability, we have the fewest positive rankings. Local 1.6:1; Regional 3.25:1 and National 4:1.
- This graphic shows our competitive challenge with workforce recruitment.
Local executive interview results can tell you if you have a problem, box on graph. But only benchmark data can tell you if that problem that rises to the level of a competitive disadvantage.
In this graphic, we look at the ratio of executives giving the community a high-ranking for workforce availability (5, 6, 7; highly available) vs a low ranking (1, 2, 3) for one community: National 4:1; Regional 3.25:1 and Local 1.6:1 (51% gave a high ranking while 30% gave a low ranking). By showing the local benchmark with regional and national peers it becomes absolutely clear this community has a significant workforce challenge or competitive dis advantage to be addressed.
Every community has a number for every question asked. The Challenge will give the workforce problem – and other business/community issues – a meaning with up-to-the-minute, contextual information.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is BR|E?
BR|E is the abbreviation for Business Retention and Expansion. A foundational program in a comprehensive economic development strategy.
Confidentiality. Is our data confidential?
Yes. Every participant will have an independent database and login within the Synchronist software. Your data will not be available to anyone outside your group/organization. For the study, the data will only be used in aggregate for national and perhaps, if data is available, for regional benchmarks. Care will be taken to preserve the confidentiality of data for all participants as it has been for Synchronist users for 20+ years.
Why Prime businesses only and not Main Street too? Main Street is hurting?
Main Street businesses and Primary sector businesses have different risk, growth, and value drivers. These business dynamics are critical to understanding the drivers of a specific company and their needs from the community. Therefore, in Synchronist we have always separated these interview guides to drill down into the important issues of each sector.
Yes, Main Street firms are hurting, but the community drivers for most communities are the primary sector companies which draw new money into the community. They are also at different stages of post-COVID recovery. Therefore, it makes sense to focus on Prime first.
And finally, as a first-ever National BR|E Benchmarking Challenge, it is important to keep it simple. Focusing on one sector helps minimize the confusion for participants and organizers. Main Street can come later if we are successful with the Prime Challenge.
What is a Prime company?
Prime is short-hand for primary sector business. A primary sector company does at least 51% of their business in multiple states, nationally, or globally or sells product into the supply chain for these companies. Primary sector companies include service as well as manufacturing companies. Headquarters, back office, insurance, media, software companies can be prime companies. The deciding factor is where the product or service is sold/used.
What is a Main Street business?
A Main Street business is a business that sells to individuals who live in or travel through a trade area. Main Street businesses include: accommodations, food & beverage, retail, tourism, convention, entertainment, recreation, and local services are examples.
What about State and Federal government, large health care, college and universities? Are they Prime or Main Street?
State, federal, colleges and universities all draw money into the community from outside the community. Their workforce challenges are more like those of a manufacturing company. Therefore, they can be considered Prime companies for the purpose of the Challenge interviews.
Can I see the interview form before we commit to the BR|E Challenge?
Absolutely! The Synchronist Prime interview guide can be downloaded HERE and reviewed before you make your decision.
Benchmark Layers and Examples
At minimum, each participant will have national and local benchmarks. The national benchmarks will be provided in a report available to all qualified participants. If participation/data supports it, the report could also include additional benchmark layers:
- Regional
- Rural and Urban
Examples of benchmarks include essentially every answer to every question on the interview guide as well as sub-part. Our working group will ultimately decide which ones make the report. The following represent over 30 benchmarks and are those most often requested by Synchronist users over the years.
- Company life cycle status
- Workforce: Availability, Quality, Stability, and
- Productivity
- Workforce recruitment problems
- Workforce skill gaps
- Plans to expand
- Room to expand
- Real estate requirements (new)
- Supply chain disruptions (new)
- Barriers to growth
- Utility services
- Community services
Why Benchmark BR|E?
Everyone is saying employers have a workforce availability problem right now. But what does that really mean? And, how do we translate that into local action?
What statement is more likely to get action?
- The CEO of the EDC says we need a workforce recruitment program.
- It seems like all of our employers are telling us they are having trouble getting employees?
- Our business retention interview tell us that 30% or our employers are having serious problems recruiting employees here.
- When compared to our regional and national peers, we have a serious worker recruitment problem. When business executives rank workforce availability, we have the fewest positive rankings. Local 1.6:1; Regional 3.25:1 and National 4:1.
- This graphic shows our competitive challenge with workforce recruitment.
Local executive interview results can tell you if you have a problem, box on graph. But only benchmark data can tell you if that problem that rises to the level of a competitive disadvantage.
In this graphic, we look at the ratio of executives giving the community a high-ranking for workforce availability (5, 6, 7; highly available) vs a low ranking (1, 2, 3) for one community: National 4:1; Regional 3.25:1 and Local 1.6:1 (51% gave a high ranking while 30% gave a low ranking). By showing the local benchmark with regional and national peers it becomes absolutely clear this community has a significant workforce challenge or competitive dis advantage to be addressed.
Every community has a number for every question asked. The Challenge will give the workforce problem – and other business/community issues – a meaning with up-to-the-minute, contextual information.
The goal is 20 executive interviews. Is that there a limit on the number of interviews we can conduct?
No, there is no limit on the number of executive interviews you can conduct; however, there is a time limit for data entry which is Tuesday, August 31st.
How do I sell this to my existing business (BR|E) or leadership team?
As with any BR|E program, the focus is on building and reinforcing relationships with your critical existing business executives. The Challenge is an opportunity to:
- First, benchmarks are invaluable for influencing decisions and allocating resources to maximize the impact of available.
- If your organization has a business retention program, they may not be aware of the Challenge. Making them aware may be all it takes.
- If your organization has a structured program with a specific interview guide, the questions may be different, but many will be similar. Therefore, many of the benchmarks should be relevant to your historic data as well as the fresh Challenge data.
- If your organization has not had a business retention program, this is a simple, no risk way to try one.
- Use the Challenge and summer months to accelerate business engagement in your community.
How will the benchmarks help if we have historically used a different interview guide?
Many of the questions on the Synchronist Prime interview are commonly used questions asked by many economic development organizations. The wording may be slightly different, but the focus is similar. Therefore, the benchmarks generated by the BR|E Summer Challenge should also be relevant to your historic data, not just the results of the 20 Challenge interviews. The Synchronist Prime interview can be downloaded and reviewed.
Can I recruit partners for the BR|E Challenge?
Yes, you can recruit partners to be involved in the BR|E Summer Challenge. There are two types of partners.
Inside partners would be individuals from your own staff, interns, or volunteers. You can give them a login to your dataset to add companies, contacts, or input data from executive interviews.
External partners would be individuals in other economic development organizations in your region (a multi-community or county area). External partners could participate as an independent Challenge organization and they would have their own, separate login and data set to ensure confidentiality. Then, at the end of the Challenge, partners in your region could combine results (we can help) to see the benchmarks within your region for another level of comparison. (Note: There are 2 awards for recruiting external partners to work together in this fashion.)
We do not normally interview business executive interviews. Can we still participate?
Absolutely! Any organization involved in economic development is eligible to participate. Experience is not required. There is no cost.
How will we be trained on the Synchronist Suite software for data entry?
Live training sessions will be offered to all participants. The live sessions will be recorded and recordings will be made available. In addition, there will be short how-to videos aids on key topics. All recordings will be available via the Synchronist Help menu. Finally, you will also have access to live assistance when needed.
How do I load company and contact data?
Companies can be loaded with as little as 5 required fields. Date, Company Type (Prime), Name, Zip Code, NAICS. Contacts have only 2 required fields, First and Last name. That is everything needed to record an executive interview.
How should I select the 20 companies to be interviewed in my community?
You should select important, economic driver companies. The list frequently includes: largest employers, fastest growing companies, best paying companies, and highly recognized companies. Companies should be from a mix of 4 or 5 subset such as, manufacturing, distribution, food processing, insurance, construction. Therefore, it would not necessarily be your top 20 employers. Having a mix will give you a good cross section of your primary sector business base. That will result in responses that are characteristic of the business community, not just a single or limited perspective of the business issues.
To complete 20 executive interviews, we recommend you begin with a list of 50 companies. Some will not be available within the time-frame of the Challenge. Having others in the queue will make it easier to be successful.
Participant Benefits
- Inform/educate leadership with local results framed in a national context (priceless!)
- Get full access to the National Benchmark Report with analysis and historic benchmarks to provide context for your local interview results
- Obtain FREE access to Synchronist for this project to input your data and download the data for your internal customer relationship management system
- Enhance your public brand with sample pre and posts-survey press release for local use
Join the Challenge!
Include your community in this vitally important research!
Be one of 100 geographically dispersed organizations conducting 20 interviews each, generating the executive responses needed to set solid post-COVID BR|E benchmarks for the critical existing business and community support issues.
20 Interviews x 100 Organizations
By participating in this unique – first of its kind – time-limited national BR|E project you will gain access to the full benchmarking report. There is no cost to participate. Interviews will begin on or about July 6 and be completed by Aug 20th. They can be done in person, via Zoom, or by telephone. Use this traditional quiet time and the benchmarking project to accelerate your organization’s BR|E interview goals.
