By Aleshia Claunch
Fort Worth Business Press

Wayne Seybold went to the 2004 International Shopping Center Convention in Las Vegas with one objective: to meet retailers and convince them to open a store in Marion, Ind.

Once there, his plans changed drastically. "I saw [Buxton's] booth, they talked about their product and I liked what I heard," says Seybold, who has been mayor of Marion for nearly two years. "Marion is a city that's gone through some hard times, lost a lot of manufacturing, but since we got Buxton to help us with attracting new businesses, we're a city on the rebound."

Buxton's CommunityID program profiles a community to determine the retailing needs of the residents. Buxton compiles a list of 20 retail businesses that would do well within the area based on buying trends in the community, and city staff members use the list to court retail organizations.

"If a community wants to see a Super Target come in, we can research how many people in the community would shop there, what products would do well in the store and what the store's revenue would be should they open a store, "says Tom Buxton, president of his namesake company. "Then community leaders can present this information to the company they want and say, 'See, you will make money if you build here.'"

Buxton has helped more than 1,000 retail clients open successful businesses using scientific formulas to predict the best locations for the profitability of a business. CommunityID uses the same scientific techniques to help communities identify potential retailers and target locations for retailers.

The community-based sector of his company gives a city's economic development department a competitive advantage to attract retail and create additional revenue through tax dollars, says Buxton.

"We give cities detailed lists of what companies they should approach, what selling points would convince those companies to open a location in the city and the names and numbers of people within the companies who handle new store openings," Buxton says. "All cities have to do is follow what we give them step by step."

That is exactly what John Kessel did.

Kessel, the city of McKinney's executive director of development services, hired Buxton in 2002 to help stop McKinney residents from shopping in other cities.

"We needed to make retail expansion a priority in McKinney," Kessel says. "We were somewhat skeptical when we first heard of Buxton's program and we didn't really understand it until we jumped in, but I don't know anyone who does until they've started the process. Now, I am sure we wouldn't be half as successful as we are now if it hadn't been for the CommunityID program."

Buxton began CommunityID in 2001. Since its inception, the company has helped more than 100 communities in 28 states attract coveted businesses to their areas, he says.

Joe Fackel, vice president of the CommunityID Division's Eastern Region, says the price of the service ranges from $20,000 to $110,000, depending on the size of the city being profiled.

Seybold says he and his staff were introduced to the Buxton company in May 2004 and had a complete report on Marion by January 2005. Since then, Seybold says, he has seen 3,200 new jobs come into his area.

"They helped us I.D. the markets we have here and we're still drawing from that information," Seybold says. "We were surprised by the amount of information they provided at first, but once we looked it over and compared it to the way we had been collecting information, we realized that we made the right decision when we hired them."

Kessel couldn't agree more.

From the original list of potential companies Buxton provided to the city of McKinney, Kessel says, 70 percent have located in the McKinney area. The businesses include Linens-N-Things home furnishing store, Lane Bryant clothing store and Applebee's restaurant. Kessel says the new businesses have accounted for more than 600,000 square feet of space in McKinney and surrounding areas.

"We knew we were about to grow and we were ready, but Buxton helped us at an accelerated level," Kessel says. "We realized the importance of approaching the right people and when we showed them our information, they walked away very impressed."

"Our customers have the upper hand when they walk in to talk to a company about opening a store," Fackel says. "When they're armed with the information we can provide, a city can blow the socks right off a company representative - and believe me, companies like it when that happens."