During this two half-day workshop, two themes will be explored: territorial marketing and real estate partnerships.

Part 1 - Territorial Marketing: Stand Out to Thrive!

This workshop will help you understand the challenges of territorial marketing, a tool that allows a territory to consolidate its promotional and advertising efforts in favour of all the stakeholders of your community, either on an industrial, tourism, cultural, municipal or citizen level.

Territorial marketing, or the definition of its economic identity, refers to every single action and reflection engaged by an organization (a local government, for example) in order to develop and promote a positive image for various target clients. As a result of globalization and the development of new technologies (internet and leading social networks), the importance of standing out from the others has taken centre stage in attracting investments, population, entrepreneurs, tourists, and events, and has also become a local concern to ensure economic growth and prosperity for our own residents.

We will therefore try to pinpoint the role of a local government within such an approach, the assets available to take on the challenge, the way to move beyond parochialism to re-examine, reinterpret, and establish a better definition of our new economic and social space. We will also demystify the very concept of territorial marketing, which is often confused, in the words of many specialists, with “a good advertising campaign”.

While communications expert contribution is essential after having achieved the image design and commercialization phase of your new economic identity, we contend that it is first and foremost an exercise in economic development aiming to provide you with the tools that will allow you to regain this fundamental aspect of your municipality’s future development.

Goals:

At the end this workshop, you will be able to:

• further understand territorial marketing challenges in order to consolidate your promotional and advertising efforts in favour of all the stakeholders of a community, either on an industrial, tourism, cultural, municipal or citizen level;
• use tools that will allow you to define and specify your economic identity to promote a positive image to various target clients;
• situate the role of your municipality within the approach, interpret and establish a better definition of your new economic and social space, well ahead of an advertising campaign.

Part 2 - Partnerships from a Real Estate Perspective

The second part of this workshop will last 75 minutes and demonstrate a form of partnership that local governments can implement to stimulate real estate investments.

Today, successful attraction and retention of companies also relies on real estate offer. It is important to understand that the windows of opportunity are very small and that the competition is fierce. Therefore, a sector’s agility and efficiency to respond to real estate needs becomes a strategic component. It is not a question of simply being competitive with the selling and renting prices, but also with the availability of premises that have been customized for the target markets and for the types of companies you are interested in attracting.

Basically, real estate strategies can be established on all investment-ready premises owned by the municipality. In a new setting in which business projects are realized very quickly and competition is fierce, you will be presented with a real estate strategy that can be implemented by a municipality: the call for proposals. This strategy is a tool that will help you carry out turnkey rental real estate projects with private partners.

Goals:

At the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

• understand the key elements that allow a community to respond to opportunities with agility and efficiency;
• support your business attraction and retention strategy thanks to a customized real estate offer;
• use a real estate strategy that can be implemented by a municipality: the call for proposals.

Location/Delivery Method: Virtually

Duration: 6 hours

Schedule: December 8 & 9, 2022 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Fees: $375 + HST

Continuing Education Units (CEU's): 0.6

Trainer: Louis Grenier, speaker and founder of LGP Strategies, an industrial real estate and economic development consulting firm in Quebec City (QC)

Louis Grenier has over 40 years of experience in economic development. He participated in the development of a technological park in Ville Saint-Laurent and in the establishment of a network of export assistance to the USA on behalf of Quebec’s small business sector. Furthermore, he is a commercial location specialist having participated in the implementation in the province of Québec of the Provi-Soir network as well as the location of several Rôtisseries Saint-Hubert branches. In particular, he contributed to Mountain Equipment Coop firm implementation strategy. During his career, he has participated in over 70 strategic positioning studies on behalf of municipalities or economic development organizations across Canada, including the cities of Winnipeg, Edmonton, Red Deer, Sudbury, Moncton, Prince-Albert and Toronto, as well as an array of similar contracts. in the Province of Québec, he spearheaded several planning strategies in (Châteauguay, Terrebonne, Candiac, Roussillon, Longueuil, Saint-Hyacinthe, Sherbrooke, Gatineau, etc.). In Nova Scotia, he has worked for the District of Lunenburg, the cities of Queens, Weymouth, Digby and with the Annapolis Valley First Nation. His responsibilities as General Manager of the Lake Mirabel project for the Gordon Group also allowed him to manage an exceptional real estate pre-development operation on the scale of a $500 million project. Louis is an experienced consultant in economic development and is renowned for the innovative solutions on needs such as attracting and retaining businesses. He is the author and originator of the REAP approach (Retention, Expansion, Attraction, Promotion) which is used for the positioning of economic regions. Furthermore, He has developed several measurement tools for the fiscal impact of real estate development and for monitoring progress with economic development plans. Louis is also a blogger and a frequent guest speaker on economic diversification, value chains, industrial parks assessment and direct investment opportunities.

Registration for upcoming sessions is now open on the fc.umoncton.ca website.

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