Skills Development for Targeting and Pitching in Dominica

A key challenge that faces IPAs is their ability to communicate the unique value offering of their country/ region to potential investors.

Typically, we find that the senior marketing people within IPAs have good information, and are equipped with numerous facts, figures and stats as well as list of benefits that their country/ region offers to potential investors.

The issue for these potential investors however, is that these lists or “talking brochures” are often not expressed or communicated sufficiently in the context of their own bespoke business dynamics and future opportunities.

Our challenge – when preparing and upskilling these marketing executives – is to ensure that there is no such thing as a generic approach or presentation – but rather each encounter is totally produced and delivered in the context of the target company to ensure there is maximum impact in each communication.

Communique consultant’s delivered a project for Invest Dominica (2015/16) where a key component was the upskilling of senior marketing executives in this areas of prospecting and pitching.

This was part of an overall program which focused on developing the capacity of Invest Dominica to attract foreign direct investment in two previously identified strategic areas – tourism and business process outsourcing.

We found that in a competitive region such as the Caribbean – the importance of developing the skills to create clarity around Dominica’s value offering and creating the ability to differentiate it from its competitors was going to be key to the success our mission.

We worked closely with the Dominican IPA marketing executives – initially focusing our preparation on the communication skills that were needed to persuade prospective investors in the US to agree to a meeting/ presentation on the benefits of investing in Dominica.

This was then followed up on with extensive training of the senior marketing executives in the skills of developing and delivering a competitive pitch to secure itineraries and site visits.

Training methodologies used on this segment of the project included: Face to face sessions, distance Skype learning and accompanying the executives at client meetings in the U.S.